I’ve talked to the school so many times. Why hasn’t anything changed?

The teacher says there’s no problem, but you can see your child is struggling

You’ve talked to the teacher several times, but your child still doesn’t want to go to school, or cries the moment they get home. Why? Sometimes the conversations stay at “how’s he been lately?” without ever settling on one thing to change. Or something has been put in place, but your child doesn’t know how to use it. Next time, pick one problem that keeps coming up.

For example: “Three days this week he came home saying lunchtime was really hard. Could we look together at the queue, the noise in the dining hall and where he sits?” That’s just one way of putting it. You say what you’ve seen at home, and the teacher fills in what happens at school. If neither of you knows, ask someone who was actually there.

Before the meeting, write down the two or three things you most want to ask, and send them to the teacher in advance so they have time to look into it. Deal with the issue that’s affecting your child most first, and arrange another time for the rest. You don’t need to go through everything that’s ever happened, and you don’t need video of your child in distress to prove there’s a problem.

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The adults think it’s a good plan — so why doesn’t your child use it?

“Go to the quiet room when you need to” sounds simple. But your child might not know whether they can just get up and go, might worry about classmates asking where they’re going, and might be scared of falling behind on the work. Unless those questions are answered, they may never use it. At a calm moment, ask: “Do you want to use this? Which part is the hardest?”

Your child doesn’t have to sit through the whole meeting. They can draw it, write a few lines, or ask an adult they trust to pass it on. Write down exactly what they mean, including things like “I don’t want anyone to know” or “I haven’t decided yet.” And before you tell the teacher, let your child know what you’re going to say.

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Does more help from adults always make things easier?

Chapter 7 of Uniquely Human describes a teaching assistant, Paul, supporting a 16-year-old student called Denise. He got the materials she needed ready, set out the steps, then stepped back to give her room to work on her own — and came back in when she needed help. That’s something the author saw in practice, not an experiment comparing different kinds of support, and it doesn’t mean every child should get less adult company.

It’s worth asking: does your child need more reminders, or a clearer task and a bit of space? An adult saying “come on, get started” over and over may never have explained what the first step actually is. Find the first question together, check they understand it, then ask whether they’d like you to sit with them or be nearby for when they call. That’s our suggestion based on the example — whether it suits your child depends on how they communicate, what they can do and how much supervision they need.

In the same way, if a break only happens once your child is already in tears, it can’t help them ask for help earlier. Practise a signal they can use at a calm time, and make sure the adults know what it means. When your child uses it, there has to be a response that actually happens. This isn’t a test of whether they communicate “correctly” — and if they can’t manage the signal in the moment, that’s no reason to ignore the distress in front of you.

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What does an agreement need to spell out?

If the teacher says “we’ll keep an eye on things,” follow up with: “Which kind of help can we try first next week?” It could be writing homework instructions in the same place every time, or telling your child before lunch where they’ll be sitting. Try one change that can realistically happen. A big plan nobody has time to carry out won’t help.

Then check who’s responsible, how your child asks for it, what happens when that teacher is away, and when you’ll get in touch to see how it’s going. For instance, agree to message next Friday: were the homework instructions written up as agreed, did your child see them, and was it easier to get started? The date is just when you’ll check in — not a deadline by which things have to be better.

If nothing changes, work out whether the plan didn’t happen, or happened and didn’t help. If your child never got the written instructions, the fix is getting them delivered. If they got them and still didn’t understand, ask which part wasn’t clear. That’s how you know what to change next.

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Why did the lunch plan work on Monday but not on Tuesday?

Here’s a made-up situation, not a real case. A child finds the lunch queue too noisy, so the parent and class teacher agree to try letting him go to the dining hall a bit earlier. On Monday, the class teacher takes him and it goes well. On Tuesday, a different teacher is on duty, doesn’t know about the plan and sends him back to queue. He comes home and says, “It doesn’t work.” If all you record is whether he ate lunch, you’d miss that the help fell apart at the handover.

So the next conversation doesn’t need to argue about whether your child needs help. It needs to fix the handover: who tells the teacher on duty, where your child waits, and who they go to if an adult doesn’t know about the plan. A named member of staff can pass this on through whatever channel the school uses, so your child doesn’t have to explain their diagnosis in front of everyone or keep asking for permission. Share only what’s needed to make the arrangement work. Anything needed for safety should go through the school’s own procedures — and explain to your child who needs to know.

Then, say he can now reliably get to lunch early — but tells you he doesn’t want to eat on his own. A quieter room doesn’t mean the problem is solved. Keep asking: is the hardest part the queue, the noise while eating, or being away from his friends? If he wants to, you could talk to the school about a quieter seat or a shorter wait instead. What’s possible depends on the school, and no single solution is guaranteed. What matters is not fixing the noise by leaving him lonely in a way he doesn’t want.

Real life is often messier than this example. Ask people who were there to fill in the gaps, and it’s fine to write “don’t know yet” in your notes. A plan that works needs someone to pick up the next step. It shouldn’t rely on you chasing every teacher every day, and it certainly shouldn’t leave your child coordinating adults across different classes and times of day.

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How do you know the support is really helping?

Before you start, turn “hoping things get better” into specific changes in your child’s day. For lunch, that might be finding it easier to eat, or being happy to spend some time with classmates. For homework, it might be understanding what’s being asked and not having to keep guessing how to start. Being quieter, having no complaints from school or finishing more questions only tell you part of the story. If your child is wearing themselves out to keep that up, something still needs to change. This is how we’d suggest reviewing things — not a tested rating scale.

When you review, look at three things together: did the help actually happen that day, how did your child find it, and has the original problem got any better? Say on Monday he went in early and ate lunch but said it was still too loud, and on Tuesday he couldn’t go in early and hardly ate. You can’t tell from those two days whether going in early works, because it wasn’t done the same way both times. Note anything else that might matter, like being unwell or a timetable change, and don’t declare success after one good day.

If your child says “it was fine,” try a gentle, more specific question: “Was it easy to find a seat today? Is there a part you’d like to do differently?” They could draw it, or tell you later — don’t let the daily check-in become one more thing they have to do. If your child, the teacher and you all say different things, compare which part of the day and which events each of you saw, rather than deciding who’s more believable. Children who don’t speak, or don’t want to answer, still need to be understood. Adults who know them well can share what they’ve noticed — while keeping what they saw separate from what they think it means.

If the arrangement is happening reliably and your child is happy to use it, but the difficulty isn’t easing, go back and question your original idea of what was wrong, and talk about changing or stopping it. If it is helping, you don’t need to take it away straight away to test whether they “can manage on their own.” Let it stay for a while so your child knows they can rely on it, then decide together whether anything should change. Whether your family can keep it up, and whether teachers have what they need to deliver it, also affect whether it lasts.

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What if you can’t agree, or nothing gets done?

After a meeting, send a short note to the teacher to check: what was agreed, who’s responsible, and when you’ll next be in touch. Include anything you couldn’t agree on too. If the school says it can’t do something, ask whether the problem is staffing, space or rules — then look for another way together.

If what was agreed keeps not happening, follow the school’s own process and contact the head of year or the person in charge of student support, taking your earlier notes with you. If it involves bullying, harm or an immediate safety concern, contact the school and the relevant local services straight away — don’t wait for the next routine meeting. Every school and area has its own process, so go by what applies where you live.

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