School Refusal Decoded by an OT | Sarah Collins
About this Episode
School refusal can show up as a slammed laptop, a child who won’t enter the building, or a full-body meltdown at the kitchen table. What if we treat that moment like a clue, not a verdict? That shift could change everything, especially for ADHD and other neurodivergent learners who hit fight, flight, or freeze faster under stress.
On this episode of The Brainy Moms Podcast, Dr. Amy and Sandy talk with returning guest expert Sarah Collins, a pediatric occupational therapist, host of The OT Is In podcast, and founder of Homeschool OT. Together, they unpack reasons kids refuse schoolwork across settings: homeschool, co-ops, microschools, private school, and traditional classrooms. They walk through the “person, environment, and occupation” lens and get specific about what’s often missed, like motor demands in handwriting, visual tracking and eye teaming issues, sensory discomfort, and the core stability needed just to sit and work. They also dig into social demands that don’t look “social” at first, like answering comprehension questions on cue, self-advocacy, and the fear of failing in front of peers.
They also talk cognitive load and skill gaps, including missing prerequisites in math, weak automaticity in handwriting or typing, and why “they can do it at school” doesn’t always mean they can do it at home without paying a huge emotional price. They cover restraint collapse, ADHD motivation traps where sticker charts fall flat, and what helps more: accurate praise, noticing tiny wins, and asking questions that guide reflection without triggering rejection sensitivity.
If you’re stuck in the refusal cycle, press play for a calmer, more practical path forward. Subscribe, share this with a parent who needs it, and leave a review so more families can find this support.
Find Sarah Collins at www.HomeschoolOT.com
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The Brainy Moms is a parenting podcast hosted by cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore and Sandy Zamalis. Dr. Amy and Sandy have conversations with experts in parenting, child development, education, homeschooling, psychology, mental health, and neuroscience. Listeners leave with tips and advice for helping parents and kids thrive. If you love us, add us to your playlist and follow us on social media!
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About Sarah Collins
Sarah is an occupational therapist with a specialization in helping parents align homeschooling with their children’s unique needs. Through her brand, Homeschool OT, she provides personal consultations. She teaches month-long courses on key topics, fosters community through groups and individual coaching, and speaks at national conferences. Her work empowers parents to build learning environments that support their children’s development and passions.
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Website: https://homeschoolot.com/
Podcast: https://homeschoolot.com/podcast/
IG: @homeschool_ot
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Read the transcript for this episode:
NOTE: This transcript was auto-generated by an AI assistant that thinks it’s smarter than we are. It’s not, but it has more free time than we do, so we gave it a low-stakes job. It probably spelled a few things wrong, but we’re okay with that. We’d rather spend our time interviewing cool guests!
Welcome And Guest Introduction
Dr. Amy Moore 0:01
Hi, smart moms and dads. Welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms Podcast, brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers and the Homeschool OT. And speaking of the Homeschool OT, that is Sarah Collins. And Sarah Collins is our guest today. Let me tell you a little bit about her in case you don’t know who she is yet. Sarah is a pediatric occupational therapist, homeschooling mom, and founder of Homeschool OT. She helps families look beyond behavior and curriculum to uncover the developmental, sensory, executive functioning, and motor skills that impact learning so they can make confident decisions that fit their unique child. Through her podcast, through her coaching, and through her educational resources, Sarah equips parents with practical strategies to help homeschooling work for the whole family. She is a frequent guest on our show, and we sponsor each other’s shows because our work aligns so well. And so today we are going to tackle the topic of school refusal and school work refusal, not only in homeschooling, but in other educational settings as well, such as co-ops, micro schools, private schools, and traditional schools. We’re going to tackle that and the hidden reasons behind it. So Sandy and I are super excited for another conversation with Sarah Collins. Well, Sarah, welcome back. It is always so fun to have you on the show. We have very few guests that we bring back again and again. And uh you are one of them because we are so aligned in the work that we do and the communities that we work with and help. And we just love spending uh time with you. So welcome back.
Sarah Collins 1:45
Thank you. I am so excited to be here. And I would say the same thing. I think this is just the back and forth that we get to have and our perspectives that do align so well is just such a joy every time I get to hang out and talk to you guys. So thanks for having me.
Dr. Amy Moore 2:00
Yeah.
Sarah Collins 2:01
Um, all right.
Why Refusal Is A Clue
Dr. Amy Moore 2:02
So today we’re gonna talk about school refusal. And I want to talk about it from a homeschool perspective, but also a traditional school perspective a little bit too. So that because I think the the challenges are applicable uh regardless of uh the delivery method of school. Um and um, you know, October is ADHD awareness month. And we see this a lot in the ADHD population and the neurodivergent population in general. And so I would like to uh look at it from that perspective and your experience um with that as well. Does that sound good?
Sarah Collins 2:44
Absolutely. I actually think October is a really interesting month with it anyway, because now this is obviously not statistically shown. Well, it could be, but it’s more anecdotal in that in October, you know, things are no longer new. You know, the novelty of back to school and everything is typically worn off. And so it’s probably a more common thing in October than it would have been, you know, earlier on in the school year.
Dr. Amy Moore 3:10
So parents maybe sing more of that right now in October than uh maybe they were seeing at the beginning of the school year. That’s what I’m hearing you say. Yes. Yeah. Um, so you say that um school refusal, school work refusal is often a clue. It’s not actually the core problem. Talk a little bit about what you mean by that.
Sarah Collins 3:38
Right. So when we’re thinking about this school in itself, and obviously school means a lot of different things to different people. It could be like I’m refusing to do this math problem or whatever, you know, math work. It could be I’m refusing to actually enter a building. It could be that, you know, at this time of day, I cannot complete this activity, right? So that’s the occupation in itself. And here, you know, I’m an occupational therapist. So what I look at is can a person complete what they need it and want to do during their day? How they occupy their time is the occupation. So if we’re looking at the all-encompassing world of school as doing some academic work that is very um specific and like well known, you know, there’s ways to kind of trick our kids into doing, you know, the things that are academic and unschooling. And we can talk about that a little bit, you know, differently later if we want to, but more of the I’m handing you some academic work and you are not doing it, right? So that’s the occupation. So then when I’m thinking of a clue, I want to figure out what is the underlying why. Because there are very, very, very few children who would be like, you know what? I just don’t want to do anything that you want me to do. That’s just, I just don’t want to, you know, that’s that’s not typically a thing. More than likely, kids would rather be, quote unquote, bad than they would want to be seen as dumb, or they would want to be, quote unquote, misbehave than they would want to be seen as stupid, right? So we have to figure out that underlying why within the school. So is it that the time of day is a problem? Is it that the environment surrounding is causing, you know, somebody to really be struggling with getting started or um being able to persist through their work? Is it that they even you know where they’re sitting or what they’re wearing, or you know, is something uncomfortable that is affecting their nervous system that way? Can also look at some of the other skills that are required with this. So if I’m asking you to do math, but I’m also asking you to hand write all those problems, and that’s a sticking point for you. Okay, so is it that? Like how can we support you? I like to think when I’m talking to kids or talking to parents about this, instead of being like, you can’t do this, or I can’t do this, I like to think alongside of them and say, I can’t do it this way. Because that allows us to open up our, you know, our minds as far as being collaborating with them and say, well, what way can we? You know, and that allows to really think through the person in the environment or actually that activity that we’re doing together.
Dr. Amy Moore 6:32
So can we walk through each of those potential reasons behind schoolwork refusal like one by one, and um kind of just dig a little deeper on those?
Motor And Vision Barriers
Sarah Collins 6:46
A hundred percent. So when as an occupational therapist, when I am thinking of the person, right, I like to break things down into motor skills, social skills or the demands socially that we’re having, and then cognitive skills, right? So within motor skills, we think about can what is your body required to do here? And sometimes we can even think about like your jaw forming the words, right? To be able to form them at the speed that your brain is working. We can think about the core stability that you need as you’re trying to sit to get whatever work done, or your stability through your shoulders, which then allows for your arms to be more in control, which then allows your hands to move so that you can, you know, get your whatever down on the paper, right? So all of these things are motor skills that are required. And that’s just if this quote unquote school is required with sitting. You know, sometimes it’s different, like we’re doing a chemistry, you know, experiment or whatever, and that requires a different level of motor skills than if you are sitting to write, sitting to take notes, whatever. And we also have to think about if you are copying something is different than if you’re having the output from your brain onto the paper. So these require all different motor demands that sometimes, if we can think about, well, where where else during the day do we require those same types of motor skills so we can really kind of hash out whether it’s a motor skills struggle? Sometimes parents don’t necessarily know. And I will give a a prime example. Um, guys, I again I do this for a living, right? But for my own son, when he was younger, he’s now 15, but when he was six and we were learning to read, and he was just really, really struggling with um sitting and also struggling with how do I even do this? And for a while we were like, okay, is this you know cognitive skills, whatever? But at one point he eventually said to me, he was like, Mom, how do I read when the words are moving on the page? And I was like, oh, buddy, they’re they’re they’re not, right? But it took that him actually saying that, and the majority of the kids won’t really recognize to know to say something looks weird, right? Because you’ve never seen it from somebody else. So it for him, it was like uh, I actually can’t really see this well. And at the same time, he was playing frisbee, well, not like literally the same time, but around the same time he was playing frisbee with my neighbor, and she threw frisbee and it hit him directly in the face. And I was like, huh. He didn’t see that thing coming, right? So, but for him, it was not a visual acuity, it was his eyes teaming together and convergence to be able to bring his eyes in. And so that is an another type of motor struggle that was affecting him to do school. But if you are really struggling with vision and you’re you’re seeing two of something, and then that, you know, can give you a head, and so he’s not gonna sit, right? So all of these things were were coming together as a motor skill struggle that was affecting him with school, but he was refusing to do it. So that’s that type of example.
Dr. Amy Moore 10:05
Yeah. Well, I actually had a similar experience with our youngest who has a form of dyspraxia called motor overflow. And so he would not sit to do his work. And it was my body needs to move in order for my brain to be engaged. And so it, you know, he might sit on the very edge of a chair, right? With one leg stretched out and the other leg just bouncing up and down. And and while I’m I’ve always been super flexible with things like that, you could very obviously tell that it was impacting his ability to engage his desire and his motivation to engage in schoolwork.
Sarah Collins 10:51
Right. So we have to think about are our expectations matching what they can do, right? Because if your expectation was like, well, I don’t care. We we’re gonna sit here and get this done, right? Then you’re gonna turn way more into a refusal. No, we’re not, no, we’re not, and you’re gonna have this battle, right? So that’s where that refusal is can be really giving us a signal as to why and what’s the underlying rather than forcing, no, we’ve got it, we have to do it.
Sandy Zamalis 11:19
Well, and to your point, like we need to, as parents, be observant, right? But we also need to ask better questions if we are in that bandwidth to be able to do that. Like, so instead of like, you know, why aren’t you doing this? It might be more like, you know, can you tell me why this feels impossible right now?
Sarah Collins 11:39
Or I love to hear the I notice or I wonder, you know. So I I notice that, you know, for your son, Dr. Amy, like I notice that your, you know, your leg is shaking uncontrollably and you’re only sitting on the very edge of your seat. I wonder why. Or I wonder if a different seat would be helpful, you know, or I wonder if you could stand up and do this, right? So you’re all then collaborating rather than get it done.
unknown 12:09
You know.
Dr. Amy Moore 12:10
Yeah. He, you know, he’s actually uh a music performance major in college. And you can tell the difference when he is performing standing, like so if he’s doing just a small ensemble ensemble chamber kind of thing, uh, because he’s able to move his entire body while playing his instrument. Um, whereas when he’s playing with an orchestra, he’s got that one hip on the edge of the chair. Um and I’m not sure if anyone else notices, but I notice. Like yeah.
Sarah Collins 12:46
Right.
Social Demands And Self Advocacy
Sarah Collins 12:48
So like I see you. Which, you know what, that actually is a really good segue right into the social skills part, you know, because there are different social demands. So there, like when he is playing in a group where he has to sit in that seat, you know, there might have been a time when that wasn’t a an attainable thing for him when he was, you know, if he was still working through, like, how can I actually hold my body here or whatever. Or, you know, if we are asking our kids to be in a, you know, a co-op classroom or a school classroom, those are very different social demands than we’re working one-on-one next to each other, you know, or I want you to do something on your own where you have to get yourself started and persist all the way through this task and be completed again. That’s a different type of demand. So those are when I say social skills, I’m not thinking like, you know, can you gesture appropriately or can you, well, that does matter, but you know, or like necessarily how do you socialize your children with good friends? You know, I’m not thinking that type of social skill. I’m thinking, can you attain these social demands that this specific activity requires of you?
Dr. Amy Moore 13:57
So, can you give us an example of how that would impact engagement in schoolwork?
Sarah Collins 14:05
Sure. So if you think about if I am, let’s say I’m reading something to you, right? And when I am done reading this segment of this story, I’m gonna ask you some very specific comprehension questions that I want you to answer, right? So then not only while you’re listening are you trying to hold all of this information in your hand in your head, but then you have to be able to analyze it to pick out the exact answer that I want and tell me out loud, most likely in the way that I want you to, um, in a complete sentence or however, you know, not just a fragment, or I might be asking you something else. So you’re having to follow the social demand from me as well as all of these other cognitive tasks that we’re asking you to do. Or I could also say, just tell me what you heard, which is more like I want you to synthesize information, but then you still have to put it forth that it’s a different type of answer. So it’s probably a longer answer than just a, you know, a small comprehension question. It’s a longer response back. So those are two different types of social skills. One could be easier than the other, like specifically for my son, those comprehension questions were that analyzing information was very, very difficult for him. But he could talk back to me and and you know, narrate, but he couldn’t write that narration down, right? That was too much because it was putting too many things together. So those social demands there of answering my questions, I would have to think of what is the best way to get these, to get your knowledge out.
Dr. Amy Moore 15:46
You know, and then that sort of relates to when we’re talking about social skills, from my perspective, I look at school refusal from a social anxiety perspective. Right. So if you’re in a group setting like a co-op, or even if you’re in a homeschool setting with multiple kids around the table, or in a traditional school setting, that fear of failing in front of a group can lead to refusal to participate at all. Right. So because I don’t know how to do this, or I don’t know the answer at this moment, or I’m just uncomfortable in a group, can create this fight or flight response, uh that then we shut down.
Speaker 1 16:32
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah Collins 16:34
So last year I have one of my kiddos who is in uh we do foster respite care. So he lives with us part-time. And when he is not living with us, I mean, we get him on weekends and things like that now. He is in the public school system. And last year we I went in to observe in his classroom because his teacher was like, he is we’re having a really, really hard time. And I was like, okay, so I went in and I’m like, let’s I’m gonna watch, I’m gonna be here, I’m gonna support, whatever. And so this kiddo, he had to turn around and look to find his name is on the back of the wall, right? You find your name, whether then you had to just find out once your name is in this column, whether you’re doing independent work, partner work, or work in a group. And depending on what you what you had there, then you had to go find your worksheet to do, um, whether you were in, you know, in your group or in your partner or with the teacher, and get to that appropriate place. So are you hearing all these social demands, but also just executive functions? Exactly. Yeah, there’s so much that is having to happen here. And so then, you know, he gets his paper. He was doing individual work at that point. I was gonna sit and work with him. And so then he also had to, they were doing um, it was like conversions of feet to inches and inches to feet. So to do that, you have to be able to, you know, multiply by 12 or divide by 12, all of that. And he was really struggling with that. So I was like, is there a you know multiplication table? Do you have any aids to help with this? He pulls out his multiplication table, which goes up to 10. So I was like, hmm, all right, so that’s not really helpful. So then he would need to go ask for help. Well, this kiddo, there is not a chance that he would have, if I was not sitting there, that he would have gone to ask for help. He would have sat there and done either absolutely nothing, or if he got called out on that, would walk around and just yell and scream or throw something or do whatever. Because again, he is in this frozen or slash fear response of I can’t do, I have no idea how to do this. And literally the only way that he got even to the worksheet part was because I was there with him and working through it with him. And I’m a trusted person. So when we are thinking about these social demands, especially from your perspective of where you’re saying, like, you know, if if it doesn’t match, then you’re there’s just going to be a shutdown within that.
Dr. Amy Moore 19:07
Yeah. Well, and that self-advocacy piece, that’s a high-level social skill. Yes. That that awareness that you need help, that there is a potential solution that you could ask for help. But then the ability to have the confidence to execute that, um, that’s really difficult for kids. And we know that those kids who are capable of self-advocating are the most successful, right? But we have to be able to get to that point.
Sandy Zamalis 19:36
So it takes practice in those, right? It takes that one-on-one time when you can get it, right? Some where you can come alongside someone that can help you work through these in small incremental steps, because the goal is not um that I never have to do this task and I get to avoid it all the time. The goal is how do I manage it right now? What was making it feel hard? What skill do I need to build in order to be able to do it better, more efficiently uh the next time and feel less overwhelmed and stop that whole fight, flight, freeze response from happening.
Sarah Collins 20:14
So when you’re in that fight, flight, freeze, you literally can’t think of all of this. Like, hmm, what if I advocate for myself? Right? Like that is just no, it’s not accessible to you. Right.
Sandy Zamalis 20:27
Yeah. I think the tricky part as a parent is trying to because ever because you’re busy, right? You’re you’re homeschooling uh multiple kids, or if your kids are in public school or private school, you’ve got a short span of time when you’re trying to get homework done and you’re making dinner and things are happening to actually stop and figure out what do I need to do to get this one unstuck so that we can move forward. Just take some bandwidth. Um, and that gets tricky. Absolutely.
Sarah Collins 21:00
Absolutely. Yeah, and that’s like when I was talking to this little guy’s teacher, I was saying, like, this is not a a you problem. Like, I’m not, man, you should be doing this so much better, you know? Yeah. Instead, it’s how can we come alongside of these kids to be collaborative with them? And that takes, you’re right, Sandy, what you’re saying, like a lot of bandwidth on our own part. Like, how can I collaborate with you when I am so like drained because this is happening all the time? And and I’m also drained because you know, Johnny also, on the other hand, needs something over here. And, you know, my oven is beeping because you know, dinner’s ready or whatever, and the dog’s barking, and he just ate my curtains, right? Like all this stuff is happening all at the same time. So sometimes our own brains are going into this, you know, fight, flight or freeze spot too. And you can’t, you know, get yourself going to help them get through what they need, and then we’re we’re on a spiral. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore 22:00
All right. So we’ve talked about motor skills. We’ve talked about social skills. Now what? What could be another contributor to this schoolwork refusal or school refusal?
Cognitive Load And Skill Gaps
Dr. Amy Moore 22:11
Right.
Sarah Collins 22:11
So still within the person, we’ve got the cognitive skills, which we kind of have touched on here, because you know, they don’t all work in just by themselves, you know, most of the time. There’s a lot of overlap. Right. So, and we talked about that a little bit with the getting started and the executive functioning and all that. But it also, you know, cognition having to do with like, do I understand, you know, the fractions piece of math, or do I need to back up with that? You know? So to be able to actually interpret, okay, why are you struggling? Is this something that you can do or not? Right. And that it’s okay if it’s not, but we have to work through that, that together. And again, I like to say I can’t do it this way. So, like when you heard me saying with, you know, my um my little guy, I was not like, well, man, you better just figure out how to multiply by 12s, right? No, I was like, what resource do we have? You know, so that’s a an example of how can we support you cognitively with another tool.
Dr. Amy Moore 23:14
Well, it could also be, what if we haven’t gotten to multiplying by 12 yet? Right. What if what if we’re only multiplying by single, multiplying and dividing by single digits right now, but this particular task is requiring knowledge and the skill of being able to multiply and divide by 12s. We have to be able to identify that, especially if we’re, you know, homeschooling, we have to be able to identify, okay, we missed that somewhere in the curriculum. Or if we’re helping our child with their homework, we have to be able to recognize, okay, it’s not that they don’t understand the task. Right. It’s that they don’t have that level of skill yet.
Sarah Collins 23:57
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. And that also, I mean, this carries over to lots of things. Like if we are talking about being able to write a paragraph about, you know, Egyptian princes or something, right? Like first you have to have the knowledge of the Egyptian princes, but you also have to be able to compose your paragraph. So we need to know, like, how do you have a topic sentence? And each sentence starts with a capital letter. And we have to have the automaticity of our handwriting, because if you don’t have that automaticity, then you’re also thinking, how do I make the letter P for Pharaoh? You know, so there is so much that is going on in each and every one of these tasks that we’re asking our kids to do, that this detective work of the underlying why is more likely to be beneficial than just the man, why are you refusing to do this? You know, but we have to really dig in there.
unknown 24:56
Yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore 24:58
Well, and we talk all the time about how what looks like an I won’t is usually an I can’t. Because what you said at the top of the show was it’s very rare uh to see a child who is just flat out refusing for refusal’s sake. Yeah. That is that is a a message that sending to us, there’s something underlying that. Mm-hmm.
Sandy Zamalis 25:20
Mm-hmm.
unknown 25:21
Yeah.
Sandy Zamalis 25:21
I think, I think, you know, parents sometimes can miss where there might be holes in a skill set, right? Like to your point about that automaticity piece of the puzzle. Um I’ll get on my soapbox a little bit here in that sometimes I think um too many curriculum changes can cause a lot of holes that we become blind to and then wonder why or where um we’ve accidentally we’ve set our student up for failure because now we were asking something, but we didn’t give them the foundational pieces they needed to be able to continue that test. So, for example, like with handwriting, um, and I see this with public school kids all the time because we don’t really do handwriting anymore in the public school. So I’ll get a student and they they can’t make a P because they all the every time they make a P, they start in a different place that sometimes they’re at the top of the page or at the line, sometimes they’re at the bottom. Um, so there’s not enough repetition to build those automaticity skills in order to be able to then function at a higher level. And I see this um in lots of other ways too. I see this with math backs because we don’t, you know, in the public school setting, we don’t require kids to memorize math backs anymore. And that bogs the whole cognitive process down and we’re not thinking far enough ahead. Um, and I feel like sometimes we just get we’re so blessed and that we have all of these tools, we feel like, oh, the tools, we’ve got these tools. Why do we need to memorize that? But you we’re not thinking the brain like a muscle that needs to be strengthened and developed so that you can pull all of these critical thinking skills that we’re really aiming for way down the road. We’re not giving the kids the fundamentals on the bottom end.
Sarah Collins 27:10
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think there is so many of these like building blocks that we have to touch on. And you’re right, when we’re kind of bouncing around all over the place, we’re not sure whether we’ve covered some of these baseline underlying skills. And it can be hard for us as parents who have these skills, we just kind of assume, right? Like, what why what do you mean you don’t know that? Right. I actually was just talking to my 10-year-old today. We were doing some spelling and stuff, and we were going through like I the um we we use all about spelling, and we were going through like some of the different reasons, like why sounds make what. And I was saying like C cess in front of E, I, and Y. And I literally did not know that until I started doing, you know, started homeschooling my sons, or my well and my daughter too, and started using this program. But then once I put it together, I was like, well, obviously, and someone must have taught me that at some point, you know, because I just and it just didn’t come back to me. But I oftentimes assume that my kids know things because I do, and that’s not fair. Like I may not have explicitly taught that. And to your point, as far as handwriting goes, that’s actually what our handwriting research is showing, is that handwriting, because it is so specific as far as the motor plan, like if I I start my letters at the top, and except for in cursive when they all start at the same spot, thankfully. But so many times we have to make these adjustments. And if we do not have this explicitly taught motor skill, then it’s not something that is typically naturally learned in the same pattern that would make it speedy and efficient.
Sandy Zamalis 29:05
We do the same with typing anymore, too. Like we don’t teach typing anymore. And so because our kids are on screens, we assume that they know how to use the tool effectively. Um, I was working with a student the other day in high school, and he was um well, a lot of hunt and pecking, and there was a lot, you know, it was like, hey, I wanna I wanna link this thing. How do I do that? And I was, you know, like so little things that you would think that they would know, like what the buttons are at the top, you know, how to make a link, how to upload, like that aren’t necessarily skills that they’ve learned, but uh he’s this particular student’s in high school, and the expectation is that he knows, but that at what point do they get to ask? Like, right? Unless they’ve got a relationship with someone that they feel comfortable with that they can let that uh vulnerability show because what you’ll get, um especially in a classroom setting, is you’ll get that shutdown. You’ve got you don’t know what to do, you’re not gonna raise your hand and draw attention to something that everybody else seems to be figuring out and you’re sitting there.
Dr. Amy Moore 30:18
Right. And I think that, you know, in the homeschool environment, a a lot of times kids feel more comfortable um with their mom standing there. They have a safe relationship with their mom that you will see bigger behaviors in this refusal phenomenon than you would in a co-op or a traditional classroom, right? Where you’re saying, okay, I don’t know how to do this or I don’t have the skills to do this. So I’m going to just shut down, as opposed to I’m gonna throw myself face down on the carpet in a full meltdown because it’s safe to do that in front of my mom, who now thinks I’m refusing to do something because I don’t want to do it, rather than, hey, I’m missing a skill. And so now we have to deal with emotion dysregulation and
Safety At Home And Restraint Collapse
Dr. Amy Moore 31:19
a deficit in a skill set.
Sarah Collins 31:22
It’s really interesting. A lot of parents will be like, but I know he can do it because he does it in, you know, such and such environment, or he does it at school or whatever. Which is where I’m like, yes, let’s back up to that because that brings us right into the environment. But he’s doing he can do it there at what expense? You know, like when you’re saying, you know, Dr. Amy, about yeah, he he can do it there because he doesn’t feel as safe to have the same type of reactions. But then when he gets home later, he’s having the same reactions anyway, and he cannot um calm down at all. Like it’s a longer process to be able to then regulate the his body and his emotions and and all of that too. Or, or he’s spending so much uh energy, you know, or capacity to be able to complete, you know, X, Y, and Z, that the other things that are, you know, required later on in the day, he cannot do, right? So we have to think about, all right, yes, but that he is capable of it, but is he capable of doing it in this environment with these demands on it at the time that we’re asking him to do it and before or after we’ve asked him to do something else, like you know, the other 30 things that we’ve had, you know, to accomplish during the day. So it doesn’t always mean because you’ve done it once, you’re gonna be able to do it over and over and over and over again.
Sandy Zamalis 32:48
Yeah, in our world we call that loading, right? Like so we want to build that skill, but then we want to load it so that you can handle that skill under pressure and move forward. Um, I always like to give the example of like basketball, or you know, you’re gonna learn how to dribble first, then then you’re dribbling running, dribbling walking, dribble against another player, and then maybe two, then we’ll get maybe six, right? We’re dribbling and shooting while we run. Right.
Sarah Collins 33:17
We’re there cheering and yelling for you and booing for, you know. Right.
Sandy Zamalis 33:20
But we don’t think about that in the education space about how much loading is happening in order to get these skills to come together, because we’ve got to get a student from to go back to the handwriting example, from handwriting to being able to write notes on the fly while someone’s talking to them and they can write down the key pieces that they need to remember. That there’s a huge gauntlet of things that needs to happen from point A to point B in that scope of what we’re trying to aim for. Yes, absolutely.
Sarah Collins 33:50
It is so much, like so much, like A to Z or A to B has, you know, lots and lots of letters in between. Yes. That we’re creating.
Dr. Amy Moore 34:01
You know, and I think one of the things that, you know, you were saying, Sarah, um, was that, you know, a a parent will say, but they can do it in this other environment. So when we have to hold it together, then we are keeping ourselves out of fight or flight, right? We are able to reason ourselves um out of fight or flight in order to engage in this task because we are not in an emotionally safe environment to allow ourselves to have this meltdown. And so one of the reasons that could be happening is okay, I am trying so hard to hold it together that then I’m able to at least stay engaged in this other environment. But then when I’m at home, I know I have the freedom to have a total and complete meltdown over it. But the problem is when I’m in a total and complete meltdown, then I can’t access the reasoning center of my brain. And so it’s a compliment, like we call it after after school restraint collapse. Um, it’s a total compliment to the parent, right? That your child feels safe enough to melt down in the carpet or throw themselves face down on the dining room table. Um, but it is a barrier to success when we’re trying to do school work.
Building Independence Without Battles
Sandy Zamalis 35:18
Sarah, what tips do you have or wisdom do you have for parents who are in this process? And of course, what I think ends up happening in a lot of respects is that we get into this cycle where our student is just dependent on us being right there to kind of help them through. Um, and we have a little bit, I it’s kind of like PTSD, a little bit like because we’re trying to avoid a meltdown. Or so we’re making adjustments to try to avoid these um behaviors that we don’t want to have transpire. But we also, especially all parents, want our students to kind of be an independent learner, to be able to take ownership and have that intrinsic motivation. So, what would be your thoughts there or some wisdom to share about how do we help in this process to go from that dependence to more independence? Yeah.
Sarah Collins 36:08
So kids don’t really want to be dependent, you know, like this is I can do it. Yeah, right. It’s not their long-term goal. But when we are in this, you know, time frame with them, it’s really hard for us as parents to look ahead and to remind ourselves like it’s not going to be this way forever. It just feels so daunting and so hard at that point in time. And I think that’s fine to acknowledge, right? This is really, really hard right now. I was talking to my son today because so both my boys are home right now, even though my older son typically goes to the hockey academy. They have not started yet. So he’s home with me, and and we’re still homeschooling my 10-year-old. And so I was doing spelling with my 10-year-old today. We’re out of the trampoline, he’s jumping up and down my spelling words, and he came and sat down, and then he’s writing, he writes them in a in a sentence. The last one he does, and he comes up with his own sentence. Before that, I dictate him, then he comes up with his own sentence. And my older son, who’s now 15, was like, could I do that? Because I don’t remember that. And I was like, I don’t, I don’t actually re remember how I did this with you either. And it actually reminded me because he struggled so much with spelling, with writing, with reading, like struggled, struggled, struggled. That, but now looking back, I don’t remember how old he was when he actually got. I know he’s 15 now and he’s doing it, right? But I don’t remember that process looking back of when was it and when did we finally make that, you know, crack or break through? And and could you have, you know, jumped up? I know we could have jumped on the trampoline and done spelling. We did that all the time, but I don’t remember when he moved from that to the, you know, being able to write a sentence from dictation to also curve, you know, doing cursive of coming up with his own. I don’t remember. And so I think it’s really important for us to, yes, acknowledge that things are hard and accept where they are right now and just keep keep plugging away, but also expect that it’s not always going to be that way, that we are going to eventually have some change. And it might be little incremental things, but it’s going to continue to happen because our kids are growing for their entire lives, as are we. You know, I’m not the same person today as I was last year or five years ago or whatever. Like we continue to learn, to develop, to grow, to change, and our kids will too.
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Sandy Zamalis 38:48
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Behavior Versus Underlying Needs
Dr. Amy Moore 40:08
So Sarah, what can you, what advice can you give to parents for red flags that they should be looking for to help them tell the difference between something that’s behavioral and something that is a genuine skill gap here?
Sarah Collins 40:25
Oh, that’s a that’s a whole topic in itself, I feel like. The uh the good old sensory versus behavior conversation. That is the a number one thing that parents actually, you know, when I look at my Google analytics, it’s the number one things parents are looking for when they’re coming to me. Um, because that is a it is a tough thing. However, I do not believe, and our research shows this as well, that behavior is the result of everything that is coming together in a in again in one situation, as far as all the skills that are within the person, the demands of the environment, the demands of the actual occupation, then come together to, you know, have this behavioral output. It’s the outward manifestation. So if we think of it that way, then it we are more able to again go back and ask those underlying why questions and just assume that your child wants to do well. Assume that your child wants to learn and grow. And when they’re having these real struggles, if you don’t know that underlying why, then get some support. That’s what we’re all here for. Like you do not have to do this alone, right? Like you are here to work specifically with them on these cognitive skills or the things within the person. Like I am here to help to make sense of how do we put these things together so our kids can function in the environment where where they need to be. So rather than being like, you know what, I just I’m pretty sure that my kid just doesn’t want to do this and I’m just gonna have to fight and battle him. Let’s come at it as a more collaborative approach and say, okay, if I can’t figure this out, who can help me? Which is literally one of these skills that we were saying, this advocacy, right? So you as the parent have to become the advocate at that point.
ADHD Motivation Traps
Dr. Amy Moore 42:22
So from an ADHD perspective, are there patterns that you’ve noticed among kids with ADHD in terms of school refusal that you don’t necessarily notice in a child without it?
Sarah Collins 42:37
So especially, yes, like reward and behavior charts and that type of thing do not tend to work as well with um kids with ADHD versus the vice versa, right? Because this delayed gratification is is not gonna do the same thing. Even punishment isn’t gonna do the same thing with a kid with ADHD versus a neurotypical brain. And so we have to think through all right, how can I help you to get started, you with your brain, not the man, this really elaborate system of, well, if you get one sticker chart here, you know, a sticker, and then you can have five stickers, and then with that, then you can get a present, or you know, we’ll go to McDonald’s at the end of the week. And like that’s that’s got nothing. Like I can’t make myself work all the way through that. Nor can you come in today and you’re on, you know, I you’re on green right now. And then as soon as you start acting out, then you’re on yellow. Like, what?
Dr. Amy Moore 43:32
Like, that’ll throw an ADHD child into fight or flight faster than anything. Right. That rejection sensitive dysphoria is gonna kick in and yeah. Yeah, you’re done.
Sarah Collins 43:42
Yeah. These typical like systems that we see in at a larger scale, typically in a in a public school system or a private school, really in any educational system where we see these like behavior management type things, that probably isn’t gonna work in the same at home. Like if I’m trying to tell you if you get this done then this is going to happen or okay. Oh my god I can’t may I still can’t make myself do it sorry.
Praise That Sticks And Better Questions
Sandy Zamalis 44:10
Right. I always feel like it um it works really well at le at least in my experience to um kind of overflow with accurate praise like praise that they to their effort to what’s happening not just like praise that can’t stick to anything because um I think kids in general are good radars for false praise so like we don’t want to do that. But oftentimes especially with kids who struggle um the amount of negative feedback they get is so much more that they need a snowball of constant positive praise so that when you can give them critical feedback or correction that needs to be made it’s not coming against an onslaught or an avalanche of you know a thousand other critiques for the day because that is definitely going to get you into an emotional meltdown for a kid who struggles. So we’ve got to find ways to give them praise praise praise praise praise and it’s not necessarily something that we are good at I think as humans like we don’t just walk around praising all these little things that we want to see towards the big goal right yeah that is true although we notice those things we’re absolutely good at putting words to them like we notice every little success right because our brain is constantly scanning our world for threats and as we’re scanning for threats we’re noticing all of the other cool stuff happening.
Dr. Amy Moore 45:46
So it’s just a matter of slowing down and saying oh I noticed that my child has been engaged for 12 minutes and that’s three minutes longer than usual. So I’m gonna say something.
Sarah Collins 46:01
Yeah that’s so great. And that is when you’re well when you’re talking about noticing these little incremental steps, right? Like that’s the stuff where when I was saying earlier when I look back and I’m like I I I don’t remember but I do know that there were those little baby steps and I know where we are right now. So it took a lot to to get there. But along the way like there were tiny things. It wasn’t like he just went from you know I can spell my words only audibly or verbally to now, you know I’m writing full paragraphs and whatever have an A and honors English. There was a big journey in between those things. So to praise those little ones it’s awesome.
Sandy Zamalis 46:43
The only other one I would add to that is I think um because you can do this at any age um but I do think it comes in handy for kids that are um ADHD or um dyslexia or dysgraphia um get their feedback about their own performance or effort um before you give yours so that you know kind of how proud they are of their drawing or you know whatever they’ve created or done if we can give their critical feedback of how things went it helps gauge how we can kind of adjust our our helpful feedback so that we can agree with them like yes that was you know I really love the way you did that um give them a little bit of a sandwich some positives and then like oh next time could we you know more space between your words like you’re encouraging through that you’re encouraging that you know self-awareness that we were talking about need for advocacy.
Sarah Collins 47:44
So you’re like giving them the the option to do so I also I love the question like oh how did you do that you know because it really makes them think through like what was my process and it might be like I don’t know like a lot of times I’ll ask you know I’ll ask my son that or I’ll ask whatever and he’s like yeah I don’t know mom but then he’ll you can see him start start to think a little bit like actually wait how did I don’t know I just remembered or I don’t know I thought through you know putting my shoes away whatever um and I’ll ask that at very simple times especially for things like I just said you know how to put your shoes away because now we have a puppy and he’ll he will eat them continuously and it’s an always a go put your shoes away go do this go do that and so if he walks in the door and puts them away automatically I mean how did you remember to do that?
Dr. Amy Moore 48:40
Because I want him to think through so he can redo that I mean that is literally building that that self-awareness skill so I want to give one caveat as someone with a wicked case of ADHD um I think that when we are asking our child to comment on their own performance I think we have to prime them in a positive direction. Otherwise the brain will fill in the blanks when it’s completely neutral. So for example yesterday a colleague said how do you think that went referring to a webinar that I gave and that question immediately raised a red flag to me like well he must have thought it didn’t go very well because he asked me how do you think that went if he had said how pleased are you with the webinar last night then I would be able to have a starting point for my own evaluation of it. Right? I can still think oh I don’t think it went very well or I could think I thought it went pretty well um but but he immediately put me in that rejection sensitivity mindset because it was neutral and the ADHD brain doesn’t work well in neutral.
Sandy Zamalis 50:05
So that would be my only yeah I always ask what is it you like the best about this particular because I want positive what’s your favorite thing yeah about what just happened or what we tried to accomplish um so yeah I agree with you like like if it’s too neutral then it’s like what are you trying to say? You know what do you mean? And you’re not trying to build a battle right I would I want to know what you think is the best about what you just accomplished.
Sarah Collins 50:34
See when I hang out with ladies I always learn something new. It makes me so happy if that makes total sense. You know I so yeah I’m gonna put that forth in my practice too and you guys as parents I hope that you’re hearing this like that we all like so here we are our quote unquote experts right and I’m learning as we’re having this conversation and when I talked about like things that I missed with my son earlier like I I’m the professional and I did that. So as we are working through like we are continuously going to be learning so we can expect that our kids are going to be too right and give them the grace of you didn’t know this yet. I didn’t know that like that makes total sense but I didn’t really I never would have put those two things together on on my own.
Where To Find More Support
Dr. Amy Moore 51:20
So thanks I’m so happy I was here I’m so happy you were here too um so Sarah if our listeners want more from you where can they find you and how can they how can they access your wealth of knowledge?
Sarah Collins 51:32
Yeah so um homeschool OT is my website and there is so many resources there specifically on even breaking down the way that we were talking before about the person, the environment the occupation like that way of thought or that philosophy is really how I operate all of the time and to support parents I have a few different things like I do coaching and we meet and really talk about your specific kiddo and break things down that way. And so okay so what do I do next? Right I also have the OT is in podcast which comes out every other Thursday and you can find some with Dr. Amy and with Sandy there as well. So you can hear us all in different aspects of conversations and along with that I have it’s called the OT is in insiders. So that is where we meet once a month to with all the people that are you know OTs in insiders to kind of dive deeper into those podcasts and have a group conversation of wow how could this apply to my homeschool it’s just like having a cup of coffee with me and another occupational therapist named Tiffany. She’s so great. And let’s see how on social media I am homeschool underscore OT.
Dr. Amy Moore 52:44
So all those things well Sarah Collins thank you so much for being with us yet again it’s always so fun to interact with you and have you bless our listeners with your insights so we love it that you spent this hour with us today. Thank you so much for having me. Listeners we love it that you choose to spend an hour with us every week if you want more from us you can find us at thebrainymoms.com where you can sign up for our free monthly newsletter. You can also find us on social media at the brainy moms and you can find Sandy on TikTok at the brain trainer lady that is all the smart stuff we have for you this week we’re going to catch you next time