When the Law Punishes Parents for Their Child's Anxiety: School Refusal and the Fine System:

The letter arrives by first class post. £80 if you pay within 21 days. £160 after that. Per parent. Per child. For ten unauthorised absences.

Your child hasn't been on holiday. They haven't been skiving. They've been on the bathroom floor at 8am, in the grip of panic so total that getting them through the front door, never mind the school gate, feels like trying to push water uphill.

But the law doesn't distinguish between a child who won't go to school and a child who can't. As far as the 2024 Education Penalty Notices regulations are concerned, they're the same offence.

The New Reality of School Fines

From August 2024, the government tightened the rules. Fines increased for the first time since 2012. More importantly, the threshold dropped and the system became standardised across England. Now every local authority follows the same framework.

Ten sessions of unauthorised absence within ten school weeks triggers the process. That's five school days. For a child with severe school anxiety, that's one bad week followed by a few difficult mornings.

The first fine: £80, rising to £160 if unpaid. The second fine within three years: automatically £160, no discount. After two fines, you can't be fined again. Instead, you can be prosecuted. Maximum penalty: £2,500, community order, or three months in prison. Plus a criminal record that may show on future DBS checks.

Nearly 400,000 penalty notices were issued in 2022-23. Many involved children with special educational needs. Many involved school anxiety. Many involved parents who were already desperately trying everything they knew.

The Catch-22 Nobody Warned You About

Here's where it gets truly absurd.

Your child is too anxious to attend school. You contact the GP. The GP refers you to CAMHS. CAMHS has a six month waiting list. The school marks your child's absences as unauthorised because you don't yet have a medical diagnosis to justify them. The local authority issues a fine. You explain the situation. They tell you the school determines what's authorised. The school tells you they need medical evidence. But you're still waiting for the appointment.

The system has created a perfect trap. Mental health services can't see your child quickly enough to provide the documentation schools require. Schools can't authorise absences without documentation. Local authorities must issue fines for unauthorised absences. And parents get criminalised whilst waiting for NHS services that are legally obliged to exist but practically impossible to access.

One mother I worked with received her second fine whilst her daughter was literally on a CAMHS waiting list for assessment of severe anxiety. The school knew. The GP had written letters. The local authority had been informed. None of it mattered. Ten unauthorised sessions in ten weeks equals automatic penalty notice.

The letter ended with the phrase that's become darkly familiar to families in this situation: "Failure to pay may result in prosecution."

The Quiet Discrimination

The fines are meant to be fair. Same rules for everyone. But they land very differently depending on what you're dealing with.

Take a holiday in term time? You know the risk. You choose to take it anyway. You budget for the fine. It's essentially a premium you pay for cheaper flights.

Have a child with school refusal? You didn't choose this. You can't budget for it. You're being financially penalised for your child's medical condition. And unlike the holiday family, who pay once and move on, you're facing the constant threat of repeated fines because the underlying condition doesn't resolve in ten weeks.

It gets worse when you realise who usually receives the fine. Research shows it's predominantly mothers who get prosecuted for school attendance issues. The parent who's already taken time off work to attend GP appointments, spoken to the school repeatedly, researched therapists, tried every suggestion from well-meaning relatives, and is quite possibly developing their own anxiety about the 8am meltdowns? That's who gets the court summons.

And the fine itself, whilst not huge, isn't nothing. £160 per parent means £320 for a couple. For families already struggling with the costs of private therapy because NHS waiting lists are too long, or who've reduced working hours to manage the morning crisis, it's another hit they can't afford.

What the Law Doesn't Understand About Anxiety

The attendance framework assumes that consequences change behaviour. That's true for choices. It's not true for medical conditions.

If your child had cancer, you wouldn't be fined for their hospital absences. If they broke their leg, the school wouldn't mark them unauthorised. But anxiety? That exists in a strange grey zone where everyone acknowledges it's real, it's medical, it's not the child's fault, and yet somehow it's still the parent's legal responsibility to override it through sheer force of will.

The law treats school refusal as if it's a parenting failure. As if better routines, firmer boundaries, more consistent consequences would solve it. This fundamentally misunderstands what's happening. You cannot parent your way out of a dysregulated nervous system. You cannot fine your way into neurological change.

When a child's body is screaming danger, when their amygdala has decided school equals threat, when they're in genuine fight-or-flight response, your legal obligation to get them through the school gates conflicts with your biological imperative to protect them from harm. Even when the harm is coming from inside their own brain.

The Families Caught in the System

I've worked with families who've been prosecuted. Mothers who've stood in magistrates court explaining that their child isn't truanting, they're traumatised. Fathers who've taken days off work to attend hearings about why their child can't attend school. Parents who've been given parenting orders to attend classes on managing behaviour, when what their child actually needs is trauma-informed anxiety treatment.

The most surreal case involved a family whose child had been formally diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder. CAMHS were involved. The school had an EHCP in progress. The child was receiving therapeutic support. The local authority knew all of this. They prosecuted anyway, because the legal framework required it once two penalty notices had been issued.

The magistrate, to their credit, was baffled. "So you're prosecuting this family for not getting their mentally ill child to school?" Yes. That's exactly what was happening. The law required it. The mother received a conditional discharge and was told to keep working with services. Which she was already doing. Which was why she was in court.

What This Does to Families

The financial cost is one thing. The psychological cost is another.

When you're already dealing with school refusal, you're living in a state of chronic stress. Every morning is a battle. Every phone call from school makes your stomach drop. Every parents' evening, every email, every holiday that ends with the dread of term starting again. You're exhausted. You're probably anxious yourself now. You definitely feel judged.

Then the fine arrives. And it confirms every fear you had. You are failing. You are in the wrong. You are legally culpable for something you can't control.

It doesn't matter that you've tried everything. It doesn't matter that you're on waiting lists, that you've spent thousands on private therapy, that you've read every book and joined every support group. The letter from the local authority makes it official: you're breaking the law.

And your child, who's already convinced they're the problem, who's already drowning in shame about why they can't do what everyone else finds easy, now knows that their anxiety has turned their parents into criminals.

That's not hyperbole. That's what happens when you prosecute families for medical conditions.

The Alternative That Nobody's Funding

There is another way. Some local authorities are better than others. Some issue "Notice to Improve" letters first, offering support before fines. Some have dedicated EBSA teams who actually understand the difference between defiance and dysregulation.

But this relies on individual authorities having the resources, training, and willingness to operate outside the standard framework. Most don't. Most can't. They're understaffed, overwhelmed, and working to national guidance that treats all unauthorised absence as equivalent.

What families actually need is fast access to anxiety-specific support. Not generic CAMHS appointments in six months. Not parenting programmes designed for behavioural issues. Specialist help that understands nervous system dysregulation, that can teach children practical tools for managing panic, that can work with families to create genuinely supportive return-to-school plans.

The STILL Method exists precisely because this gap is so vast. We work with school-refusing children every week. We see the same pattern repeatedly: families trapped between a child who genuinely can't attend and a system that insists they must. Trying to navigate schools, GPs, CAMHS, local authorities, all whilst managing the daily crisis of a child in survival mode.

The intervention that works isn't punishment. It's helping the child's nervous system learn that school isn't a threat. Teaching them tools to recognise and interrupt panic. Giving them language for what's happening in their body. Building their confidence that they can cope with anxiety without being destroyed by it.

But none of that happens faster because you've been fined.

The Question Nobody's Asking

Here's what I want to know: what's the fine actually for?

Is it punishment? If so, you're punishing parents for their child's medical condition. That seems cruel.

Is it deterrent? If so, you're assuming parents could prevent this if they tried harder. That seems ignorant.

Is it enforcement? If so, you're trying to force compliance with a legal duty that's physically impossible for the child to fulfil. That seems futile.

The government says the fines fund attendance support. But families dealing with school refusal don't need attendance support. They need mental health treatment. They need anxiety specialists. They need services that understand trauma and nervous system regulation.

Fining them doesn't provide any of that. It just adds financial stress to families already in crisis.

What Parents Need to Know

If you're facing a penalty notice for school refusal, understand this: you're not alone, you haven't failed, and this isn't fair.

Document everything. Every GP appointment. Every referral. Every conversation with school. Keep copies of all medical letters. If you end up in court, you'll need to demonstrate that absence is due to genuine medical need, not casual disregard for education.

Get medical evidence as quickly as possible. Push your GP for referrals. Consider private assessment if you can possibly afford it, purely to have documentation. The system shouldn't work this way, but it does.

Talk to the school. Not to argue, but to ensure they understand what you're dealing with. Ask about their EBSA policy. Request meetings with the SENCO. Some schools are brilliant at working with anxious families. Others are rigidly focused on attendance figures. You need to know which one you're dealing with.

Contact your local authority's attendance team before the second fine hits. Explain the situation. Ask about their procedures for medical absence. Some authorities have more discretion than they initially let on.

And get help for your child. Because whilst you navigate fines and prosecution threats, they're still struggling. They still need support. They still need to learn that their body's alarm system can be retrained.

The System That Needs to Change

This isn't about letting children skip school. This isn't about excusing truancy. This is about recognising that school refusal caused by anxiety is a medical condition, not a criminal offence.

We need fast-track pathways for children showing signs of EBSA. We need schools trained to recognise the difference between won't and can't. We need local authorities with discretion to pause fines whilst families access treatment. We need CAMHS services that can actually see children within weeks, not months.

And we need to stop criminalising parents who are already doing everything they can in an impossible situation.

Until that happens, families will keep receiving those letters. £80 within 21 days. £160 after that. Court if you don't pay. Prison if you're really unlucky.

For the crime of having a child whose nervous system won't cooperate with the Education Act 1996.

If your child is dealing with school refusal and you're facing fines or prosecution, we can help. The STILL Method provides practical anxiety support for children and families, and we understand both the medical reality of school refusal and the legal pressure you're under. It shouldn't be this hard. But whilst the system stays broken, we're here to help you navigate it.

Get support for school-refusing children: thestillmethod.co.uk/anxiety

Related reading: The School Gate Paradox: Why Forcing Anxious Children Makes It Worse