I am Jamie, mother to a 13-year-old daughter.
From very early on in her education, I noticed signs that the pressure of school expectations was beginning to weigh on her. I also recognise that teachers are doing their best within an incredibly demanding system, often supporting many children with different needs at once.
But I remember repeatedly hearing the same message, “Make sure you read every night.” On the surface it seemed like a simple request. For my daughter, however, it quickly became something much heavier.
By the age of 5, she had already begun to resent reading. Looking back now, I regret that I unintentionally added to that pressure myself. When teachers asked, “Why hasn’t her reading been logged?” I felt panic. I believed the solution was simply to push harder.
8 years later, she still refuses to pick up a book. Yet the message remains the same, “Reading is the key to good grammar. It will help you succeed.” While I understand the enormous benefits of reading, fear rarely helps a child feel capable or successful.
I felt panic. I believed the solution was simply to push harder.
When my daughter was around eight or nine years old, I asked whether repeating a school year might give her the confidence and time she clearly needed. I was told this would not be possible because she was born in April. And so there we were, a child who should have been carefree, learning through curiosity, play and connection, instead feeling pressure and already believing she was failing. The Year 6 SATs only reinforced that sense of inadequacy.
Neurodiversity and education
Alongside these academic struggles, my daughter is currently on the pathway for an autism assessment.
When people hear she could be autistic, I often receive dismissive responses: “She can’t be autistic.” Others say, “Everyone seems to be autistic or have ADHD these days.”
As someone who works professionally as an Autism Specialist and Neurodiversity Coach, I understand how autism and ADHD can present differently, particularly in girls. I also recognise that many people simply lack the knowledge and understanding.
Just as I might struggle to understand complex technology, others may not yet understand neurodiversity. But the reality is this, having some autistic/ADHD traits is not the same as being autistic/having ADHD. Life for autistic and ADHD individuals can be significantly harder than many people realise.
One of my autistic clients, just 12, recently told me about having to sit through a three-hour school performance that she had refused to participate in, simply because attendance was expected. The bright lights and overwhelming noise were unbearable for her. She sat with her eyes closed and her ears covered. Inside her body, she told me, she was screaming, but nobody heard her.
As a parent, watching your child feel like a failure both academically and socially is heartbreaking. I believe that some hardship can help build resilience, but this feels different. I often ask myself the question, when evidence tell us that mental health difficulties among young people are rising, why are we putting children under so much pressure?
Recent research suggests that teenagers who feel intense academic pressure at age 15 may be more likely to experience depressive symptoms and selfharm into early adulthood, which highlights the longterm impact of stress in the school years.
Adolescence is already one of the most emotionally complex stages of life. Yet many young people are navigating it while carrying immense academic pressure, social expectations and systems that often fail to understand their needs.
What needs to change
So why is the system not changing? Why is the curriculum still so rigid and outdated? Why are children like my daughter, and thousands more experiencing such unnecessary hardship when we live in a country that prides itself on providing education for all?
Through both my daughter’s experiences and my professional career, one consistent theme has emerged from listening to the voices of neurodivergent children, young people and adults: many of their challenges stem not only from their differences, but from a lack of understanding around them.
This realisation has shaped my mission moving forward. I am now hoping to deliver free workshops for primary school children designed to help them understand brain differences and neurodiversity from an early age. The goal is simply to help all children recognise that people think, learn and experience the world in different ways. If we can help children understand neurodiversity earlier, we can create classrooms that are kinder, more inclusive and far less isolating for those who feel different.
But change cannot come from parents and professionals alone. We need schools, policymakers and society to listen more carefully to the voices of young people themselves, particularly those who are neurodivergent. We need an education system that values wellbeing as much as achievement and understanding as much as results.
Our children’s mental health is precious, and no child should grow up believing they are failing simply because the system was never designed with their brain in mind.
"School": a poem
To further highlight my daughter's school experience, she wrote this poem:
School
My dearest enemy.
I hate you, i hate you so much.
I hate how you make me wake up to the darkness like my whole life is empty, 5 days a week, 7 hours a day.
I hate how you send me to that place.
I hate how everyone around me is having fun with their friends,
when I feel like my body is trapped inside a tunnel of darkness, sadness feeling anxious over small things.
walking through the corridors,
feeling like everyone around me is staring at me,
you make me question myself, ‘is there something on my face?’ ‘is my hair messy?’
‘did my mascara smudge?’
Making me feel like this is the worst i could feel about myself.
Passing old friends in the corridor,
smile, fake smile back.
Questioning myself again, and again. Over and over till I don’t want to be at that dreadful place.
My body feels trapped inside of itself.
feeling hot that I start running my hands down my uniform.
lessons feeling like I’m failing,
teachers shouting,
people laughing,
sitting there in a cramped place feeling like I want to explode.
Sitting in the toilets every lunch and break by myself not having the confidence to go sit with anyone.
My friends are all mad at me,
don’t know why?
It’s not fair, it’s just not fair.
How come you can make me feel like this and then say it’s all my fault?
You don’t understand what’s it’s like to have this many feelings inside of you that you can’t even let them out because they’re trapped in this tiny little space in me that will most likely never
come out to anyone.
Eyes starting to water, vision blurry,
thinking about what I have done to deserve this.
Have I done something?
Am I just such a bad friend?
Looking at that one girl who has the perfect life.
She has so many friends, she has about 30. I have 5 and 3 of them don’t count. Updated: now I have none.
After a long day of my suffering having
to arrive home late every day just to spend the only time I have after school having to do homework.
Teachers hand out homework like candy,
giving detentions for incomplete homework.
‘it’s just my job’,
well this is just my life.
Spread the word