Imagine going to work and realising you've forgotten your glasses.
You can still do your job. You can still read things, follow conversations, attend meetings and complete your tasks. But everything requires more concentration, more effort and more energy.
By lunchtime, you're exhausted. By the end of the day, you're completely drained.
Now imagine waking up the next morning knowing you're going to have to do it all again, without your glasses.
How would you feel about going to work?
For some autistic and ADHD children, this is a useful way of understanding what school can feel like.
A teacher may see a child who is settled, participating in lessons, following instructions, interacting with friends and managing classroom routines.
And those observations may be absolutely correct.
But what we don't always see is how much cognitive effort that child is using just to get through the day.
The Executive Functioning Demands of School
From the moment a child enters the classroom, they are using executive functioning skills.
They need to regulate their attention, listen to instructions, hold information in working memory, inhibit impulses, move between activities and adapt when things change.
And they're not using these skills one at a time. They're using several together, constantly, throughout the school day.
For children whose executive functioning skills are still developing or who experience particular difficulties in these areas, everyday classroom expectations can require enormous effort.
Add sensory processing differences, communication difficulties or the emotional demands of navigating the school environment, and that effort can become even greater.
The child may still complete their work. They may still follow instructions. They may even appear happy and confident.
But being able to meet an expectation doesn't tell us how difficult that expectation was to meet.
Why the Difficulty May Begin Before School
This is something I think is particularly important for schools to understand.
Sometimes the difficulty isn't being in school.
It's the thought of going to school.
A child may already know how demanding the school day feels. They know they'll have to sit, listen, concentrate, follow instructions, manage transitions and meet expectations for hours.
They may not be able to explain all of that, particularly if they're very young.
But they can still anticipate how difficult it's going to feel.
That anticipation may contribute to anxiety, tears, stomach aches, distress or difficulty leaving the house.
Then, when the child eventually arrives at school, they may settle into the routine and appear to manage perfectly well.
This doesn't mean their distress that morning wasn't genuine.
It means that the difficulty of getting to school and the ability to participate once there are two different things.
Why Children Can Appear Fine at School but Exhausted at Home
Some children spend much of the school day working hard to manage their attention, behaviour, emotions and sensory experiences.
They may not show obvious signs of struggling.
But when they return home, the accumulated effort can become apparent.
Parents may describe exhaustion, irritability, withdrawal, crying or significant emotional outbursts.
Sometimes this is described as masking, although not every child who appears settled at school is masking. There can be several reasons why a child presents differently across environments.
What matters is understanding that a child's behaviour during the school day doesn't always give us a complete picture of their experience.
What Teachers Need to Understand
When a child is struggling to attend school, it's natural to look at what is happening in the classroom.
Are they learning? Do they have friends? Are they following instructions? Are they managing transitions?
These are important questions.
But I think we need to ask another:
How much effort is this child using to achieve all of those things?
We also need to consider what the child is anticipating when they wake up each morning.
Is it the academic learning that's difficult? The constant need to regulate attention? The sensory environment? The transitions? The social expectations? Or the combined demands of everything?
We shouldn't assume that every child who struggles with attendance is experiencing the same thing.
And we shouldn't assume that a child who is academically capable or appears confident is necessarily finding the school day easy.
Sometimes, supporting a child means looking beyond what they can do and understanding what it takes for them to do it.
Because a child might be managing the school day beautifully from the outside, while finding the effort of doing so absolutely exhausting.
And tomorrow morning, they're expected to do it all over again.
