SEN Parents Grief Looks Nothing Like Everyone Else’s-When Your Child Leaves Primary School
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Every July, my social media fills with parents posting misty‑eyed tributes to the end of primary school: the tiny uniforms, the first nativity, the last sports day, the “end of an era”. Their grief is tender, uncomplicated, and socially recognised. It’s the kind of grief that comes from losing something you loved. And I respect that.
My grief looks nothing like that.
As a SEN parent, I lost the primary school years a long time ago. Not in one dramatic moment, but slowly — through meetings, exclusions (formal or informal), misunderstandings, and the quiet but relentless marginalisation that creeps in when your child doesn’t fit the system’s template. By the time my youngest child reached Year 6, the version of primary school everyone else was grieving simply wasn’t mine to lose.
And layered on top of that is something harder to name: the school my children attended caused me harm; institutional betrayal that rewires your nervous system. When the place entrusted with your child’s wellbeing becomes a source of trauma, you don’t get to feel nostalgic. You get numb.
The grief of what should have been
There’s a type of grief that doesn’t get talked about — the grief for something you never truly had. It’s ambiguous, disenfranchised, and often invisible. You can’t post a montage of “the years I spent fighting for basic support” or “the school that made me doubt my instincts”. Although, you could argue I do that through my posts on social media!
So when the milestone arrived this year —the party, the leavers’ assembly, the performance, the last day, — I didn’t feel the big cinematic emotions. I felt the residue of years spent bracing. I felt the ache of what should have been. I felt… nothing, and everything, at the same time.
Watching other parents grieve
Standing among parents who are crying because they’re losing something precious, while I was quietly processing the loss of something I never got but desperately yearned for, was disorienting.
They’re grieving the end. I’m grieving the primary school my children never had.
So how do you manage a milestone like this?
I realised early on that if I didn’t consciously shape this ending, it would be stolen from me — again. So I did three things.
1. I kept turning up, even when it hurt
I went to the events. I stood in the playground. I watched the assembly. Not because it was easy, but because I refused to let the system take the ending as well as the middle. Showing up was partly an act of reclamation. It was also important to her, our stories are different. She needed me to help her end well.
2. I had a quiet word with myself
I didn’t force myself to feel what other parents were feeling. I didn’t pretend. Instead, I set a gentle intention: have a better attitude than the one the trauma trained into you. Not cheerful. Not grateful. Just open enough to let the moment exist without shutting down. That was really hard because I had some very bitter thoughts.
3. I made a memory book — for her, and for me
I gathered photos of her at school across all of those years. On the surface, it was a gift for my daughter. But it was also a private ritual for me — a way to process the years in my own language, without needing the school’s narrative or anyone else’s approval. It also helped as a distraction, I didn't know how to feel, but I knew how to make something beautiful.
It helped me see that even in a harmful system, she still grew. She still laughed. She still became herself. And I was there, even when it was hard.
The ending I chose
My grief isn’t the soft-focus grief of an era ending. It’s the complicated grief of an era that never matched the promise. But I still found a way to mark it — not with nostalgia, but with truth.
I didn’t get the primary school years everyone else is mourning. But I did get to choose how they ended. And sometimes, that’s enough.
(And also shouting very loudly "THANK GOODNESS THAT'S OVER!!! HURRAH!!")
If you want to read more about my experience of Parent Carer Trauma —my book SENT is out soon.
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