Feb 25 • PDA Parenting 👩❤️👨👩🍼
School Avoidance Isn’t Always Defiance 🏫
This week my daughter is building back up to school.
We’re on three half days.
And I just want to say something gently…
When a child struggles to attend school, it isn’t usually about laziness.
It isn’t usually about “not caring.” And it definitely isn’t fixed by pressure.
Most of the time it’s a nervous system saying:
“This feels like too much.”
For some children (especially our deep-feeling, masking girls), school can be:
Loud
Socially exhausting
Performance heavy
Sensory overwhelming
Emotionally unsafe
They hold it together… until they can’t.
Reduced timetables aren’t failure. Half days aren’t giving in. They’re scaffolding.
If a child can attend and leave still regulated, that’s success.
Not attendance percentages. Not catching up on worksheets.
Regulation.
And here’s the bit we don’t talk about enough —
It’s hard on us too.
It presses on our fears. Our identity as parents. The worry about “what if this continues?”
But when we shift from:
“How do I make them go?”
to
“What does their nervous system need to feel safe enough to try?”
Everything changes.
If you’re navigating school avoidance right now, you’re not alone here.
Sometimes progress looks like three half days. Sometimes progress looks like just getting dressed. Sometimes progress looks like saying, “I’ll try.”
And that counts.
🌿
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School Avoidance Isn’t Always Defiance 🏫
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