I used to think my son just didn’t want to go to school.
That he was avoiding it.
That it was anxiety.
That maybe he just needed more support, more structure… or honestly, just to push through.
In 1st grade, he would lock the car door and refuse to get out.
I remember sitting there, trying to reason with him. Encouraging him. Sometimes bribing, sometimes pleading. Eventually, with the help of teachers and staff, we would get him into the classroom.
And every day… he would come home and fall apart.
At the time, I told myself that made sense.
Of course he was tired.
Of course he needed to decompress.
But what I didn’t realize was that what I was seeing wasn’t a normal “after school crash.”
It was a nervous system that had been pushed past its limit all day long.
There was one day in 1st grade I’ll never forget.
I pushed him to go.
We got him into school.
And instead of staying, he ran.
He ran out of the school and went to the park across the street after I had left the campus.
A fellow parent found him and walked him back.
The school called me to come get him.
At the time, it felt scary. Confusing.
Now I see it clearly.
That wasn’t behavior.
That was a nervous system in survival mode.
By 3rd grade, things had escalated.
He was going to the nurse almost daily-headaches, stomach aches, anything to go home.
We adjusted what we could.
We moved him into a classroom with friends.
We tried quieter spaces.
We added support.
But nothing actually changed.
Because we weren’t addressing the real problem.
By 4th grade, his body simply couldn’t do it anymore.
He would run out of the classroom, covering his ears, overwhelmed by what he called “noise.”
And it wasn’t loud chaos.
It was the quiet hum of a classroom.
The soft whispers of kids working.
The constant, low-level stimulation that never stopped.
The expectations.
The transitions.
The pressure to sit still, focus, perform.
It had all become too much.
And that’s when it finally clicked for me.
This wasn’t school refusal.
This was dysregulation.
A dysregulated nervous system doesn’t care how good the teacher is.
How supportive the staff is.
How many accommodations are in place.
If the body doesn’t feel safe… it cannot function.
It cannot learn.
It cannot focus.
It cannot stay.
Looking back, I wish I had understood what he actually needed.
Not more pushing.
Not more plans.
Not more pressure.
He needed:
Slower mornings
Clothes that truly felt comfortable on his body
A quieter, more controlled environment
Shorter days when needed
And most importantly…
He needed time to recover.
Instead, we would come home from school and move right into the next set of expectations.
Homework.
Snacks.
Chores.
Plans.
Without ever giving his nervous system a chance to reset.
And then I would wonder why everything fell apart at night.
Why bedtime took hours.
Why he couldn’t settle.
Why he woke up constantly.
His body had never come back down.
We pulled him from public school.
For the second time.
But this time, it felt different.
Because this time, I understood.
Anything-anything-was better than keeping him in a constant state of overwhelm.
What I know now is this:
When a child is refusing school, it’s worth asking a different question.
Not:
“How do we get them to go?”
But:
“What is their nervous system trying to tell us?”
Because sometimes, school refusal isn’t defiance.
It’s not avoidance.
It’s not lack of resilience.
It’s a body saying:
“I can’t do this. Not like this.”
And when we start listening to that…
That’s when things can finally begin to change.
The Mom And The Caregiver 