Take your child to a psychologist for school refusal. You will get one of two things (or both) 1. CBT. And / Or 2. Exposure therapy. Every time. Without fail. And look - for school anxiety? A child who’s worried but still going? That prescription makes sense. The research supports it. But for severe, chronic school refusal - the kind where your child hasn’t been in weeks or months (or is heading that way) - those same tools have drop-out rates above 40%. Post-treatment attendance rates as low as 28% in adolescents. Researchers themselves calling the evidence weak. And yet the prescription never changes. Meanwhile you’re at home watching your child fall apart every time you try what you’ve been told. Your gut is screaming that this is making things worse. Because it is. When a child is in full school refusal their nervous system has already left the building. You cannot exposure-therapy a body that believes it is in danger. Regulation has to come before reintegration....