“She’s fine when she’s here.” Every parent in this situation has heard some version of this. From a teacher, a school psych, a principal. And it is said kindly, almost always - which somehow makes it land harder, because now you can’t even be angry about it. Here’s the thing though: they’re not wrong. She probably is fine when she’s there. The mask doesn’t come off at 3pm. It goes on at 9am - at the gate, if she makes it through the gate. Everything after that is performance, and she is very, very good at it. But that’s not a sign the distress isn’t real. Holding it together for six hours in front of people you have to manage is one of the most expensive things a dysregulated nervous system can do. So the school gets the six hours of effort. You get the bill - at 3am, at 6:30am, at 7:50am, at 5pm. And because none of those hours have witnesses, you end up in a room full of people describing a child they’ve never met. You’re not exaggerating. You’re just the only one in the ro...