# @juleswaller_ on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DbEsBxRkyHQ
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/68338537-juleswaller-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/ff0460786a.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-07-21T23:24:01.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Julie Waller (Jules) | School Refusal Support (@juleswaller_) — https://gondola.cc/juleswaller_

## Caption

Your therapist told you to “push through.” 
The research says that’s only part of the answer.

School refusal isn’t laziness. It isn’t manipulation. It’s a body in genuine distress - and right now, more kids than ever are in it.

Up to 5% of Australian kids experience school refusal, and cases have more than doubled since COVID. 

More than 1 in 4 US students are chronically absent. 

In the UK, persistent absenteeism sits at 18%. 

In NZ, only 69% of students are attending regularly. 

In Canada, 1 in 5 students are persistently absent - a 60% jump since pre-pandemic.

Among kids already seeing a clinician, school refusal can affect as many as 16% - and anxiety-driven absences may account for up to 35% of all chronic absenteeism. 

This isn’t a handful of “difficult” kids. 
It’s a pattern.

Here’s what the research also tells us: CBT works. 
BUT it only works once the alarm bell in your child’s nervous system is turned off first. 

Skip that step and you’re asking a dysregulated body to “just get through the gate” - which is exactly why so many families feel like they’ve tried everything and nothing sticks.

The sequence matters: regulate first, then strategies, then return. 

Not the other way around.

Having been deep in the trenches of school refusal with my own daughter for years on end, I know exactly how hard this is.  And what works - and doesn’t work. 

And so, from my day to day living of this - plus my university mental health training - I’ve put together a practical toolkit that walks through this exact sequence - the steps that actually work, in the order that actually works.

She went from missing over 100 school days (in one year alone) to successfully graduating high school with entry to her first choice university and degree.

Comment TOOLKIT and I’ll send it straight to you.

- Jules ❤️
University mental health trained, and a mum who’s lived
this.

#schoolrefusal #schoolstress #schoolanxiety #teenmentalhealth #childrensmentalhealth

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## Tags

schoolrefusal, schoolanxiety, schoolstress, teenmentalhealth, childrensmentalhealth

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