The advice that’s everywhere - and the piece it quietly skips. Stay calm. Validate the feeling. Show confidence they can handle it. I did all of it, faithfully, for a long time. It’s genuinely good advice - it just wasn’t reaching her, and for a long time I thought that meant I was doing it wrong, or her, for not responding to it the way it was supposed to work. Neither was true. It wasn’t until I understood the difference between ordinary nerves and a nervous system in real alarm that it made sense. The typical advice assumes a child whose nervous system can hear reassurance. Hers couldn’t yet - not because she was broken, and not because I was failing her, but because her body was somewhere reassurance can’t reach. Once I understood that gap, everything I tried afterward actually had a chance to land. She missed over 100 days of school in one school year alone. She’s graduated with entry into her first-choice university. If you’ve done everything “right” and it still...