… it still took me years to get my daughter back to school after chronic school refusal. You’d think the training would have made it faster. It didn’t. I still flinch when I see a call from the school number pop up on my phone (my second daughter is now in high school). Even now, a long stretch of good mornings later, there’s a small part of me still bracing for the version of the day that used to happen. I used to think if I could just find the right words, the right consequence, the right push, I could fix it faster. I didn’t know her body was running the show - not her willpower, and definitely not mine, and definitely not my degree. I couldn’t work that year. Not by plan, by necessity. I don’t say that for sympathy, I say it because some seasons ask everything of you, and there’s no version of “doing it right” that doesn’t cost something. There were mornings I felt like the worst mum in the world for being relieved when she stayed home, because at least the stress of i...