I used to whisper “Just get up, please” while she curled under the doona, shaking. Nobody told me my own body was walking into that room on high alert too. Mornings are when cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, naturally peaks. For an anxious child that can mean nausea, headaches and a body that’s tired but wired before their feet touch the floor. For a mum who’s lived through months of these mornings, it means you’re bracing before anything has even happened. Two alarms in one room, both turned up. You can’t switch off your child’s alarm with the right sentence. But you can stop adding volume to it. Of everything in this approach, that’s the part you control, and it takes less time than making toast. My daughter went from 100+ days of school refusal to her first-choice university. The School Refusal Toolkit is the full plan behind this post: co-regulation scripts for when anxiety peaks, what to do when they shut down and can’t talk, a step-by-step response for when the meltdo...