School Anxiety - When School Feels Impossible: Supporting a Child / Teen in Emotional Crisis

For some families, the end of summer brings the usual mix of excitement and nerves. For others, it brings a knot in the stomach and a sense of dread. If your child or teen is facing anxiety so intense that even walking through the school doors feels impossible, you’re not alone.

Teen School Anxiety Case study

One Mom I worked with recently shared about her ninth-grade son, who’s dreading going to their local high school. She said he feels like it's an unbearable weight. She's tried conversations, negotiations, bribing, threatening and reasoning which all have backfired — her teen meets these attempts with resistance, tears, anger, slammed doors, running away and long nights of insomnia. The family is understandably in crisis, feeling like they’re living in the eye of a storm.

Why “just going” isn’t simple

When a teen’s brain is flooded with anxiety or weighed down by depression, the school day can feel like an impossible climb. This isn’t about stubbornness or laziness — it’s about the body’s fight-or-flight system hijacking the moment. Logic doesn’t land because their nervous system is in overdrive, literally on fire.

Steps you can take right now, how I worked with this Mom

1. Pause the persuasion loop.  It’s tempting to keep explaining why school matters, but for a child or teen in distress, repeated reasoning can feel like pressure. Often, less talking and more quiet presence communicates safety to help co-regulate their nervous system better than words.

   
   

   Step 4 of the 5 Steps To Connect program is Life Saving Listening. It is an important skill you can use to create a safe space for your child / teen to take a time out from the usual ‘shoulds’ of life. You offer them sacred not-to-be-interrupted 1:1 time where you pledge to deeply listen and not focus on fixing the problem nor giving them advice. You build trust by listening to their feelings and unmet needs. Purely seeing, hearing and accepting them just where they are.

   
   

2. Focus on regulation before resolution. No meaningful problem-solving can happen while your child / teen is dysregulated. When you say things like, "Don't feel anxious, you have so much going for you" it actually makes things worse as they don’t feel seen and validated. Instead, say, "I believe you. That makes sense. Tell me more..." Also encourage grounding strategies (for yourself first!) — slow breathing, stretching, cold therapy, music, a walk — before tackling the bigger issue.

   
   

   Step 2 of the 5 Steps To Connect program supports regulation. You focus on the skills of somatic awareness, emotional intelligence and curiosity about unmet needs.

   
   

3. Collaborate with professionals early. A therapist, coach, school counselor or educational specialist can help create an immediate plan, especially if school refusal is already entrenched. Even one or two meetings can make the transition less overwhelming and get to the root causes of the anxiety.

   
   

4. Brainstorm possibilities. When they feel they ‘HAVE TO’ go to this school it can create a sense of powerlessness, of feeling stuck. Instead devise a low-pressure bridge. If the full school day feels impossible, explore partial attendance, virtual learning, or other alternative school options to give them a sense they have choices. Just having the perceived sense of options can lighten their spirit. 

   
   

   Step 3 of the 5 Steps To Connect program focuses on what you are thinking and if you are attached to these thoughts. You focus on the skills of how not to believe everything you think, to notice when you are in past or future thinking and to tolerate anxiety while still functioning. 

   
   

5. Protect the family’s well-being. Siblings, parents, and even pets can feel the strain. It’s okay — and necessary — to set boundaries, ask for help from extended family or friends, and each take time for themselves to recharge and meet their needs.

   
   

   Steps 1 and 5 of the 5 Steps To Connect program build the skills of interrupting the stress/survival reaction and setting boundaries. All family members benefit when parents learn these skills that most didn’t see modeled growing up. It is a chance to break blame and conflict patterns, instead showing up in new ways that support connection.

   
   

School anxiety

A note of hope for this Mom...and you

A teen’s reaction right now is not the end of the story. The fact that he responded willingly when she used her new skills to meeting with a new therapist and school counselor is a huge step forward. The fact that she is getting coaching to learn new skills (and that YOU are reading these ideas) is her showing up. Change may not happen overnight, but every small moment of connection, every calm response in the storm, is a brick in the foundation of his mental health.

And perhaps most importantly — her new energy of presence matters, even if it doesn’t seem to help in the moment. Teens often can’t acknowledge it when they’re hurting most, but her steady care is the anchor he’ll remember.

Do you need some hope?

If you are walking this road right now, take a deep breath. You’re not failing — you’re facing one of the toughest parenting challenges there is. And you are not alone.

If these ideas resonate with you, please share them with other parents you care about whose kids may also be struggling with anxiety or angry outbursts. Set up here your free insight parent coaching call today to invest in the skills that will improve your family dynamics forever.

Invest in your family connection skills