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I was in supervision last week, and my thoughtful clinical supervisor began our session with, “How are things with summer approaching and school finishing?” Without thinking, I replied, “School ending is my Christmas.” As soon as I said it, I realized it probably needed some explanation. For years, I have struggled to put words to the feeling that comes when my kids are finally out of school. Christmas is not quite the right analogy, but there is something about the release o

A large part of my work is with adults who are only just discovering that they are neurodivergent, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or later. By the time they reach this point, many of them have spent their lives feeling different in ways they couldn’t explain. They describe feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious, or like everything has always been just a bit harder for them than it seems to be for everyone else. Instead of explanations, they were often given labels: Too sensitive. T

We’ve all heard the terms school refusal and school avoidance. But recently I came across the phrase school can’t, and it immediately shifted something for me. Because when we say refusal, it sounds like a choice. When we say avoidance, it sounds like anxiety. But when we say can’t, we start asking a very different question: What is happening in this child’s system that makes school feel impossible right now? I’ve written before about what sits below the surface of the iceber

I was talking with a friend recently who attended a presentation on “school anxiety.” The school counsellor focused on behavioural strategies to manage school avoidance, but my friend felt like the talk was missing the mark. As both a parent and a counsellor who has lived through and seen this play out many times, I completely agreed with her. School avoidance . . . . Wow . This is a topic I have avoided writing about for a long time. In my previous blog posts, you can see