Is school failing your anxious child? Melissa’s story
Monday, May 12, 2025
Monday, May 12, 2025
Is school failing your anxious child? Melissa’s story
Monday, May 12, 2025
Is school failing your anxious child? Melissa’s story
After moving to a new school at 11 years old, Noah’s anxiety took a turn for the worse. The last three years have been a nightmare for him and his mum. Mum Melissa has waited for the experts at school to solve the problem. But nothing they try is working. Finally, Melissa realises that it’s up to her to lead the charge. Read on to see how Melissa figured out the solution that let Noah become a thriving, happy child again.
This story is an amalgamation of true client stories, with details combined and changed to protect privacy. The experience is true.
Busy Parent Snapshot
- After moving to a new school at 11 years old, Noah’s anxiety took a turn for the worse. The last three years have been a nightmare for him and his mum.
- Mum Melissa has waited for the experts at school to solve the problem. But nothing they try is working.
- Finally, Melissa realises that it’s up to her to lead the charge. Read on to see how Melissa figured out the solution that let Noah become a thriving, happy child again.
Look for the 3 takeaways throughout the blog and the 3 quick action steps at the end.
After three years of watching her son’s anxiety get worse and worse, Melissa had to admit it to herself: The school couldn’t fix this.
Fourteen-year-old Noah had been diagnosed with autism at age three and with generalised anxiety disorder at age eight. But when he was younger, he was the sweetest old soul, intelligent and funny, and he did pretty well all things considered. Melissa, a single mum, was proud to see him thriving.
Until the move, the new school, and the bullies.
The moment Noah’s trust broke
Three years ago, Melissa moved closer to her parents to support them after her mother’s Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Noah left the small school he’d attended since kindergarten, where he had a best friend and the staff knew him well. He started at a larger school as “the new kid” at eleven years old.
Melissa, overwhelmed with the move and her mother’s diagnosis, relied on the school to support Noah and get him settled.
Instead, the opposite happened.
Noah didn’t fit in. He didn’t make a single friend. He began to feel isolated, and was teased and bullied.
He stopped trusting the adults at school.
He stopped trusting anyone.
It set off a chain reaction that has been slowly destroying Noah’s – and Melissa’s – life:
- Noah began to have panic attacks at home and at school.
- Noah refused to go to school more and more often.
- Mornings became battlegrounds that Melissa was ashamed to even describe to her friends or Noah’s therapist (surely no one else was dealing with this from their tween?).
- Melissa’s work performance suffered, putting their entire livelihood at risk.
- Noah’s autism symptoms became more severe, and he became so sensitive to noise that he was now wearing noise-cancelling headphones 24/7 (this did not help the teasing!).
- Always a picky eater, now Noah refused to eat anything but three favorite meals (his doctor worried about his nutrition).
- Noah’s grades fell, despite his clear intelligence.
- Noah’s self-esteem began to plummet, and he started self-harming.
- Melissa’s own health suffered from the stress.
- Noah became someone Melissa didn’t recognize: sullen, listless, hysterical, miserable.
- Steadily over three years, Melissa and Noah’s daily life became a nightmare.
💡 Takeaway #1
Anxiety symptoms like these are often caused by a breach of trust. If your child loses trust in the adults or institutions that should protect them, they will be highly anxious until they rebuild that trust. Managing the symptoms without rebuilding the trust will not achieve anything.
Bandaids on broken legs
Melissa believed in experts.
She trusted the school staff, the principal, and the wellness center. They knew what to do. They had handled this all before, right?
Over the three years since Noah’s ostracization began, Melissa must have met with the school a hundred times.
They always had some kind of solution to propose.
👉 They separated Noah from the bullies… and then from the next bully, and the next (which disrupted Noah’s learning in class).
👉 They reassured Noah that he could go to the principal (which Noah never did, because he claimed to “hate” the principal).
👉 They suggested therapy for Noah (which had yet to have any tangible result).
Again and again Melissa talked to the school, and again and again nothing improved.
Melissa became frustrated, disappointed, and even angry. She felt helpless, stuck in a no-win situation where she kept begging the school for solutions that they didn’t seem willing or able to provide.
As the meetings became increasingly frustrating, with the school proposing the same ineffective ideas over and over, Melissa began to realize what was going on.
The school simply didn’t have the solution.
All the solutions the school had proposed had turned out like bandaids on a broken leg. Noah just kept getting worse.
But if the experts at the school didn’t have the solution, who did?
💡 Takeaway #2
It’s normal to turn to experts when facing a challenging situation, just make sure to choose your experts with care. School staff are great at being school staff, but they are not anxiety specialists and they rarely know how to solve the deep underlying problems anxious children face.
Change on the outside comes after change on the inside
The day Melissa admitted to herself that the school simply couldn’t solve Noah’s problems, she felt terrified.
But she was too fierce and loving of a mother to let that fear and helplessness paralyze her for long.
Somebody had to have the solution, and Melissa would find them if it was the last thing she did.
Melissa dove into researching childhood anxiety and methods for healing it.
The more she learned, the more she realised how much she didn’t know. Not only about anxiety in general, but about her own son and his unique needs.
Finally, Melissa found a coach she trusted, someone with a proven track record of healing anxiety in children, and – most importantly – someone who could help her figure out Noah’s unique needs.
Melissa began to understand Noah and to realise what was really going on:
👉 She couldn’t undo what happened to Noah when he transitioned to the new school, but she COULD teach Noah new skills to deal with those challenges.
👉 Keeping the bullies away from Noah was never the solution, and instead Noah needed to👉
👉 The school staff couldn’t support Noah until the trust between Noah and the staff was rebuilt and Noah truly felt that he belonged at school and that the adults in his life had his back.
Melissa’s journey of discovery wasn’t easy. As she realised all the ways things went wrong, guilt and shame for her role in the situation rose up. But her coach helped her work through those difficult emotions and understand that, like every parent, Melissa can only do the best she can with the information she has.
Which is why getting the right information and skills is so important.
Finally, Melissa had enough understanding to share ideas with the school. Instead of helpless frustration, she became an effective advocate for her son.
At home and at school, the adults in Noah’s life began using effective strategies that gave Noah the real, deep support he needed instead of surface-level solutions.
💡 Takeaway #3
Sometimes when our children are dealing with high anxiety levels, parents don’t want to take charge of the solution because deep down, we are afraid to admit that we have done anything “wrong”. The truth is that taking charge and leading your child to resilience and peace is not about blaming yourself for doing things “wrong” before. It’s about empowering you right now to solve the biggest problem in your family.
A peaceful home and confident child
As Noah got the support he needed, he improved steadily.
🤗 The panic attacks decreased and then disappeared.
🤗 The most painful symptoms of his autism – like extreme noise sensitivity and extreme picky eating – became more mild.
🤗 Noah’s confidence and self-esteem grew, and the terrifying self-harm disappeared.
🤗 Finally, the school refusal ended for good.
The bullies were still at school, and Noah still didn’t have many close friends. But now he had the skills and the resilience to deal with those challenges, and effective support from adults he truly trusted.
Melissa was surprised by the changes in herself as well. As Noah improved, Melissa’s stress levels dropped, and her whole life got better. She felt healthier and calmer, she was more present for her parents, her work performance improved, and she started thinking about making new friends herself.
Best of all, Melissa began to recognize her sweet, sensitive boy again. Noah’s passion for his special interests reignited. His grades rose as his love of learning came back. Every evening, instead of fear and stress and crises, Melissa got to enjoy the sound of her son’s laughter again.
Her boy was back, and growing into a confident, creative, sensitive, and unique young man.
All because Melissa had the courage to stop waiting for experts to fix everything, and made a change herself.
🎯 Start Right Now: 3 Action Steps
1. Who do you trust to help you resolve your child’s struggles with anxiety? Who is on your team? Check that you are relying on people who are specialised in this field and have a proven track record of success.
2. Look at the solutions that you and your child’s support system have been trying. Are they addressing the deepest root cause of the anxiety, or the surface-level symptoms? Make sure you’re working on the root cause.
3. Take a quiet moment to reconnect with your child. You can’t help them unless you deeply understand them, and sadly when our families are in crisis we often lose track of each other. Have a conversation with your child that goes deeper than usual.
See other posts like this one:
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Anxiety Is Not a Life Sentence: Kierra’s Story
When a 9-year-old girl sees “her anxiety” as a lifelong identity, it starts holding her back. She stops enjoying her favorite activities. Her parents realize she’s developed the internal belief that her anxiety means she can’t have fun and she is broken. To help their daughter become courageous and resilient (and get her back to having fun), they focus on rewriting her internal beliefs – including the belief that anxiety is something she has to deal with forever.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Is school failing your anxious child? Melissa’s story
After moving to a new school at 11 years old, Noah’s anxiety took a turn for the worse. The last three years have been a nightmare for him and his mum. Mum Melissa has waited for the experts at school to solve the problem. But nothing they try is working. Finally, Melissa realises that it’s up to her to lead the charge. Read on to see how Melissa figured out the solution that let Noah become a thriving, happy child again.
Monday, April 28, 2025
When Nothing Sticks: How to Break Through When You’ve “Tried Everything”
The scripts from that parenting coach on Instagram. The strategies the therapist gave you. The tricks from your friend whose kid actually listens the first time. You’ve tried it all. And for a day or two, they worked for you. But then? Right back to square one. The tantrums. The power struggles. The exhaustion. And you’re left wondering: Why does nothing stick? What is going wrong?
This story is an amalgamation of true client stories, with details combined and changed to protect privacy. The experience is true.
Busy Parent Snapshot
- After moving to a new school at 11 years old, Noah’s anxiety took a turn for the worse. The last three years have been a nightmare for him and his mum.
- Mum Melissa has waited for the experts at school to solve the problem. But nothing they try is working.
- Finally, Melissa realises that it’s up to her to lead the charge. Read on to see how Melissa figured out the solution that let Noah become a thriving, happy child again.
Look for the 3 takeaways throughout the blog and the 3 quick action steps at the end.
After three years of watching her son’s anxiety get worse and worse, Melissa had to admit it to herself: The school couldn’t fix this.
Fourteen-year-old Noah had been diagnosed with autism at age three and with generalised anxiety disorder at age eight. But when he was younger, he was the sweetest old soul, intelligent and funny, and he did pretty well all things considered. Melissa, a single mum, was proud to see him thriving.
Until the move, the new school, and the bullies.
The moment Noah’s trust broke
Three years ago, Melissa moved closer to her parents to support them after her mother’s Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Noah left the small school he’d attended since kindergarten, where he had a best friend and the staff knew him well. He started at a larger school as “the new kid” at eleven years old.
Melissa, overwhelmed with the move and her mother’s diagnosis, relied on the school to support Noah and get him settled.
Instead, the opposite happened.
Noah didn’t fit in. He didn’t make a single friend. He began to feel isolated, and was teased and bullied.
He stopped trusting the adults at school.
He stopped trusting anyone.
It set off a chain reaction that has been slowly destroying Noah’s – and Melissa’s – life:
- Noah began to have panic attacks at home and at school.
- Noah refused to go to school more and more often.
- Mornings became battlegrounds that Melissa was ashamed to even describe to her friends or Noah’s therapist (surely no one else was dealing with this from their tween?).
- Melissa’s work performance suffered, putting their entire livelihood at risk.
- Noah’s autism symptoms became more severe, and he became so sensitive to noise that he was now wearing noise-cancelling headphones 24/7 (this did not help the teasing!).
- Always a picky eater, now Noah refused to eat anything but three favorite meals (his doctor worried about his nutrition).
- Noah’s grades fell, despite his clear intelligence.
- Noah’s self-esteem began to plummet, and he started self-harming.
- Melissa’s own health suffered from the stress.
- Noah became someone Melissa didn’t recognize: sullen, listless, hysterical, miserable.
- Steadily over three years, Melissa and Noah’s daily life became a nightmare.
💡 Takeaway #1
Anxiety symptoms like these are often caused by a breach of trust. If your child loses trust in the adults or institutions that should protect them, they will be highly anxious until they rebuild that trust. Managing the symptoms without rebuilding the trust will not achieve anything.
Bandaids on broken legs
Melissa believed in experts.
She trusted the school staff, the principal, and the wellness center. They knew what to do. They had handled this all before, right?
Over the three years since Noah’s ostracization began, Melissa must have met with the school a hundred times.
They always had some kind of solution to propose.
👉 They separated Noah from the bullies… and then from the next bully, and the next (which disrupted Noah’s learning in class).
👉 They reassured Noah that he could go to the principal (which Noah never did, because he claimed to “hate” the principal).
👉 They suggested therapy for Noah (which had yet to have any tangible result).
Again and again Melissa talked to the school, and again and again nothing improved.
Melissa became frustrated, disappointed, and even angry. She felt helpless, stuck in a no-win situation where she kept begging the school for solutions that they didn’t seem willing or able to provide.
As the meetings became increasingly frustrating, with the school proposing the same ineffective ideas over and over, Melissa began to realize what was going on.
The school simply didn’t have the solution.
All the solutions the school had proposed had turned out like bandaids on a broken leg. Noah just kept getting worse.
But if the experts at the school didn’t have the solution, who did?
💡 Takeaway #2
It’s normal to turn to experts when facing a challenging situation, just make sure to choose your experts with care. School staff are great at being school staff, but they are not anxiety specialists and they rarely know how to solve the deep underlying problems anxious children face.
Change on the outside comes after change on the inside
The day Melissa admitted to herself that the school simply couldn’t solve Noah’s problems, she felt terrified.
But she was too fierce and loving of a mother to let that fear and helplessness paralyze her for long.
Somebody had to have the solution, and Melissa would find them if it was the last thing she did.
Melissa dove into researching childhood anxiety and methods for healing it.
The more she learned, the more she realised how much she didn’t know. Not only about anxiety in general, but about her own son and his unique needs.
Finally, Melissa found a coach she trusted, someone with a proven track record of healing anxiety in children, and – most importantly – someone who could help her figure out Noah’s unique needs.
Melissa began to understand Noah and to realise what was really going on:
👉 She couldn’t undo what happened to Noah when he transitioned to the new school, but she COULD teach Noah new skills to deal with those challenges.
👉 Keeping the bullies away from Noah was never the solution, and instead Noah needed to👉
👉 The school staff couldn’t support Noah until the trust between Noah and the staff was rebuilt and Noah truly felt that he belonged at school and that the adults in his life had his back.
Melissa’s journey of discovery wasn’t easy. As she realised all the ways things went wrong, guilt and shame for her role in the situation rose up. But her coach helped her work through those difficult emotions and understand that, like every parent, Melissa can only do the best she can with the information she has.
Which is why getting the right information and skills is so important.
Finally, Melissa had enough understanding to share ideas with the school. Instead of helpless frustration, she became an effective advocate for her son.
At home and at school, the adults in Noah’s life began using effective strategies that gave Noah the real, deep support he needed instead of surface-level solutions.
💡 Takeaway #3
Sometimes when our children are dealing with high anxiety levels, parents don’t want to take charge of the solution because deep down, we are afraid to admit that we have done anything “wrong”. The truth is that taking charge and leading your child to resilience and peace is not about blaming yourself for doing things “wrong” before. It’s about empowering you right now to solve the biggest problem in your family.
A peaceful home and confident child
As Noah got the support he needed, he improved steadily.
🤗 The panic attacks decreased and then disappeared.
🤗 The most painful symptoms of his autism – like extreme noise sensitivity and extreme picky eating – became more mild.
🤗 Noah’s confidence and self-esteem grew, and the terrifying self-harm disappeared.
🤗 Finally, the school refusal ended for good.
The bullies were still at school, and Noah still didn’t have many close friends. But now he had the skills and the resilience to deal with those challenges, and effective support from adults he truly trusted.
Melissa was surprised by the changes in herself as well. As Noah improved, Melissa’s stress levels dropped, and her whole life got better. She felt healthier and calmer, she was more present for her parents, her work performance improved, and she started thinking about making new friends herself.
Best of all, Melissa began to recognize her sweet, sensitive boy again. Noah’s passion for his special interests reignited. His grades rose as his love of learning came back. Every evening, instead of fear and stress and crises, Melissa got to enjoy the sound of her son’s laughter again.
Her boy was back, and growing into a confident, creative, sensitive, and unique young man.
All because Melissa had the courage to stop waiting for experts to fix everything, and made a change herself.
🎯 Start Right Now: 3 Action Steps
1. Who do you trust to help you resolve your child’s struggles with anxiety? Who is on your team? Check that you are relying on people who are specialised in this field and have a proven track record of success.
2. Look at the solutions that you and your child’s support system have been trying. Are they addressing the deepest root cause of the anxiety, or the surface-level symptoms? Make sure you’re working on the root cause.
3. Take a quiet moment to reconnect with your child. You can’t help them unless you deeply understand them, and sadly when our families are in crisis we often lose track of each other. Have a conversation with your child that goes deeper than usual.
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Recent blogs:
Anxiety Is Not a Life Sentence: Kierra’s Story
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
When a 9-year-old girl sees “her anxiety” as a lifelong identity, it starts holding her back. She stops enjoying her favorite activities. Her parents realize she’s developed the internal belief that her anxiety means she can’t have fun and she is broken. To help their daughter become courageous and resilient (and get her back to having fun), they focus on rewriting her internal beliefs – including the belief that anxiety is something she has to deal with forever.
Is school failing your anxious child? Melissa’s story
Monday, May 12, 2025
After moving to a new school at 11 years old, Noah’s anxiety took a turn for the worse. The last three years have been a nightmare for him and his mum. Mum Melissa has waited for the experts at school to solve the problem. But nothing they try is working. Finally, Melissa realises that it’s up to her to lead the charge. Read on to see how Melissa figured out the solution that let Noah become a thriving, happy child again.
When Nothing Sticks: How to Break Through When You’ve “Tried Everything”
Monday, April 28, 2025
The scripts from that parenting coach on Instagram. The strategies the therapist gave you. The tricks from your friend whose kid actually listens the first time. You’ve tried it all. And for a day or two, they worked for you. But then? Right back to square one. The tantrums. The power struggles. The exhaustion. And you’re left wondering: Why does nothing stick? What is going wrong?
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