things that can actually help school avoidance in the first week of school

September is the hardest week of the year for a lot of families navigating school avoidance, and the first few days have a way of setting the tone for everything that follows. Some of this is within the school's control, some of it is within yours, and some of it is just the particular alchemy of a child and a school year that nobody can fully predict. But there are things worth putting in place early, before the week gets away from you.

This isn't a formal accommodations list, which is a longer conversation involving IEPs and 504 plans and written requests. This is the shorter, more immediate version, the things I've found worth doing and asking for in the first week, before everything has a chance to go wrong. I hope some of it is useful.

Talk to the school before the first day if you can

If you haven't already had a meeting with the school about what support looks like this year, a quick email in the first day or two to the key contact is worth sending. Not a long explanation, just a brief "wanted to touch base as we start the year, here are the things that helped last year and here's what I'd like to keep in place." Getting this on record early means you're not starting from scratch if a difficult morning arrives in week two. I've learned this one the hard way.

Reach out to key people individually, even without an IEP

You don't need a formal plan in place to make contact with the people who will most affect how your child's year goes. A few worth reaching out to specifically in the first week.

The parent coordinator, if your school has one. This is the person your child is likely to encounter if she arrives late, needs to check in, or ends up at the main office on a difficult morning. Making sure that person knows your daughter's situation, and that she should be received with warmth rather than suspicion, can make a significant difference to how those moments land. A brief conversation or email introducing yourself and explaining the context is enough.

Her teachers, individually and before back to school night or parent-teacher conferences. Waiting until the formal events means waiting weeks into a school year that's already in motion. A short email to each teacher at the start of the year, covering who your daughter is, what she finds hard, and what helps, means they have context before anything goes wrong rather than after. Most teachers respond well to this kind of proactive outreach and it changes how they see her when a hard day arrives.

The school counselor or psychologist, if there is one. They are often underused by families who don't have a formal plan in place, and they can be an important ally in conversations with teachers and administration.

Ask for a named point of contact

One person who knows your child's situation and who you can contact directly when a morning goes wrong. Not the main office, not whoever happens to answer the phone, one specific person. This is one of the most useful things to have in place and one of the easiest for a school to agree to, and it's made a real difference in how we navigate the difficult mornings.

Reduce the pressure around arrival

If mornings are the hardest part, anything that takes pressure off arrival is worth asking for. A slightly later start time on difficult days. A quieter entrance rather than arriving when the hallways are at their most chaotic. A check-in with a trusted adult rather than going straight to class. Schools are often willing to accommodate these things informally in the first few weeks even without a formal plan in place.

Let the school know what a hard morning looks like

Not a general description, a specific one. "When she is struggling she will do X, and the thing that helps is Y, and the thing that makes it worse is Z." The more specific you can be, the more useful it is to the adult who is trying to help in the moment. A short written note is better than a verbal conversation because it can be passed on and referred back to. I keep a version of this updated and ready to send at the start of each year.

Ask for homework flexibility in the first two weeks

The anxiety of re-entering school uses up an enormous amount of energy, and a child who has managed to get through the school day has often used everything she had just doing that. Asking for reduced homework or extended deadlines in the first couple of weeks is a reasonable request and most teachers will agree to it when it's explained clearly.

What to say when you report an absence

This is one of those practical things that nobody tells you and that causes unnecessary complications. When your daughter can't make it in, you need to notify the school, but how you word that notification matters more than most parents realise.

Reporting an absence as "illness" is the simplest option and in most schools triggers no immediate follow-up. However, if absences become frequent, some schools will start requesting doctor's notes for illness-related absences, which creates its own problem because a GP appointment for every missed school day is neither practical nor the point.

Reporting it as a "mental health day" is honest but can sometimes flag the absence in a way that invites more scrutiny than you want, particularly early in a year before you have a formal plan in place.

The most practical approach for most families is to report the absence as "unwell" or "not well enough to attend today," which is accurate because anxiety that prevents school attendance is a genuine physical and emotional experience, not a preference, and then follow up with a separate email or call to your named contact if the situation needs more context. That way the absence is recorded appropriately without triggering a doctor's note requirement, and the people who need to know more do know more through a different channel.

If absences are frequent and the school has started requesting medical documentation, this is the moment to push for a formal plan. A 504 or IEP that includes provisions for medically excused absences removes the doctor's note requirement and puts the absence management on a footing that is actually appropriate to the situation. The post on IEP and 504 accommodations has more on how to request that process.

the small things that can make a big difference

Not everything needs to be a formal request or a difficult conversation. Some of the most useful things you can do in the first week happen quietly, without drawing attention. These are the ones I find myself coming back to every September.

Contact the school nurse or health office early. The nurse is often the first point of contact on a hard day, and making sure she knows your daughter's context means a difficult morning is met with understanding rather than suspicion. A brief email introducing yourself and explaining the situation is enough.

Find out the schedule in advance and flag anything that might be particularly hard, a fire drill, a standardised test week, a change of room, a substitute teacher. Surprises are especially difficult for anxious children in the first few weeks when everything already feels unfamiliar, and a heads up in advance gives your daughter a chance to prepare rather than be caught off guard.

Ask quietly whether there's a hall pass arrangement or a safe space in the building she can go to if she needs to decompress, without it needing to be a formal procedure. Just knowing it exists and that she's allowed to use it can reduce the sense of being trapped that makes a hard moment harder. A simple hall pass that lets her step out briefly without having to explain herself to whoever is in the room is worth asking for specifically.

Keep a quiet record at home of what's working, not for the school, just for yourself. The days she managed, what helped, what the week looked like. When things get harder, that record lets you see patterns that aren't visible day to day, and it's useful evidence if you ever need to make a case to the school about what has and hasn't worked. A note in your phone is enough, and it's one of those habits that feels unnecessary until suddenly it isn't.

Get sleep and wake times back on a school schedule in the first week rather than letting weekends drift. Anxiety is harder to manage on a disrupted sleep cycle, and the Monday cliff is real.

Have a loose plan ready for a bad morning before a bad morning arrives, so you're not making decisions under pressure. Know who you're calling at the school, know what you're going to say, have a script ready. The moment a morning starts to go wrong is not the moment to work out the logistics.

Have something at home that creates a transition out of school mode before the evening starts. A walk, a snack, something low-key that isn't about school. The debrief can wait. Sometimes it can wait until the next morning, when she's had some distance from whatever happened and the words are more likely to be there.

None of this is easy in practice, and some of it will work better on some days than others. But these are the things I keep coming back to, and I hope some of them are useful to you too.

Keep the weekends as low pressure as possible

This one is harder to talk about because it looks, from the outside, like doing nothing. But deliberately clearing the schedule from Friday evening through to Monday morning, making no plans, putting no expectations on the weekend, is one of the more effective things I've found to support a child who is spending enormous energy just getting through the school week.

The school week for an anxious child is exhausting in a way that isn't always visible. Holding it together, managing the anxiety, showing up even when showing up is hard, all of that costs something, and the weekend is where the bill comes due. A weekend with plans and obligations and social pressure on top of that doesn't give her a chance to recover. It extends the week.

This is easier if, like me, you have a teenager who can be left alone and doesn't need constant supervision. I'm not held hostage at home by this choice, I'm making it deliberately because I've seen what a quiet weekend does for how Monday goes. That's a different thing from being trapped, and not every parent has that option. But if you do, the low-pressure weekend is worth protecting, even when it feels like you're giving something up. You're not giving it up. You're investing it somewhere useful.

The goal isn't to eliminate all plans forever. It's to give her enough space between the end of one school week and the beginning of the next that she arrives at Monday with something left in reserve.

Notice what's working and say so

Not effusively, not in a way that puts pressure on her to sustain it, just a quiet "I noticed you managed that this morning" or "that was a hard week and you got through it." Anxious children often have a negative filter that edits out their own successes in favour of their failures, and a low-key external acknowledgement of what went right is worth more than it might seem.

Give yourself the same grace

The first week of school is hard for parents navigating this too, and the combination of hope and bracing and trying to hold everything together while also appearing calm takes more out of you than is obvious at the time. Whatever you're feeling at the end of the first week is reasonable. You're doing a harder version of this than most of the parents around you, and you're doing it anyway. That counts for something, even when it doesn't feel like it does.

Which brings me to the thing I should probably have put first: plan something for yourself this week. Not a grand gesture, just something that is yours and not about school. A walk, a dinner, a phone call with someone who gets it, or, and I say this without apology, a strong cocktail on a Friday evening when the week is finally over. The first week of September is a marathon disguised as seven days, and you need to cross the finish line with something left for the week after. You cannot pour from an empty glass - make sure you pour yourself a full one at the end of the week!