what's your school avoidance parenting style? (a totally scientific quiz)

I don't know about you, but I could really use a magazine quiz right now. Not the kind that tells you whether you're a Summer or an Autumn — although I remain open to that conversation — but the kind where you circle A, B, C or D and someone tells you something true about yourself in a way that makes you feel slightly seen and slightly called out at the same time.

So. In the spirit of rigorous scientific inquiry, and because I have been doing this long enough to have observed some patterns, I present: a completely evidence-based assessment of your school avoidance parenting style.

Sharpen your pencil. Circle your answers. Try not to read ahead.

Question 1: It's 7:15am. The alarm went off forty-five minutes ago. You:

A) Knock gently on the door and say, in your most regulated, therapeutic voice, good morning, I'm here when you're ready. You read three books about this.

B) Open the door, assess the situation in under four seconds with the precision of a field medic and immediately begin negotiating a partial attendance agreement that you are not entirely sure is legal.

C) Stand outside the door saying nothing for six minutes because you read that silence is powerful, then ruin it completely by saying I just don't understand why this is so hard in a voice that suggests you understand exactly why this is so hard and have opinions about it.

D) Are already in the car. You went to the car at 6:50 because you needed a moment. You are eating a cereal bar you found in the door pocket and it is definitely from last year.

Question 2: Your daughter's therapist suggests a new approach. You:

A) Research it thoroughly, print out the relevant studies, highlight the sections that apply to your daughter's specific presentation and bring them to the next appointment in a folder.

B) Nod vigorously during the session, forget half of it by the time you reach the car park, and implement a version of it that bears moderate resemblance to what was discussed. You're fairly sure you got the spirit of it.

C) Try it for four days with complete commitment, decide on day five that it isn't working, read three Reddit threads about why it doesn't work, and bring this information back to the therapist as though you have done them a favour.

D) Say yes, absolutely and mean it completely in the moment. Genuinely mean it. It's just that by the following Tuesday something happened that meant the approach had to be temporarily suspended and you haven't quite gotten back to it since.

Question 3: A well-meaning relative asks how things are going with school. You:

A) Give a measured, honest summary of where things are, including the progress that has been made and the challenges that remain. You have practised this.

B) Say we're working through some things in a tone that communicates clearly that this topic is closed, then spend the next twenty minutes worrying that you were rude.

C) Begin a sentence, stop, start again, say it's complicated, watch their face do the thing faces do, and then change the subject to something — anything — else, including, one time, the weather patterns of the Pacific Northwest, which you know nothing about.

D) Cry in the bathroom afterwards. Just briefly. Then come back out and finish your dinner and nobody mentions it.

Question 4: You read an article about a parent whose child overcame school avoidance through a combination of early intervention, strong school partnership and consistent therapeutic support. You:

A) Feel genuinely encouraged. Progress is possible. You make a note of the interventions mentioned.

B) Feel encouraged for approximately eight minutes, then feel something more complicated, then close the tab and make a cup of tea you don't drink.

C) Read the comments. You should not have read the comments.

D) Send it to someone without context at 11:30pm. They respond with a thumbs up. You both know what this means. Neither of you says it.

Question 5: It's a good morning. She's up, she's dressed, she might actually go. You:

A) Stay calm and regulated. You do not make a big deal of this. You have learned not to make a big deal of this.

B) Stay calm on the outside. On the inside you are doing the full stadium celebration sequence including the slide on your knees.

C) Make her favourite breakfast. You make too much of her favourite breakfast. You realise you have made too much and now the volume of breakfast is itself a form of pressure and you have to quietly remove some of the breakfast before she comes downstairs.

D) Don't say anything. Don't look directly at the good morning. You and the good morning have an unspoken agreement: you will not acknowledge it and in return it will continue to exist. This is working so far.

Question 6: At the end of a particularly hard day, you:

A) Reflect on what you could do differently tomorrow, make a note in your journal and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

B) Lie on the sofa in your coat because you got home and sat down and couldn't quite make it as far as taking the coat off, and now it's been forty minutes.

C) Google things you should not Google at this hour. You know which things.

D) Text another parent who gets it. Not to fix anything. Just to say today was a lot and have someone text back I know. That's it. That's the whole thing.

tally up your answers

Count your As, Bs, Cs and Ds. Find your majority answer below.

Mostly As: The Informed Optimist

You have done the reading. You have done all of the reading. You have a folder. You approach each day with intention and a working knowledge of polyvagal theory. On the harder days you remind yourself that this is a long game and that your consistency matters even when it doesn't appear to be working.

You are doing a remarkable job. You are also exhausted in a very specific, well-researched way.

Mostly Bs: The Pragmatic Improviser

You have a plan. The plan does not always survive contact with 7am, but you have one. You adapt quickly, you negotiate well under pressure and you have developed an almost supernatural ability to assess a situation in a doorway and make a decision in under five seconds. Some of those decisions were wrong. Most of them came from the right place.

You are doing a remarkable job. You are also eating a lot of cereal bars in car parks, and that's okay.

Mostly Cs: The Overthinker With Good Intentions

You care so much that it sometimes comes out sideways. You have read the articles, questioned the articles, questioned the people who wrote the articles and then gone back to the articles. You occasionally say the wrong thing at the wrong moment because you have been rehearsing the right thing so hard that something else comes out instead.

You are doing a remarkable job. You are also going to be fine, and so is she.

Mostly Ds: The Quietly Holding It Together

You are not holding it together. You are standing next to it, one hand on it, keeping it roughly in position through sheer stubbornness and the occasional bathroom cry. Nobody fully sees how much this costs you. You don't really let them.

You are doing a remarkable job. You are also allowed to let someone see it sometimes.

An even split: The Realistic Parent

You are all of these things on different days, sometimes in the same morning. You are the informed optimist until the alarm goes off, the pragmatic improviser in the doorway, the overthinker in the car park and the quietly-holding-it-together by the time you get to work. You contain multitudes. So does every parent reading this.

the results, properly

Here is what the data shows, after my extremely rigorous analysis of all six questions:

You are trying your hardest.

That's it. That's the whole result. I'm not going to dress it up because it doesn't need dressing up. The only people who take a quiz like this are people who are paying close enough attention to their own parenting to see themselves in the answers — and that kind of attention doesn't come from not caring. It comes from caring a lot, often at hours when caring is the last thing your body has left to offer.

The folder and the car park cereal bar and the too-much breakfast and the bathroom cry are all the same thing. A parent who loves their kid and is doing their best with what they have, on a day that didn't come with instructions.

She's going to be okay.

And honestly — honestly — so are you.

Which one are you? And did I miss one? Tell me in the comments. I’d love to know.