When it started
When my daughter Suen began refusing school, I thought she was just being lazy.
I nagged, scolded, dragged her out of bed — convinced she was simply unmotivated.
But one morning changed everything.
Suen slid under the dining table, hugging her knees, mumbling words I couldn’t understand. Her whole body was trembling.
And that’s when it hit me:
This wasn’t rebellion.
This was fear.
This was anxiety in disguise.
The silent spiral
Suen had always been a hardworking student. In primary school, she thrived — she was the kind of child who tried her best in everything.
But when she entered secondary school, everything shifted.
The main language of instruction became Bahasa Melayu, while her primary school had been Chinese-medium. Overnight, she went from excelling to struggling.
Her grades dropped.
She couldn’t follow lessons.
She felt left out, and eventually, she was bullied.
Her confidence collapsed.
Then came the stomachaches.
And soon after… she stopped wanting to go to school altogether.
Not “just a phase”
At first, I reacted the way many parents do.
I said things like:
“Why are you being lazy?”
“Just push through — everyone has to go to school.”
But the more I pushed, the more she resisted.
I realized she wasn’t refusing school because she didn’t care — she was refusing because she didn’t feel safe.
Her body was sounding the alarm long before her words could.
The Breaking Point
“One morning, my husband and I confronted Suen about her screen time.
But instead of helping, it turned into tension — not just between us and her, but between the two of us as parents.
He avoids conflict.
Me? I face things head-on.
So we argued, and Suen was caught right in the middle.
Then, suddenly, she broke.
She crawled under the dining table, hugging her knees, shaking her head, mumbling words we couldn’t understand.
We tried to coax her out, but she wouldn’t move.
She looked so small. So unsafe.
That was our wake-up call.
Later that night, my husband said quietly,
“This is not normal. She’s behaving like Chen.”
Chen is his cousin — someone who slipped into schizophrenia after years of silent anxiety left untreated.
And that’s when we realized: if we kept waiting, if we kept calling it rebellion, we could lose Suen too.
That night, we stopped blaming.
Because this wasn’t about screens or discipline anymore.
This was about saving our daughter.”
Why kids refuse school
School refusal isn’t a phase, and it’s rarely about discipline.
Often, it’s rooted in something deeper —
- anxiety or social fears
- bullying or isolation
- overwhelming pressure
- hidden health conditions, like Suen’s IBS
When these stressors build up, a child’s nervous system goes into freeze mode. Their brain isn’t choosing defiance — it’s trying to survive.
That’s why forcing or shaming doesn’t work. It only pushes them deeper into fear.
Finding a new approach
The turning point came when we stopped fighting against Suen and started fighting with her.
We began calming ourselves before reacting.
We created a safety net — if school felt too much, she could pause, but she couldn’t isolate completely.
And we looked for gentle therapies that worked with her nervous system, not against it.
That’s how hypnotherapy entered our journey.
How hypnotherapy helped
I had used hypnotherapy years earlier to work through my own anxiety. So when I saw how trapped Suen felt, I knew it might help her too.
Hypnotherapy didn’t “cure” her overnight. But session by session, she learned to separate her IBS pain from stress. She discovered how to calm her body before panic took over.
Over time, she began to trust herself again.
She started noticing what triggered her symptoms and how to soothe them.
And slowly, she rebuilt the confidence to return to school.
Step by step, back to confidence
With new tools and steady support, Suen began opening up again.
She formed friendships.
Her Bahasa improved.
Her results stabilized.
Yes, she still had tough days — but she no longer avoided life. She faced it.
That’s what true resilience looks like: not perfection, but progress.
A parent’s reflection
Looking back, I realize the hardest part wasn’t Suen’s school refusal — it was confronting my own fear.
I had to stop reacting with guilt and anger, and start responding with calm and connection.
Because anxiety doesn’t need more pressure.
It needs safety.
When a child feels safe, their nervous system can begin to relax. And from that calm, courage grows again.
A gentle invitation to parents
If your child is refusing school, please don’t write it off as laziness.
What looks like defiance is often distress.
And what they need most is not more control — but more connection.
That’s why I created The Calm Kit — a free resource to help parents bring calm back into the home, reduce conflict, and rebuild emotional safety.
📥 Download it at www.unmotivatedtoawesome.com/calmkit.
Because every child deserves to feel safe enough to learn again. 💛
If you’d like to read more about Suen’s journey and how our family navigated school refusal and anxiety together, you can find her full story at www.unmotivatedtoawesome.com/suen
Written by Jessie Liew
About the Author
Jessie Liew is a clinical hypnotherapist and digital parenting expert passionate about helping families heal the hidden anxiety behind screen struggles and school refusal. A mother of four, she empowers parents to move beyond control and conflict — creating calm, emotionally safe homes where children feel seen, heard, and supported to thrive.
