Don't want another year of dragging your kid into school?

It's December. You should be thinking about pavlova and whether the aircon is going to survive another summer. Maybe where you hid last year's Christmas presents.

Instead, there's a knot in your stomach that tightens every time someone mentions "back to school."

Because you remember last February.

The negotiations that started at 6am. The screaming. The physical peeling of small fingers off car door handles while other parents walked past, their children skipping into class like tiny, well-adjusted traitors.

You've tried everything. Bribery. Consequences. The calm voice you learned from that Instagram psychologist. The not-so-calm voice you learned from your own mother. You've hidden in the pantry stress-eating Tiny Teddies at 7:45am wondering where it all went wrong.

Here's what I wish someone had told me: you're trying to teach your kid to swim while they're drowning.

Every strategy you've attempted has been at the school gate, mid-meltdown, when their little nervous system is screaming "DANGER" and the rational part of their brain has completely left the building.

It doesn't work. It can't work.

But you've still got a few weeks before school goes back. That changes everything.

The holidays aren't just waiting time. They're the calm water. The bit where they can actually learn before the waves hit.

Here's what made the difference for us:

1. Teach them to notice their body before it explodes

This was the game-changer. When my daughter could say "my tummy feels tight," we could actually do something. But she had to learn that language when she was calm - not when she was clinging to my leg like a koala who'd seen a ghost.

Over the holidays, we started checking in at random low-pressure moments. "Where do you feel it when you're nervous?" It felt awkward at first. Now she can catch it before it becomes a full meltdown.

2. Build a goodbye ritual together

We created a secret handshake and a phrase I say every single drop-off. Sounds ridiculous. Works anyway. The predictability is the point.

We practised it at home over the holidays until it was boring - so by February it felt like muscle memory, not a new thing to cope with.

3. Start talking now, casually

Not a big serious sit-down conversation that makes everyone uncomfortable. Just little chats. "What was hard about school last year? What helped? What are you worried about for this year?"

Let them talk about it without it becoming A Whole Thing.

4. Give them the tools before they need them

This is where everything clicked for us.

We started using InnerSteps over the holidays - short animated stories that teach kids what worry actually is and what to do with it. Five minutes at bedtime. She genuinely liked it, which shocked me more than anything else on this list.

Within a couple of weeks, something shifted. The morning battles got shorter. She started using words like "my worry is being loud today" instead of just screaming. By February, drop-offs weren't perfect - but they weren't war zones either. For the first time in two years, I didn't cry in the car park.

Here's the actual point

When my daughter started refusing school, I thought it was defiance. I thought I was too soft. I thought firmer boundaries would fix it.

I was wrong. What looked like bad behaviour was actually fear. And you can't discipline fear out of a kid. You can only help them build the skills to handle it.

You've still got a few weeks of calm water.

Teach them to swim now. February will still be hard - but you won't be starting from zero.

Your future self, the one who isn't crying in the school car park, will thank you.