#fwiw her SEN lead is team mental health day

[emmashouldbewriting]

13yo went with her dad to work today and spent an hour on the beach alone, minding her own business, going rockpooling, and taking 36 photos of the beach that she whatsapp'ed me at lunchtime... and swindling ice cream from him when he was done.

she came home with a huge smile on her face, more energy, and an aura of peace.

basically, the moral of this story is lie to your kid's school that she has a migraine and let her spend an hour on the beach and the rest of her day in bed. amen.

normalise mental health days for kids.

13yo has been in bed all day sleeping because last week's exams took so much out of her and she finally crumbled today. she has a teacher training day on tuesday so i told her to take tomorrow off if she needs it so she has 4 days to recover from all her anxiety.

will she always be able to do that? no. but she's a child. if she doesn't get that extra day tomorrow, she could be out for an entire week, if not more. one day for the sake of her mental health is not the end of the world. one day could be the difference between autistic burnout and her finishing this school year.

her anxiety is not less worthy of a day off than a stomachache.