The Peaceful Parenting Podcast · Sarah Rosensweet

"I'm not going to school!" School Avoidance and Anxiety with Lynn Lyons

·54 min·3 clips

Anxiety can shut down digestion, causing real nausea, tummy aches, diarrhea, or vomiting.

1. The Peaceful Parenting Podcast episode “I'm not going to school!” focuses on school avoidance and anxiety with Lynn Lyons. 2. Sarah Rosenzweig hosts the episode, and Lynn Lyons is the guest psychotherapist, author, and speaker whose work on anxiety shapes the conversation. 3. The episode asks what parents should do when a child says they are not going to school and whether the problem is anxiety, a learning issue, bullying, or sensory burnout. 4. Lynn uses the term “emotionally-based school avoidance” and says parents should first rule out dyslexia, bullying, social difficulty, and sensory issues. 5. She notes that repeated exposure can flood a child’s brain when sensory issues are driving distress, which makes the approach different from an anxiety disorder. 6. Lynn warns that anxiety can be secondary to neurodivergence, but she still wants parents to address the anxiety rather than defaulting to avoidance. 7. Sarah and Lynn compare school breaks to “home days,” and Lynn argues that children sometimes simply need a day off without pathologizing it. 8. Lynn says the danger is using that break as the default strategy when a child lacks tools for managing anxiety. 9. She describes anxiety and depression as “internalizing disorders” and says the main work happens on the inside. 10. Lynn calls both conditions “disorders of storytelling” and says children begin looking for outside evidence that confirms the story inside their heads. 11. She explains that anxiety makes school feel dangerous even when the child is actually perceiving uncertainty, not an emergency. 12. Lynn says anxiety can also drive real somatic symptoms because the fight-or-flight system can shut down digestion. 13. She names nausea, tummy aches, diarrhea, and vomiting as common physical results, and she cites “functional abdominal pain” as affecting about 12 to 13 percent of children. 14. Lynn says the right response after medical causes are ruled out is to get the child back into normal life, not to treat the stomach like the main problem. 15. She tells parents that long-term school avoidance is a clear predictor of later problems in teenage years and young adulthood. 16. Lynn introduces the name “Stella” for the worry voice and says families need a plan that keeps school attendance moving even when Stella is loud. 17. She stresses that success is not calmness; success is going to school while managing uncertainty and distress. 18. The conversation is an interview, but Lynn’s answers are highly practical, with repeated examples, naming exercises, and direct coaching language for parents. 19. Parents of anxious children, especially those dealing with school refusal or morning stomach aches, would likely find this episode useful. 20. Listeners wanting a light or purely theoretical conversation about parenting may skip it.

As heard by us

A steady reframing of school refusal that favors tolerance over endless troubleshooting.

This episode treats school refusal less like a riddle with one missing answer and more like a test of how much uncertainty adults can stand. Lynn Lyons keeps returning to a simple point: school is unpredictable, and anxious kids often do better when the grownups around them stop…

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Why you'd press play

When school mornings turn into anxiety battles, this gives you a steadier way to think about uncertainty.

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