My 16-year-old daughter had PTSD which was making it difficult, bordering on impossible, for her to walk in the door at school every day. Every day was a negotiation on whether she had to go or not. Because her PTSD was from bullying at her previous school – it reached a point where she told me “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
She was not a fan of using the mat but I told her if she got on for 15 minutes before school every morning, she could get out of making her own breakfast. She took me up on it, at first, begrudgingly. But she started to feel the calming effects within the first week or so. Soon she was doing the mat twice a day, religiously, without prompting. Two months in, I wouldn’t say her school anxiety disappeared.
But almost. By the end of last year, there were even days when she even occasionally admitted she was looking forward to it.
She kept up her routine straight through summer and this school year’s been better for her than I ever could have dreamed. Her anxiety is pretty much gone. She’s made a ton of friends. She’s joined four different clubs. She’s doing great academically. And, almost unbelievably, she actually looks forward to going to school.
