What to do when your teen refuses to get out of bed for school

Some mornings with teens are hard.

When your teen drags their feet in the morning…

They don’t want to get out of bed…

They are saying they are sick and you’re not convinced they are…

It can be stressful.

You need to get out the door and on with your day.

You know some complaining and doona diving is normal, but you worry when they put their head under the covers again.

So what should parents do in these moments?

Should they force their teen out of bed?

Let them rest and have a mental health day?

Sit on their bed and ask them why?

Here’s the first thing that you can do that will help no matter what’s going on for your teen.

The first step on these mornings is to breathe.

Take 3 slow deep breaths.

No really.

I mean it.

Actually take the breathes.

Why?

🌬️Because taking slow breaths calms your nervous system which helps you engage the problem solving part of your brain.

🧠This helps you to “parent on purpose” not by impulse.

🫠Emotions are contagious. If you are stressed and anxious they will feel it. Putting more emotion in the room when your teen is showing these behaviours is likely to make them retreat more or explode at you which is not what you want or need on these mornings. Breathing will calm your emotions which will calm them a little too.

The next step...is to gently prompt them to do the next thing they need to do to get closer to getting out the door.

“Okay hop out of bed now and come to breakfast…”

See what happens…

Breathe some more.

Prompt with another small step.

Breathe some more.

Prompt with another small step.

Breathe some more.

You literally get out the door one small step at a time.

Every situation is different.

Your child may get to school this time…they may not…

I can’t promise they will this time.

But what I do know with certainty is that yelling at them because you feel overwhelmed is not helpful to your relationship or their resilience…

Neither is...

Giving in and avoiding dealing with the issue.

So on the difficult mornings, breathe and take small steps. Try to move towards getting out the door gently. Listen and collect information curiously without judgement.

This is your “in the moment” strategy.

It’s an important part of helping teens with school reluctance but not the whole strategy to bring change.

The other vital part happens outside of the morning times.

To deal with school reluctance effectively you need “in the moment” parenting strategies and an overall understanding of what the problem is so you can help with what’s stopping your teen from jumping out of bed happy to get on with their day.

To help you with both in the moment strategies and overall understanding of the problem I’m holding a special training for parents of tweens and teens soon. There’s limited places, click here for more info.

Here to help.