What I Learned About My Anxious Kid From Our School Nurse
My phone buzzed halfway through a team check-in, the school’s number popping up that I’d started to recognize on my screen. It was mid-October, and this was our third call in two weeks. I grabbed my bag and mumbled an apology to my team, already gearing up to pick up another kid with a “sudden stomach ache” that would vanish 10 minutes after we pulled out of the parking lot.
I’d spent weeks telling myself Mia was just avoiding math. She’s always been quiet, slow to warm up to new people, and her teacher had mentioned she never raised her hand even when she knew the answer. I’d tried tough love: I told her the stomach ache was just nerves, that she needed to push through and stop letting her anxiety win. Once, I even made her go back to class after she called me, convinced a little time in the room would prove nothing was actually wrong. By the time I got to the nurse’s office that Tuesday, I was half frustrated, half embarrassed that my kid couldn’t just handle 5th grade like everyone else.
Ms. Rita, the school nurse, was leaning against her desk peeling an orange when I walked in. Mia was curled up on the faded cot by the window, picking at a loose thread on the sunflower blanket, her knees pulled up to her chest. Ms. Rita didn’t hand me a sign-out sheet right away like I expected. She gestured to the plastic chair by her desk and pushed a pack of graham crackers across to me. “She came in at 8:30, right after morning announcements,” she said. “Temperature’s fine, no fever, no vomiting. I asked her where it hurts, and she pointed right under her ribs. Said it gets worse when the teacher goes around asking people to read out loud.”
I crossed my arms and said what I’d said to the office manager the week before: “She does this at home with homework, too. I think she just wants to leave early.” Ms. Rita nodded, she didn’t argue or tell me I was wrong. She just jerked her chin toward Mia. “I had her sit in that rocking chair by my window an hour ago, asked her to work on her reading packet here, no one calling on her. Twenty minutes in, she told me the pain went from a 9 out of 10 to a 2. That’s not a stomach bug. That’s her body screaming that she’s overwhelmed before her brain can put the words to it.”
I’d never thought of it that way. I’d seen anxiety Mia as Mia hiding in my leg at birthday parties, refusing to order her own food at restaurants. I never connected the random, recurring stomach aches to the same thing. Ms. Rita explained that for quiet kids, anxiety almost never looks like big, obvious crying fits or meltdowns in the classroom. It shows up in the nurse’s office, with vague aches that don’t have a medical cause. She’s been the nurse here for 22 years, she said, and she’s seen hundreds of kids just like Mia.
What stuck with me most wasn’t the diagnosis, though. It was the plan she pulled together in 10 minutes, no meetings, no paperwork, no big fanfare. First, she gave Mia a permanent nurse pass. Anytime she feels that ache start, she can leave class and come sit for 10 minutes, no questions asked, no need for the teacher to sign off. After 10 minutes, she can choose to go back to class or call me to go home. Second, she talked to Mia’s teacher after school that day and suggested a small change: let Mia write her answers down on the small whiteboard at her desk instead of calling on her out loud, if she wants. No one else has to know, no big announcement about her anxiety.
That was three months ago, and it’s changed everything for us. I started bringing the same idea home, too. When Mia says her stomach hurts before homework, I don’t tell her to push through anymore. I tell her she can sit on the porch with her dog for 10 minutes, drink a glass of lemonade, and then we can start. Most of the time, the ache fades, and she gets her work done. Before Ms. Rita, I thought giving kids an out like that would just encourage them to avoid hard things. Turns out, when you don’t force them to stay in the stressful situation when their body is panicking, they build enough trust to go back on their own.
I know a lot of people write school nurses off as just the person who hands out band-aids and sends kids home with fevers. I did, too. But they’re the ones who see all the stuff that doesn’t show up on a back-to-school form. They’re the first stop for kids who can’t say what’s wrong, for parents who are too frustrated or overwhelmed to see what’s right in front of them.
For other parents who are dealing with the same recurring vague symptoms from their kid, there’s a few concrete things I’ve taken away that you can try. First, don’t default to “they’re faking it.” Even if the pain is from anxiety, it’s still real for them. Telling them it’s all in their head just makes them stop telling you when they hurt. Second, test a low-stakes out instead of forcing tough love. It doesn’t have to be a nurse’s pass – at home, it can be 10 minutes off before homework, a quiet spot to sit when dinner feels too loud. Third, ask your school nurse what they think. They see more kids than most of us do, and they usually have simple, low-cost ideas that don’t require a ton of paperwork or big changes.
We still get the occasional call. Last month, Mia had an ache before her big field trip to the zoo, and she went down to see Ms. Rita for 15 minutes to have a lemon drop before she got on the bus. She ended up having the best day, and even held a snake at the petting zoo. I dropped off a tin of those lemon drops for Ms. Rita before winter break, and she laughed and said it was just part of the job. But it’s not. It’s the quiet work no one talks about, the kind that fixes small problems before they turn into big ones. It’s not perfect, we still have bad days. But I don’t know where we’d be without her.
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