The five hidden jobs parents do when their child has school anxiety.

When your child starts struggling to go to school due to anxiety, something else happens that parents don't often talk about.

Almost overnight, you find yourself doing a whole collection of jobs you never applied for.

You become a negotiator. Every morning you're trying to persuade, encourage, reassure, and somehow get everyone through the start of the day.

You become an advocate. You're writing emails, attending meetings, and trying to help other people understand your child.

You become an emotional regulator. Your child's overwhelmed, frightened, or angry, and somehow you're trying to stay calm enough for both of you.

You become a researcher, joining Facebook groups, listening to podcasts, searching online at midnight, hoping someone somewhere has the answers you've been looking for.

And then there's the job that seems to take over everything else. You become a detective. You're constantly looking for clues. Why are things bad on Monday, but not Friday? Why maths, but not art? Why this teacher, but not that one? What am I missing? Because when your child is struggling with school, you're trying to solve a puzzle without being able to see all of the pieces.

So it's not surprising so many parents tell me they feel absolutely exhausted - because they're not just parenting anymore, they're doing the jobs of five people at once.

So if that's you, I wanted to tell you something. Please be kind to yourself. Nobody ever trained you to do all of those jobs, and you don't have to solve the whole puzzle today. You just need somewhere to start.

If you'd like a little bit of help with your detective role,  I've created my free school anxiety checklist. It won't give you all the answers, but it can help you begin putting some of the pieces together and make sense of what might be making school difficult for your child, because once you begin to understand the problem, it's much easier to decide what to do next.

You can download it here.