Anxiety climbs as the return gets close and peaks somewhere near the doorway, then it comes down, but only for someone who stays long enough to find that out. Put the supports in place before the date arrives: who meets them, where they can go if it gets too much, what the first hour actually asks. Deciding all of that on the morning, in tears, rarely goes well.

Neither of them is meant to take the fear away. They are there so you can stay in the situation long enough for it to teach you something, and that staying is the part that shifts what you expect. If you catch yourself using the slow breathing to get out of the moment rather than to remain in it, that is worth noticing early.

Ask which one they would be willing to have a go at this week, not which one they ought to be able to manage. The answer usually sits somewhere in the low to middle part of the ladder, and that is fine. The first step is not there to be impressive. It is there so the week ends with them having done something they were not sure they could do.

Coerced exposure teaches two lessons at once: that the situation is dangerous, and that you are not safe with the people who arranged it. After that you have the original fear plus an adult who has to be managed. Ask, wait, accept a no, and offer something smaller instead. The slower route is the only one that ends with someone saying they did it themselves.

Morning dread usually peaks around the time they would be leaving and then drains away over a couple of hours. A child who could not face it at half past seven can often manage third period, and will almost never suggest that themselves. Keep the offer open, ask lightly, take no for an answer each time without a row, and mean it when you ask again.

The job is small and specific: be there at the door, walk with them to their locker, get them started, be findable later on. It turns the worst moment from something faced alone into something faced with someone. Agree at the start how this will wind down, so that in six weeks nobody discovers the child can only come in when one particular person is at work.

Before a difficult conversation, write one line about how bad you expect it to be. Afterwards, write one line about how it actually went. Over a few rounds you build a small record of your own predictions running too dark, and that record persuades you far better than being told not to worry.

It can be as ordinary as asking someone to consider whether they have the privacy, the time and the state of mind for this today. Ask it first and whoever declines has not failed in front of anybody. It costs a minute, and it is the difference between practice a person chose and something that happened to them.