End of Summer Parent Burnout: Why You’re Tapped Out Before School Even Starts
Last Wednesday at 2:14 pm, I stood in my kitchen holding a lukewarm coffee I’d poured 45 minutes earlier and listened to my two kids yell over a half-melted cherry popsicle that had just fallen onto the clean floor I’d mopped that morning. My 10-year-old shoved his brand-new school backpack into my face, pointing at a lopsided blue dinosaur his little sister had drawn on the front pocket. “She ruined it before school even started,” he yelled. My 7-year-old crossed her arms and said he’d called her stuffed rabbit dumb, so she deserved it.
I’d just wrapped up three back-to-school runs to Target: first trip I bought the wrong folders (the 4th grade teacher required solid-colored 2-pocket, I got the ones with space stickers my son picked out), second trip I forgot the wide-ruled notebook 3rd grade requires, so I had to go back a third time. I was supposed to finish a work project due that day, and I hadn’t even opened the document. I set my coffee down, and I thought exactly what I’d been avoiding saying out loud for two weeks: School’s almost here, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
I felt guilty for five minutes after that thought. All over my social feed, people are posting about soaking up the last lazy days of summer, taking one last adventure, making sweet memories before the routine kicks in. One mom I follow posted a photo of her kids picking berries at a local farm with the caption “never miss these days.” I closed the app and went to sit in the pantry with a leftover chocolate chip cookie I’d hidden from the kids, and I texted my parent group that I was this close to counting down the minutes until the first bell. I got 17 replies in 10 minutes, all saying the same thing: me too.
A 4th grade teacher in the group said she feels the exact same way. She’s been in her classroom for three days putting up bulletin boards, going to mandatory meetings, filling out endless paperwork, and she’s already exhausted before a single kid walks in the door. That’s when I realized this isn’t just me being a bad parent who doesn’t love summer. This in-between period, that week or two between the end of summer camps and the first day of school, is uniquely draining. No one talks about it, because we’re all supposed to be either sad summer is ending or excited school is starting. But it’s just… limbo. The routine of summer is gone, all the big fun trips are done, everyone’s bored, we’re already carrying all the extra work of getting ready for school, and we still have to entertain kids 24/7. It’s not that we don’t love our kids. It’s that transition takes more energy than any steady routine, even a busy one.
Over the past few days, I’ve tried small, low-effort changes that have made this stretch a lot more bearable, and none of them require extra planning or a big attitude shift. The first thing I did was stop forcing “fun last days of summer.” I’d been telling myself I needed to plan one more big outing to make memories, so I’d booked tickets to the local water park. The morning we were supposed to go, I looked at the forecast of 92 degree heat and thought about packing sunscreen, towels, extra snacks, extra water, and dealing with crowd parking, and I canceled it. I told the kids we were having a “do nothing” day. They could re-watch that Minecraft cartoon they love for as long as they wanted, they could play with playdough right at the kitchen table, I didn’t care if they got crumbs everywhere. I sat on the couch and got my work done, and I didn’t feel guilty about it. No one needs a fancy end to summer. A boring day is better than a stressful day that leaves you wiped out.
Second, I lowered the bar on every routine chore I usually stick to. I change bed sheets every Friday, but this week I didn’t. I ordered pizza for dinner three nights in a row, no side salad, no homemade sides, just pizza. I stopped nagging them to put away their toys every hour. At the end of the day, I just kick all the blocks, coloring books, and stuffed animals into the playroom closet and close the door. It’ll all get sorted out after school starts, when we have a routine again. The house doesn’t have to be perfect for these few days.
Third, I stopped lying to my kids about how I feel. I used to put on a happy face and say “isn’t this fun? Aren’t you excited for school?” But one day when my son complained he was bored out of his mind, I just said “me too. I’m ready for school to start too. I miss having time to do my work without someone asking me for a snack every 10 minutes.” He looked at me and said “really? I thought I was the only one who was bored.” That took all the tension out of it. When my daughter said she was scared to start third grade and didn’t want to leave me, I told her I was both going to miss her and really looking forward to 10 minutes of quiet in the morning. It’s okay to feel two things at once, and modeling that for them is better than pretending everything is perfect.
Today there are four more days until the first day of school. The kitchen counter is still covered in half-opened glue sticks and loose pencil erasers, the dinosaur drawing on the backpack is still there (my son decided he actually likes it, so we’re keeping it), and the kids just fought over who got the blue lunch box. I still hide in the pantry for a cookie once a day. I don’t have a fancy first day breakfast planned or a photo backdrop set up. I just know I’m not going to feel guilty for being tired anymore. This limbo isn’t supposed to be magical. It’s just the stretch between one thing and the next, and it’s okay if it’s hard. It’ll be over soon enough, and for right now, that’s enough.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » End of Summer Parent Burnout: Why You’re Tapped Out Before School Even Starts