Why The Week Before Back To School Leaves Parents Exhausted (And Small Steps That Help)
It’s 8:17 a.m. and I’m leaning against my kitchen counter, cold coffee in one hand, staring at a melted popsicle that just dripped all over my son’s new back-to-school sneakers. The sneakers are a half size too small, he’s refused to exchange them for three days, and now he’s on the floor screaming that his first week of fifth grade is ruined. The sink is full of last night’s cereal bowls, the deflated inflatable pool has been leaning against my porch railing for two weeks, and I just got a PTA email reminding me that fall conference sign-ups open at noon today. That’s when it hits me, quiet and heavy: I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
This summer wasn’t even that bad. We took a week-long trip to the lake, got ice cream every Friday, and only had one full day of rain where everyone fought the entire time. But the last two weeks have felt like walking through molasses. My son’s best friend left for a family trip three weeks early, so he’s been bouncing off the walls bored. My partner picked up a last minute work project that’s had them leaving the house at 6 a.m. every day, so it’s just me and the kid, all day, every day. Last week we went back-to-school clothes shopping, and he tried on 14 pairs of pants, hated every single waistband, and left the store crying in the parking lot. I bought him a $3 chocolate bar just to get him to the car, then sat behind the wheel with the AC running and realized I hadn’t had 30 consecutive minutes alone in 18 days.
I work as a part-time sub at the local elementary school, so I hear all the hot takes about back-to-school transitions. Everyone says to start shifting sleep schedules two weeks early, plan one last “fun summer adventure” to cap things off, check off every supply item on the list a week early to avoid stress. But what no one talks about is that all this transition stress doesn’t just land on kids—it piles on top of parents who’ve already been “on” for three months straight. Summer break for kids means a break from school, but for most working caregivers, it just means rearranging your schedule to monitor snack time and mediate screen time arguments instead of doing it after school. Add 50 extra back-to-school tasks on top of that, and it’s no wonder we hit a wall a week before the first bell.
Kids don’t know how to name the jittery tension they feel right before school starts, either. They don’t say “I’m scared my new teacher won’t like me” or “I’m going to miss staying up late watching movies with you.” They drop popsicles on new sneakers, fight over nothing, and refuse to do the tiny things you ask them to do. All that unspoken tension bounces off them and right onto us, and before you know it, you’re one unopened PTA email away from wanting to hide in the pantry.
I used to buy into the whole “get everything done early” thing, but this year I hit that breaking point on Tuesday and threw away the 20-item back-to-school checklist I saved from Pinterest. Instead, I started writing down just one thing I need to get done each day. Some days it’s “order the new backpack.” Some days it’s “throw away the expired sunscreen.” If I get that one thing done, I’m done for the day. No extra tasks, no guilt. The second thing I did was move that giant unopened Amazon box of school supplies from my kitchen counter to the back of the guest closet. Out of sight, out of mind—every time I walked past that box before, I felt that little jolt of guilt that I wasn’t getting it done faster. Just moving it took 10 seconds, and it took that constant low-level stress off my plate.
I also started doing a 5-minute “name the thing” chat after dinner every night. I go first, so it’s not just an interrogation of my son’s feelings. The other night I said, “Right now I’m annoyed that I have to iron three new polo shirts for the first week of school, and I wish I could just nap all afternoon instead.” Then it’s his turn. At first he just shrugged and said “nothing.” But three nights ago, he said, “I’m scared I’ll forget my locker combination and everyone will laugh at me.” I didn’t give him a pep talk about how it’s fine or tell him he’d remember. I just said, “That sucks. I forgot my locker combination every single month in middle school. I had to walk all the way down to the office to get it every time, it was so embarrassing.” He just nodded, and that was it. He didn’t need a solution, he just needed to say the thing out loud. That’s way more helpful than any “don’t be scared” speech I could have given.
A lot of the parenting content I see says you have to start shifting sleep schedules two weeks before school to avoid groggy kids the first week. Right now, my son still goes to bed at 10 p.m. and sleeps until 9 a.m. I’m not starting that shift until three days before school starts. He’ll be tired for the first two days, and that’s okay. It’s not the end of the world. Trying to force a schedule change two weeks early just adds another thing to stress about, and I’m not doing that this year.
Tonight we ordered pepperoni pizza and ate it off paper plates so I wouldn’t have to do extra dishes. I deleted three unread back-to-school reminder emails from my inbox without opening them. My son is on the couch re-watching the same 20 minutes of a Minecraft YouTube video he’s watched three times this week, and the school supply box is still in the back of the guest closet. I still have to fill out the four-page health form, buy him new soccer socks for PE, and label every single crayon in that 24-pack he picked out with the dinosaur on it. Some moments this week, I’ve leaned against the fridge and thought exactly what I did that Tuesday morning: I don’t know how much more of this I can take. But the one-item daily list has kept me from spiraling, and the 5-minute check-ins have turned into the quietest part of my day. We’re not ready yet, not by a long shot. But we’re getting there, slow. That’s enough for right now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why The Week Before Back To School Leaves Parents Exhausted (And Small Steps That Help)