Why I Hate the End of the School Year (And What Helps Kids Cope)
I’m sitting in my minivan in the car pickup line last Tuesday, cracker crumbs stuck to my steering wheel, when Lila yanks open the back door and heaves her backpack so hard it hits my water bottle and sends it rolling under the seat. She slumps down, crosses her arms, and when I ask how her day was, she snaps, “Everyone won’t stop talking about next year and I hate it.” Before I can answer, she’s crying, big heaving sobs, about how Mia’s family is moving to Oregon in July, she’ll never see her best friend again, and Ms. Carter already took down all our art projects to pack up the room. Jax, my 7-year-old, just nods from the front seat, picks a half-melted lollipop out of his pocket, and says, “I hate it too. Mr. Tony isn’t coming back next year.” I sit there for a minute, keys in the ignition, and think: Yeah. Me too. I hate the end of the school year.
I used to think this was just me, that I was weird for not getting all warm and fuzzy about end-of-year celebrations and countdowns to summer. When I was a kid, I’d get mysterious stomach aches the last two weeks of May, and my mom kept bringing me to the doctor, convinced I had something wrong. It wasn’t finals. It wasn’t anxiety about summer ending too soon. It was that every routine, every small, predictable thing that made the year feel like it fit, was just getting pulled apart. The desk I’d sat in for nine months was getting stacked in the hallway. My teacher was saying goodbye. My best friend was moving up to a different class that didn’t have space for our daily recess snack swap. No one ever asked if I was sad about it. They just said, “Aren’t you excited for next year?”
Now that I’m a parent, I see the pattern play out every May. The end of the school year isn’t the fun, laid-back break social media makes it out to be. Teachers are cramming in final assessments, packing up classrooms, juggling field days, awards assemblies, and 10 different end-of-year parties on top of their regular work. Kids come home tired, snapping over lost erasers and broken crayons they’ve had since the first day of September. Everyone brushes it off as just “end-of-year craziness” and tells us all to power through until the last bell. But it’s not just craziness. It’s loss. Small, normal loss of the thing that’s ending, even when the next thing is supposed to be good.
I used to do what everyone else does: I’d jump in with, “It’s okay, you’ll make new friends” “Next year is going to be so much fun” “Change is good, right?” That never worked. Lila would just cry harder. So I started fumbling around for small, low-effort things that actually help, and I’ve been surprised at how much of a difference they make.
The first thing I changed is I stopped trying to fix the bad feeling right away. Instead of jumping in with a pep talk, I just name what they’re feeling and stop there. If my kid says they hate that the year is over, I say, “That sucks. It’s okay to not want this to end.” That’s the whole sentence. I don’t add anything else. Last week, when Lila finished crying about Mia in the car, I just handed her a pack of wet wipes for her face and we sat in silence for five minutes before I started the car. By the time we pulled into the driveway, she was already talking about what kind of cookies we should bake for Mia’s going-away party. That worked way better than any pep talk I’ve ever given.
The second thing I do is tiny goodbye rituals, because there’s just no time for that at school. Everything is so rushed the last two weeks that kids don’t get to actually acknowledge the parts of the year that mattered to them. I don’t do fancy scrapbooks or memory books— that takes more time and energy than I have in May. Last year, we did 10 minutes of sticky notes after dinner: each kid writes three of their favorite small moments from the year, and sticks them in the top of their old shoe box memory bin under their bed. Lila wrote “Mia shared her extra skittles when I forgot my snack” and Jax wrote “Mr. Tony pushed me on the swing when my arm hurt.” This year, we walked around the school after dismissal on Friday, and they took photos of their favorite spots with my old phone. We left a little chalk drawing of their initials on the sidewalk by the playground. It took 15 minutes, cost nothing, and they both brought it up unprompted over dinner that night.
Third, I stopped forcing everyone to be excited about next year. I actually tell relatives and other parents upfront that if my kid says they don’t want to talk about fifth grade or new teachers, that’s okay. I even put a little line in our end-of-year class party evite this year that said “No pressure to talk about next year’s plans if that’s not where your kid’s head is right now.” No one has called me strange yet.
It’s not perfect. Last night Jax had a meltdown because he realized he can’t give Mr. Tony a cookie for his birthday next September. I still slipped up last week, when Lila said she didn’t want to go to fifth grade promotion, and I almost said “It’ll be fun, you have to go” before I caught myself and asked what was wrong. Turns out she didn’t want to walk across the stage without Mia there. We worked out that Mia will be on FaceTime to cheer her on, which is good enough for both of them.
I still hate the end of the school year. I still get stressed by all the last minute forms, the extra parties, the constant questions about what we’re doing for summer and what class they’re in next year. I don’t think there’s a way to make all the hard parts go away, because ending things is just hard. But these small things seem to take the edge off. It’s not about fixing the sadness. It’s about letting it exist, instead of pretending everyone should be ready for the next big thing already. Some years, the last two weeks of school just suck, and that’s okay. We get through it, one sticky note and one quiet cry in the minivan at a time.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why I Hate the End of the School Year (And What Helps Kids Cope)