Back to School Without Burnout: Support for Autistic, ADHD, Gifted and Other Neurodivergent Kids and Parents
Neurodiversity in Schools: How Parents Can Help Protect Neurodivergent Kids from Education Burnout & Trauma
Getting used to being back at school can be challenging for many kids and families. For neurodivergent kids and their parents, the return to school can be especially stressful. Even when change might be exciting or positive, transitions can be disruptive and difficult to navigate. The unknown can fuel anxiety. The unfamiliar can create struggles as we try to adjust to a different routine and figure out what we need to support success in new settings or to cope with a lack of success.
For many neurodivergent kids, school can be overwhelming. Social, academic, or sensory needs may not align with school expectations, creating added stress. For autistic, gifted, ADHD, AuDHD, 2E, and other neurodivergent kids and families, school is not always an affirming or accepting place where kids have ease and success. This can create added stress for children and for the parents who care for them. Kids who struggle with being overwhelmed, understimulated, or undersupported at school may return home at the end of their school day feeling frustrated, overloaded, dysregulated, and melting down. This can be uncomfortable and overwhelming for neurodivergent children, their parents, and for the whole household.
Promoting Balance to Prevent Burnout for Neurodivergent Kids
As a therapist for parents of neurodivergent kids who may be struggling with school and teetering on the edge of neurodivergent burnout or autistic burnout, I emphasize that one of the best tools that we have to combat burnout is to try to maintain balance between the demands or stressors, and the resources that we have to support us in managing those demands or stressors. So, when we know that heading back to school is going to add to the overall demands and stress for parents and kids, we know that we need to be thoughtful and intentional about increasing access to resources or supports that help us meet those demands. Expanding or improving support to offset increased stressors is essential in order to keep the whole system in balance and prevent burnout.
Neurodivergent Parental Burnout and Autistic Burnout: How to Meet the Needs of the Whole Family
In part one of the back-to-school series, I’ll focus on some small shifts that parents can make to help their kids stay in balance when facing the added stress of returning to school. In Part Two, I’ll focus on what parents can do to keep themselves in balance and avoid parental burnout while supporting their kids through the increased demands of school.
Preventing Education Burnout and Trauma for Neurodivergent Kids
When parents are trying to help find balance for their kids who are being worn out by school demands, it can be helpful for parents to start by putting on their detective or investigative reporter hats. Consider what you already know about your kid and what you know about the challenges that they might encounter in the course of their school day. Pay attention to what your child may be communicating to you about what it’s like for them to be back in school and how they are doing. Focus on things like what they say when talking about school; how they behave at home and when doing school-related tasks such as homework, interacting with peers, getting ready for bed and sleeping at night, and getting ready for school in the morning; in addition to feedback that you may get directly from the school.
Having developmentally-appropriate conversations with your child about how they feel at school, what is hard or what they don’t like about school, what their body needs, and other questions about school struggles can give clues about the support that they need. Finding ways to increase those supports at home can help keep them in balance so that school-related stressors don’t tip the scales toward burnout.
In addition to looking for clues about the added demands that might threaten to cause burnout for your child, it can be useful to consider these common areas of struggle and ways to provide extra support to help meet their needs and keep them in better balance.
Look for Common Needs and Struggles to Support
Movement
Some things to think about include your child’s physical and sensory needs. Many neurodivergent children need physical movement and freedom to explore their environment in order to regulate their nervous systems. Spending a school day suppressing those needs in order to remain seated in a desk or moving through the building in an approved way can leave a child craving movement and sensory input or release through their physical body. Give time and encouragement to run, jump, bounce, dance, fidget, twirl, stim, play, or otherwise do whatever their body needs to support regulation and feel good after school. This can help provide support to their nervous system and sensory system to offset being restricted at school.
Nourishment
Neurodivergent kids may struggle to eat and drink enough during their school day. They may eat slowly and not have the chance to get enough nourishment in the time available for eating at school. Some kids have selective eating needs that are tough to meet at school. Many kids find the social aspects of the lunch room overwhelming or that the smells, sounds, movement, or other sensory features of the cafeteria dampen their appetite. Other kids deal with a lot of anxiety during the school day that can contribute to nausea or stomach upset which lowers hunger while at school. Encouraging your child to eat comfortable foods and hydrate as soon as they get home from school or during transportation home, if allowed, can lessen irritability, physical discomfort, or other stress related to not getting enough calories or nutrition throughout the school day.
Sensory Safety
School can be filled with activity and a lot of sensory input. For some neurodivergent kids, this is awesome and meets their needs for stimulus. For many, aspects of the school day can overload the sensory system. These kids may need to come home and hunker down in a low-demand, sensory-safe environment to help themselves regulate and avoid melting down.
A quiet and cozy corner, weighted blanket, calming pet, or the comfort of a favorite video or online game can provide a sense of sensory safety, predictability, and calm that may be needed for a reset. Stimming, vocalizing, or seeking sensory input in ways that were less available or accepted at school may be regulating for your child. Allowing and encouraging these activities can be a great way to give the support that your child needs to recharge from the increased demands of school so that they don’t get worn down.
Social Demands and Needs
Social connections and opportunities can be the best part of school for some kids, but for others this is far from the case. Many neurodivergent kids may struggle to connect with, or be accepted by their peers. They may devote a lot of energy to masking, managing their communication, or trying hard to fit in, and still have a tough time finding a supportive and reliable group of friends or kids to connect with at school. Interacting with adults at school and meeting neuro-normative social expectations for respect within conventional adult-child power dynamics can be confusing or upsetting. These social struggles can wear away at a child’s self-esteem.
Making sure that your child has safe and satisfying social interactions at home can help meet needs for social connection for kids whose social needs are unmet at school. This might mean that parents make an effort to spend time with their kid doing something that their child enjoys. Cuddling up and watching a show, playing a game, sharing a favorite activity, or talking about a passion of theirs can allow for social interaction in a way that supports their needs. Allowing your child time to connect to more comfortable peers online or in person can support healthy and affirming social interactions. For children whose social batteries are drained by the social and communication demands at school, providing a lot of restorative alone time and lowering unnecessary social or communication demands can be essential to preventing burnout.
Lower Demands at Home to Balance Increased Demands at School
The transition from summer schedules to the school year is filled with increased demands for neurodivergent kids. There are schedule changes to get used to, sleep routines that need to be adhered to, school work to complete, and endless social, sensory, learning, and other demands that may not have existed just a month ago. Adjusting to these new demands can take time and creative problem-solving. In the meantime, it might make sense to consider ways to lower demands in other areas if you can in order to support better balance.
This might mean that your child temporarily needs fewer activities or therapies outside of their school day. Reducing or dropping demands for household chores, hygiene expectations, social interactions, or other optional activities may be important to consider in order to avoid burnout. If your child’s school or IEP allows for it, shortening or eliminating homework assignments may help kids to leave school at school and spend after-school time recharging. For some kids, this step can be necessary in order for them to relax and regulate at home, get the sleep that they need, and be able to go to school and meet the demands of the next day.
These changes do not need to be permanent, but they may be warranted if your child is showing signs of struggle. Just as you would provide extra TLC if your child was ill, injured, or otherwise recovering from additional demands on their system, giving extra support and reducing unnecessary stressors may be necessary during the back-to-school adjustment period.
Supporting Autistic and Other Neurodivergent Kids Going Back to School
Transitions are predictably difficult for many neurodivergent kids, and school can be an especially hard place to settle into with each new school year. Thinking about your child’s strengths and struggles and noticing how they are responding to school can give important information about what supports they may need to adjust to school without burning out.
If you’ve been having a difficult time holding things in balance for your child as they try to settle into a new school year, I may be able to help. I provide therapy support to parents of neurodivergent kids who may be struggling with their own stress, trauma, and burnout and who have a tough time getting the support that they need from people who really understand what it is like to parent neurodivergent kids.
Therapy Support and Online Classes for Neurodivergent Parent Burnout
I specialize in treating trauma and PTSD with EMDR therapy and other trauma treatments like IFS-informed ego state/parts work. I work with all neurotypes and others who have struggled with marginalization including the LGBTQIA+ community and neurodivergent adults as well as therapy for parents of neurodivergent kids. I try to accommodate the needs and preferences of the people I work with through in-office therapy in the Shore Therapy Evanston office, conveniently close to Chicago and the North Shore of Chicago, as well as providing online therapy across 40+ states as a PSYPACT therapist. I also offer on-demand online classes for parenting neurodivergent kids without burnout to ease struggles in your home or community.
If you think that I might be a good fit for your needs, contact me for a free, 15-minute consultation call. Learn more about me, and be sure to check back for part two of the Back-to-School Series. The second installment will focus on how to support parents of neurodivergent kids to prevent parental burnout when supporting kids who are back to school.
