The Part Nobody Talks About: Regulating Myself Through Back-to-School Season

I spend my days helping other people's kids understand their own nervous systems. I can talk for an hour about co-regulation, about window of tolerance, about why a meltdown at 5pm is not a discipline problem but a depleted-battery problem. And then I pick up my own kid from a long day at school and by the time we're five minutes into the car ride home, I am the one who is dysregulated. Or when I know my husband is picking our son up, I try to soak in the silent car ride home and am met with the guilt that I just want to be alone.

Nobody warns you about that part. So this is my reminder to myself, written down so I can come back to it when the wheels start to wobble.

I am not a bottomless well of calm

Somewhere along the way I absorbed the idea that being a "good" parent (especially one who does this professionally) means I should be an endless, steady source of regulation for my child no matter what. That's not true, and it's not fair to expect of myself...largely because I don't expect that of the parents I work with. I get tired. I get touched-out. I get overstimulated by the noise, the transitions, the forty logistical details of a new school year landing all at once. My nervous system doesn't get a professional exemption.

The goal was never to never get dysregulated. The goal is to notice it faster and have a plan for what to do next.

Back-to-school is a big transition for me too, not just for my kid

We talk a lot about kids' separation anxiety this time of year... the clinginess at drop-off, the stomachaches, the tears that show up out of nowhere on a Tuesday afternoon. All of that is real and worth taking seriously. But the routine change hits my system too. New schedules, new pickup logistics, new emotional labor of managing someone else's transition on top of my own. I'm allowed to find that hard. Finding it hard doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong.

The teacher change I'm dreading

My son is changing teachers at daycare this year, and if I'm honest, I'm dreading it more than he probably even understands to dread it yet. A new classroom teacher means a new attachment figure to rebuild trust with, a new set of routines my child has to relearn, and (realistically) a rougher few weeks of drop-offs while that adjustment happens. I know the research. I know that kids are resilient and that a caring new teacher becomes a secure base again with enough consistency and time. Knowing that doesn't make the dread go away, and I don't think it needs to.

What helps me is separating the anticipatory dread from what's actually happening in the room each day. My worry is mine to manage; it isn't information my kid needs to absorb. So before drop-offs on transition days, I try to check my own face and voice... not fake cheerfulness, just steady enough that I'm not handing my anxiety to a three-year-old who has enough of their own to process. We keep it consistent too... a 5-second hug, "I love you; I'll see you after afternoon snack time!"

What I want to remember when I feel myself sliding

Notice the early signs, not just the blowup. For me it's usually a short fuse over something small, a tight chest, or the urge to snap "just get in the car" three times faster than the situation calls for (...usually the snaps are also reserved for my husband). Those are data, not character flaws. They're my cue to slow down before I say something I'll want to walk back.

My regulation doesn't have to be perfect to be useful. I don't need to hit some serene, therapist-brochure version of calm. I just need to be regulated enough — enough to not add fuel, enough to be a steady enough presence for my kid to borrow some calm from. A few slow breaths in the pickup line counts. It doesn't have to look like anything.

Separation anxiety and teacher transitions are often a nervous system asking for predictability, not a problem to fix on the spot. When my child is anxious at drop-off, my job isn't to talk them out of the feeling in ninety seconds. It's to stay steady, keep the goodbye short and consistent, and trust that predictability over days does more than any single perfect conversation. That takes pressure off both of us.

I'm allowed to repair. If I snap, if I sigh too loudly, if I get short during the chaos of a transition morning... that's not a failure that undoes everything. A simple "I got frustrated back there, that wasn't about you" does more repair work than I used to believe possible. Kids don't need parents who never rupture. They need parents who come back.

Overstimulation is cumulative, and I need to budget for it. New routines mean more sensory and cognitive load... new schedules, forms, new names, new noise. If I know a week is going to be transition-heavy, I try to protect a little more quiet on the other end of the day, even five minutes in the car before I walk in the door. I can't pour from empty, and pretending I can just makes the eventual crash bigger.

My reaction is information about me, not a verdict on my kid. When I feel that flash of irritation at a meltdown over the wrong socks, it's rarely really about the socks. It's usually my own depletion talking. Separating "what is my kid's nervous system doing" from "what is my nervous system doing" has saved me from a lot of unnecessary guilt and a lot of unnecessary yelling.

The season will pass, and the skill will stay

Eventually the new teacher will just be the teacher. The new routine will just be the routine. The separation anxiety will likely ease as predictability builds. But the skill I actually want to keep, noticing my own dysregulation early, letting it be okay instead of shameful, and repairing when I get it wrong, isn't a back-to-school skill. It's just a parenting skill, and an ongoing one.

So if you're reading this in the middle of your own overstimulated, short-fused transition season: you don't have to be a calm, bottomless well either. You just have to notice, breathe, and come back. That's enough.

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I'm Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall — psychologist, mom, and founder of Minds in Progress, LLC. I get it: some seasons, everyone in the house needs a little extra support, including the grown-ups. If your family could use some backup navigating anxiety, ADHD, autism, or just a rough patch of change, we'd love to help.

Reach out at 314-744-9535 or mckinzie.duesenberg@minds-in-progress.com, or learn more at minds-in-progress.com.