Ep #71: Make Back To School Stress-Free

episode summary

School is starting soon!

Are you dreading the back-to-school season because it feels like an overwhelming whirlwind of tasks and stress?

For many working moms, back-to-school time isn't just about sending the kids off; it's a major source of stress as they juggle new routines, school supplies, and countless other responsibilities. This episode dives into how you make back to school a smoother, more manageable experience.

In this episode, you will learn:

How to create a routine that works for YOUR family.
Why realistic expectations will reduce stress during the back-to-school transition - and how to set them.
How to NOT be in charge of everything and plan ahead to get everything alone.

Tune in now to start the school year on a positive, stress-free note!

Listen to this episode on Apple or Spotify!

For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.

If you are sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed, I can help. I coach clients on 1 on 1 to create a more calm, relaxing, intentional life. The first step is to set up a complimentary discovery session right here.

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Want to learn more about me or my work? Head to my website at www.michellegauthier.com

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Music Used: Pop Guitar Intro 01 by TaigaSoundProd, Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licen

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CHAPTERS:

2:56 - Decide on Your Routine

6:01 - Set Realistic Expectation About That Routine

7:36 - Plan Ahead and Ask for Help

11:56 - Do Less for More Success Tip

Some working moms hate back to school because they hate when their kids go back to school. That's not why I hate it. You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach. On this show we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life. Hello friend, thank you for joining me today.
Michelle Gauthier:
0:40
Did you know that back to school season is one of the most stressful times of the year for working moms? I bet you did. If you're a working mom, I bet you absolutely knew that was true. I have to say - I love my handsome man friend, and he's a dad, and he's a good dad, and I was telling him over the weekend that I was going to record this podcast about going back to school, and how to make it less stressful for working women, and he said, oh, I didn't realize that that was a stressful time of year for moms. It's like, of course you didn't. Oh, my gosh. Just proof number 978 that women are really managing the brunt of things when it comes to families. A t the beginning of this episode, I said that there are some moms who hate back to school because they love summer and they want it to go on forever and they want their kids to be home. That is not me. I don't know if that's you, but I love a good routine. So I love summer at the beginning, but then it starts to feel like a free fall, with new and different activities every week and by the end I'm so excited to get back to school and to get back into a routine. So, no matter why back to school is stressful or hard for you, today I just want to talk about this concept of back to school being kind of a seasonal overwhelm. It's just something that happens when school gets out, when school goes back in, and traditionally something that happens around the holidays and the end of the year, where for working moms, work just keeps going as usual, but there's so much to do and think about and plan, that is additional, that we have to manage at home.
Michelle Gauthier:
2:20
So in today's episode I'm going to look at three practical strategies to help make the back-to-school transition smoother and more manageable for you, including establishing a routine, setting realistic expectations about that routine, and then just looking at all the things that you need to do and trying to plan ahead where possible, and definitely not taking on all of it yourself. This can be true whether you have little kids going to preschool or a college kid going back for their second or third year of college. So the first thing that you want to do around back to school is decide on your routine. Now, some experts will say that if you're going to start your back to school routine, you should start it a few weeks early and start getting the family used to going to bed earlier and getting up earlier and having meals at certain times. I'm not going to do that. That sounds more stressful than just doing it the first week of school. However, if you have younger kids, little kids, and you need to start moving them to an earlier bedtime and practicing a morning routine where they have a routine of brushing their teeth and getting their shoes on and all that stuff, that might work for you. I'm not going to do that for my family because we have two teens and I'm going to actually get them involved in the routine, which I really recommend to you.
Michelle Gauthier:
3:42
Last year, my daughter chose to get up really early, like way earlier than necessary, because she really hates feeling rushed. So she'd get up early, get ready, and then, when she was ready, we'd have breakfast together and do the Wordle and Connections puzzles, the New York Times puzzles, and she'd leave at like 7:30. And then my son wanted to sleep until the last possible minute and have just enough time to shower and grab a protein shake to go, which he would drink on the way to school. So either one of these are fine with me. I think it's just helpful as a family to know how things should go, could go, and for you - I'm working from home and now both of my kids get to school on their own, so that is a huge luxury that I didn't have for many, many, many years - so for you, you might have a specific time that you need to be out the door so that you can be to work, d rop everyone off at school if you're the driver, whatever it is.
Michelle Gauthier:
4:37
Just start thinking now about what your routine is. If your kids went to school last year, if this isn't their first year of school, think about what worked and what didn't work. For example, something that didn't work for us was them packing their lunches. If they had to pack their lunch in the morning, it became always just a last minute thing that was stressful. So I basically said, you either have to pack your lunch the night before or you're buying lunch. So they just bought lunch most of the time.
Michelle Gauthier:
5:07
And as you're thinking through your routine, think about, based on the age of your kids, do you need an after school routine, like when my kids were little and I would have a nanny pick them up because I was working? I would have my nanny unpack their lunchboxes and then pack their lunches for the next day and put them in the fridge. That was a huge game changer for me. I never liked packing lunches. Any mom who loves packing lunches, kudos to you, but I never liked that. But now that my kids are older and they get themselves home from school on the bus or driving, I just ask them to put their backpacks away and have a snack and do whatever they want.
Michelle Gauthier:
5:41
But if you have different aged kids or you need to coordinate after school care or whatever you have to do, just think about the whole day and the routines that are needed in order to support you. Thinking about those ahead of time is super helpful because it can make things just a little bit less painful. Which brings me to the next point: setting realistic expectations about that new routine. So one trick I like to use is to think one month out. So, for example, my kids start school on August 18th and I know that by September 18th, one month out, we'll be a fairly well-oiled machine on this new routine. I expect that the first day of school will probably be pretty smooth - everyone will be willing to wake up, and put on a cute outfit, and eat their breakfast. But by the end of the first week the wheels will be coming off. Everyone will be tired, including me, and I'm just going to expect that. So I'm going to expect that us getting into a smooth routine will take about 30 days and then that way, if it takes 14 days, great, that's a bonus. But I kind of have that September 18th date in my head as, things should be feeling better by then. This is a great trick to use, by the way, as a side note for any time when you have a major change. I also recommend this to my clients who are coming back from maternity leave.
Michelle Gauthier:
7:04
When you go back to work after maternity leave, no matter how good your routine is or how much you plan ahead, it's just gonna suck, frankly. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be different, you're gonna miss your baby, etc. But if you tell yourself, in a month this will start to feel better, and if it doesn't feel better in a month, then that is when you really need to start paying attention to it. Okay, that was a random aside, but that trick of looking a month out and giving yourself a month to adjust to a new situation is definitely a good one. All right, last point, point three is to plan ahead where you can and ask for help. So if you just think about all the things that you need to do in order to help your kids get back to school, the list is pretty dang long, and it really doesn't matter how old your kids are.
Michelle Gauthier:
7:53
Like clothes, everybody usually does a little back to school clothes shopping, except my son who doesn't care at all and will just wear whatever he has. Then you've got to think about the backpack, a lunchbox. Does anybody need a new one? Do they need to be cleaned? One year I put away the end of school lunchbox and backpack without realizing there was a lunch in there. So a couple days before the first day of school, I got to clean that out. That was disgusting. Hope you don't have that situation.
Michelle Gauthier:
8:23
School supplies: even big kids, college kids etc, have school supplies. Personally, I love back to school shopping for school supplies. I wish I was going back to school so I could get all those fun things. But if you don't love that, I was really impressed, our school had this year that you could buy all of your school supplies and they had all these different links, so you could buy them on Amazon, you could buy them on walmart. com, whatever. So if that works better for you and you don't have a kid who loves school supply shopping, like one of mine does, then just do it online. Stocking up on snacks or lunch food, getting physicals scheduled, haircuts, school paperwork you have to fill out, looking at the school calendar, maybe syncing that to your calendar, writing down the important dates, putting lunch money in their account, finish up or, in our case, start summer reading, setting up before and after school care, going over your pick-up plan, having rules for after school. If you're the kind of mom who likes to have great back to school, first day photos with like their grade and what they want to be when they grow up,
Michelle Gauthier:
9:36
you know thinking through that and getting all that done. So I think, as you think through that list, think which of these things are most important to me and which of these things do I specifically need to do and where can I ask for help. So, for example, my son doesn't care at all about back to school shopping. He's happy if I just get his stuff online. He already bought himself a new backpack, so he's got the backpack. Good to go on that. My daughter loves the back-to-school shopping and this weekend her dad took her and got her a bunch of the stuff. So that was not something that I needed to do.
Michelle Gauthier:
10:09
With the back-to-school calendar and all the school events that are already planned, I just sync them to my calendar so I automatically have those show up. For summer reading, I just assign that to my son this week to listen to his book for one hour a day and I can just check on the app instead of having to bug him all the time. So just think about for each one of those activities, do you really have to be the one to do that? And if you do, hopefully you can make some time, set aside some time for it. But if you don't and you have a partner or a grandparent or somebody else who would like to help you with that, ask for help where needed and remember that you don't have to do everything.
Michelle Gauthier:
10:52
In summary, if you really want to make back to school easier for yourself and your kids, because we know that the mom sets the tone for the family and when we're stressed out, our kids are stressed out, and I think, by nature, most kids, even if they love school, feel like a little bit of stress and anxiety when they're going back to the first day. It's usually, you know, new teachers, new schedule, maybe even a new school if they're going from middle school to high school or whatever. So the more calm you can be, the better your family will feel, and you can do that by establishing your routine early. Get the kids involved in that, setting realistic expectations that this won't suck in a month, even if it sucks right now, and planning ahead and asking other people for help. If you do those three things, I think that you will feel much more calm and satisfied as we transition into fall.
Michelle Gauthier:
11:43
Stick around for my Do Less For More Success Tip. Okay, here is my tip for this week for doing less for more success: when you get an email that you don't want to read anymore - so, for example, I will often subscribe to something like when I was buying things for our trip to Europe this summer and I was trying to find the perfect fanny pack that I wanted to bring as a sling bag on the trip, I subscribed to emails from a couple places so that I could get the 15% off coupon. I ended up buying one. I absolutely loved it. I'm so glad I did, but I no longer need to receive emails from that company and they send like five a week. So when you get an email, take two seconds to say do I want to read this in the future? Is this something that I want to keep getting every week? And if it's not, just quickly click unsubscribe. I think in order to look at your whole inbox and do this whole big unsubscribe thing would feel like a lot. But if you just get one email and you say you know what, I actually don't need to subscribe to this one, you unsubscribe right away. Over time, if you pick up that habit, you will get many less emails, which to me just feels good.
Michelle Gauthier:
13:05
Thank you so much for listening today. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with the other moms who are feeling stressed out and busy going back to school. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. I would really appreciate if you could take a few minutes to do that. Have a great back to school season. See you next week. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com. See you next week.