Back-to-school season has a particular kind of energy: fresh notebooks, new schedules, new teachers, and new possibilities. And, for many parents, a creeping sense of dread.

If you are parenting a child with ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, learning differences, or other mental health challenges, the beginning of school may not feel like a clean slate. It may feel like the return of everything you were relieved to put down for the summer: morning battles, homework, school refusal, missing assignments, social worries, emails from teachers, appointments, sports, bedtimes, medication, IEPs, and the constant mental calculation of how much to push, when to step in, and when to let go.

You may already be tired—and school hasn’t even started. So before you make another color-coded calendar or buy another organizational system for your child, I want to suggest something different: start with you. Because one of the most powerful things you can do for your child this school year is get some of your own parenting mojo back.

Parents Are Under Pressure

In 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory called Parents Under Pressure, highlighting something parents have felt for years: parenting has become extraordinarily stressful. For parents raising neurodivergent children or children struggling with their mental health, that pressure is often amplified. There is more to monitor, more to advocate for, more uncertainty, more appointments, more emotional intensity, and often much more fear.

Will my child make friends? Will they keep up? Will the anxiety return? Will we fight about homework every night? Will they be okay? And underneath all those questions is often an even quieter one: Can I do this again?

I know that question personally. I’m the mother of three neurodivergent children and a therapist who has spent more than 25 years working with children, teens, and families. Yet some of the most important things I’ve learned about parenting didn’t come from my professional training. They came from the moments when my own family struggled.

Parenting neurodivergent kids has taught me that expertise doesn’t eliminate fear, frustration, exhaustion, or uncertainty. What helps is learning what to do with those emotions.

Your Emotions Aren’t Getting in the Way—They’re Giving You Information

We tend to think of motivation as something we either have or don’t have. But motivation isn’t magic. Emotions create energy, and energy fuels motivation.

That matters at the beginning of a school year because many parents try to motivate themselves by ignoring what they feel. We tell ourselves, Come on, get organized. We need to get back on track. This year is going to be different. But underneath that pep talk may be fear, sadness, anger, resentment, guilt, or plain old exhaustion.

Instead of bulldozing over those feelings, get curious about them. Fear may be telling you that last year was harder than you’ve fully acknowledged. Anger may be signaling that you’re carrying too much. Sadness may be reminding you how painful it is to watch your child struggle. Anxiety may be fear that has gotten hooked onto a hundred possible futures. And exhaustion may be telling you that your family doesn’t need a better performance this year—it needs a more sustainable system.

Feelings aren’t facts. But they are information. When we stop fighting them long enough to listen, emotions can help us understand what actually needs our attention. Sometimes getting your motivation back isn’t about pushing yourself harder. It’s about figuring out what has been draining your energy in the first place.

The Neurodivergent Parenting Paradox

Another part of back-to-school stress we don’t talk about enough is that neurodivergence runs in families. Many parents raising children with ADHD, autism, executive functioning challenges, or other differences are managing some of those same traits themselves, whether diagnosed or not.

Now think about what the school year asks parents to do. We have to plan, remember, schedule, transition, organize, anticipate, regulate emotions, monitor multiple systems, communicate with teachers, and somehow keep track of forms, sports, homework, appointments, medications, meals, and everyone’s missing water bottles.

In other words, raising a child with executive functioning challenges requires an extraordinary amount of executive functioning from the parent. Then we wonder why we’re overwhelmed.

This is why your goal this year doesn’t have to be becoming the perfectly organized parent. Instead, ask yourself: What do I need to function better this school year? What can I simplify? What can I stop doing? Where do I need support? Where am I overfunctioning? And where am I expecting myself to operate in ways that simply aren’t sustainable?

Your goal isn’t perfection. It’s creating enough capacity in yourself to be the parent your child needs.

Start the School Year With You

As backpacks get packed and alarm clocks get reset, resist the temptation to make your entire back-to-school plan about your child. Take a few minutes to check in with yourself, too.

What am I feeling as we enter this school year? What am I most worried about repeating from last year? What is taking the most energy from me right now? What could I simplify? What support do I need? And what is one thing I want to do differently this year?

Your child doesn’t need you to enter the school year fearless, perfectly organized, or ready for every problem that might arise. They need a parent who can notice what’s happening inside themselves, get curious, and make intentional choices about what comes next.

That’s how we begin to get our parenting mojo back—not by becoming perfect parents, but by becoming growing parents.

And that’s a much more sustainable way to start the school year.

Next up in our Back-to-School Parenting Mojo series: Before You Fix the Problem: Try the 4 Rs With Your Child.