Back-to-School: A Family Therapist's Perspective

Sep 19, 2025
4 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

by Dr. Jenna Scott, LMFT

As a working mom of three young kids, the start of a new school year is bittersweet. On one hand, I enjoy spending more time with my kids over the Summer and the trips we take as a family. I'm going to miss the extra sunlight, our evening swims, and the slower mornings. But after a Summer full of the “working parent shuffle” with camps, shorter work windows and logistical gymnastics to cover the weeks when camps are not offered, I also crave the structure and routine that the school year brings.

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I work with many parents in my private therapy practice. Back-to-school season is full of promise and excitement. But it also comes with many challenges for families, especially in the early weeks. Below, I outline a few common struggles and share some visual tools and emotion regulation strategies. These are strategies that I use with my own children (ages 3, 5, & 7).

Common Back-to-School Stressors

1. Difficulty with Transitions:

Transitions are challenging and take time. For some families, Summer might have meant slow mornings and fewer demands. Shifting to early alarms, packed lunches, and more demanding schedules is a big change, especially for sensitive or neurodivergent children.

What helps:

Predictable routines (Check out my Visual Schedules for Morning and Evening below)
Empathy & compassion for the adjustment. You are holding a lot of space for your kids' big feelings. I encourage you to give yourself grace too.
Building in downtime after school and on weekends
Lowering expectations for the first few weeks as everyone adjusts
Adopting confidence that you and your child will get into a rhythm with time.

2. Restraint Collapse

Restraint collapse refers to the emotional “meltdown” that happens when kids let go after a full day of holding it together. At school, they’ve been following rules, managing impulses, focusing on work, navigating social situations for 7+ hours. Home is their safe space, so it’s also where their big emotions tend to spill out.

What restraint collapse might look like in your child:

Irritability
Whining or clinging
Crying
Refusal to talk
Seeming withdrawn (wanting to spend alone time in room)

How to support your child:

Offer calm connection, not questions or correction.
- “Looks like you’ve had a really big day. I’m here.”
Allow decompression time before jumping into homework or chores (My kiddos like to swing, ride bikes and climb trees in our yard).
Create after-school rituals: snack, quiet time, movement, or play.
Help label their feelings without trying to fix everything: You can reference my How are You Feeling Chart below

Acknowledge that they’re not giving you a hard time; they’re having a hard time. Try not to take your child’s emotions personally.
Help your child engage in some healthy emotion regulation: You can reference my Emotion Regulation Strategies below

3. Illness

Whenever groups of children come together, so do germs. On average, school-aged children get 6 to 10 viral infections per year. Even if your child loves school, their immune system might need time to catch up.

What you can do:

Anticipate illness and have the illness essentials on hand (medicine, crackers, electrolyte drinks, popsicles).
Have a conversation with your spouse or co-parent and a plan for who will take off of work when illness strikes. Discussing expectations and a plan can prevent resentment if one person is always the one to re-arrange their work schedule.
Illness triggers anxiety for a lot of folks (like many of the clients I work with, I like to be in control). In situations you can't control, it may be helpful to practice radical acceptance. When you can't change something, try to adopt some positive/healthy coping. Here are some mantras I teach to clients:
- “I can handle stress.”
- “Missing work to take care of my child is reasonable.”
- “I can’t always control what happens, but I can control how I respond.”
- It's also helpful for me to focus on the positive parts, like more time with my kids and more snuggles.

Conversations with Co-parents

Another back-to-school conversation that is useful involves checking in with your co-parent. If you all are living together, it’s a good time to discuss who is doing what: drop off, pick up, dinner prep, homework help, reading school emails, school events, etc.. I see a lot of resentment build up with couples in therapy when the “load” doesn’t feel fair. This is a conversation that should happen often, and I often recommend weekly check-ins with couples who are also parents.

Free, Printable Tools I’m Using with my Children:

To help my 5- and 7-year-olds feel more settled and in control, I created simple handouts and visual aids. These can foster independence, help reduce power struggles and support healthy emotional regulation.

Included PDFs:

Morning Routine Checklist (below)

Afternoon & Evening Routine Checklist (below)

Emotion Regulation Strategies
"How are you Feeling" Visual Chart

Final Thoughts

If you are struggling with some of the typical back-to-school challenges, you aren’t alone. Even though I am a Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in supporting young parents, I also experience the same challenges as the families I work with in my private therapy practice. The good news it that the start of school doesn’t have to be picture-perfect to be meaningful, and it is never too late to adopt some strategies to help your family get into a better groove.

I’m cheering you on!

Take care,

Dr. Jenna Scott