Nothing Has Gone Wrong: A Working Mom's Guide to Back-to-School Emotions

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Back-to-school season can bring out some BIG emotions, and not just for our kids. Between the meltdowns, changing routines, and the bittersweet reality of watching our kids grow up, it can be easy to wonder what’s gone wrong. In this episode, I’m sharing the mindset shift that changed everything for me: nothing has gone wrong. What if instead of trying to fix all the messy emotions, we simply gave ourselves and our kids permission to feel them?  

In this episode, we unpack: 

  • Why back-to-school transitions can trigger BIG emotions for kids and parents 

  • The pattern I finally noticed after three years of back-to-school meltdowns 

  • Why your child’s emotions are not a reflection of you as a mom 

  • How accepting emotions instead of trying to fix them changes how you show up 

  • Why curiosity and experimentation can make parenting through transitions feel lighter  

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Transcript

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Well, welcome back, working moms. We are in the third episode of a series around back to school and the fall transition season. Certainly, you don't have to have listened to the last couple of episodes. I mean, definitely go do that, but we're not building on anything. These are three topics around the back-to-school fall transition season.

Again, even if you don't have kids that are going into school, so you don't really experience back to school, the fall transition season or transitions generally, listen to this whole episode with that frame of mind because it's really going to unlock something for you if you can understand the pattern that happens within transition seasons.

But I'm going to frame a lot of this through the lens of back to school and into the fall because that's true for so many of my listeners, for sure.

What Back-to-School Transitions Can Teach Us About Seasons of Change

So I want to kick this off by talking about when my daughter was going into transitional kindergarten, in TK. So she was four going on five, my son was two, so how long ago was that? I guess we're talking about eight years ago at this point.

So about eight years ago, I'll never forget that very first back-to-school barbecue that we attended, like that first week of school where all the families come on Friday and they grill burgers and things like that. We actually just had that at our current school.

“Has Your Child Been Overtaken by Aliens?” The Back-to-School Meltdowns Begin

So this was my first one. My kid is going into TK. She's my oldest. I remember chatting with a couple of other parents going, "Has your child been overtaken by aliens?" Because I certainly think that mine has.

We were experiencing meltdowns and tantrums and behavior that we had not been seeing from our daughter before, or we hadn't seen in a really long time. It was all just happening in this moment. I don't remember everything that she was doing. I don't remember the behavior specifically, but I do remember the conversations with parents and having several of them go, "Mmm-hmm, I know what you're talking about." So I knew I definitely wasn't alone in this.

And then I remember the next year was actually COVID, so odd year, but she was still a part of a kindergarten pod that was run by a teacher. So she still went somewhere every day for school. My son was entering into his first year of preschool. Again, same thing. Did this kid get abducted by aliens? Is this even my kid?

The meltdowns, the tantrums, the crazy things that was going on for her? It was like aliens had overtaken her. That's the best way I can describe it.

And then the next year, going into first grade, guess what? Same thing. And it wasn't until then that I literally was after that season, I remember. And first, it was like the third year it happened in a row. I stopped and went, "Hold on. This seems to always happen around school. I wonder if this is just a really challenging time for her and for kids."

Once You Recognize the Pattern, You Can Prepare for the Transition

Hey, guess what? Turns out it's a pattern for so many of us. And now I saw my son start to go through it at that same season as he was heading into kindergarten. Oh my gosh.

And while my daughter now experiences a lot less of that kind of back-to-school transition emotion, my son definitely does. But it took three years for me to sort of figure that out and to see the same thing happen year after year to the point where my husband and I can now, late July, early August, as we're starting to think about back to school, we can remind each other and be like, "Hey, remember, this is the hard season. Be prepared for bigger emotions and bigger tantrums and our kids' neediness more than they did before." It was getting so habitual with such a pattern that we could actually anticipate it.

Back-to-School Transitions Are Hard on Our Kids, but What About Us?

Transitions are really hard on our kids. They don't like transitioning really from anything, whether we're talking about from being awake to being asleep or from playtime to mealtime or from being home to going to school. It doesn't really matter what the transitions are. Our brain doesn't like the process of transitioning. It likes a state of homeostasis, like, all of the time, which means keep everything the same.

Back to school is just a season of constant transitions. It makes sense that it comes with resistance and tantrums and meltdowns and behavior that we don't often see from our kids as they are dealing with emotions that they don't often experience that are taking place during this transitional time.

I don't know about you, but I hear people talk about going back to school and the back-to-school transition. It's been flooded in my social media and even in articles and things that I'm seeing cross by. It's all focused on really helping our children transition from summer to school and how to make it easier and the tips and tricks that come along with that.

I don't want to discount any of that, but what about us? This back-to-school season is challenging for us too. We are experiencing a lot of emotions ourselves, just as our kids are experiencing emotions.

Of course, some of it is because of our kids' emotions. We have emotions when our kids have emotions. Some of it is that, but some of it is just our own.

Back to School Brings Big Emotions for Moms, Too

I remember on the first day of school, my friend came up to me and her eyes were all puffy and red. I could tell she was crying, and I just gave her the biggest hug, and I was like, "Oh, sweetheart, it's the first day of school." She's like, "My baby is going." She felt so many emotions about our kids growing up.

It is really hard every single school year to watch our kids get older and older and older. Not because there's anything wrong. I mean, for no other reason except our kids get older and we have feelings about that.

I remember experiencing something similar every time I would transition my daughter's clothes from one size to the next size, from newborn to three months, to six months, to a year, whatever. Every time I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, she is getting so big." I'd have all of these emotions, all of these feelings for it.

Then, of course, on top of that, the transition into the fall also tends to bring schedule and rhythm shifts as well. Not just with school, but oftentimes with fall sports and activities. Literally, the family unit shifts internally, like household management shifts.

You have to build new structures and rhythms to get kids out of the door on time with all of their things. You're expecting your kids to up their game in executive functioning, some of which are very capable of that, and others are not.

Everything Is Normal. Nothing Has Gone Wrong.

There's just so many reasons why we, as the parent, would be experiencing so much emotion. I know this episode is coming out at the end of August. Maybe the last couple of weeks for you specifically have been really challenging, either because you have already gone back to school and you've gone through that transition, or maybe it's coming up in the next week or so, or maybe it's just been this season, whatever it is.

I just want you to pause for a moment, just for a second, and tell yourself, "Everything is normal. Nothing has gone wrong."

I don't know about you, but what I like to tell myself when my kids are in the middle of a meltdown is definitely something is wrong. I did something wrong. They shouldn't be doing this.

When you're in the middle of your kids resisting or your kids that used to be able to get themselves dressed, all of a sudden can't get themselves dressed in this kind of transition period, our first response, mine is, "Something's wrong. Something's wrong with them. I'm doing something wrong. I'm a terrible mom. This shouldn't be happening."

It's so, so common to have that mindset when there is challenge, when there are big emotions, either from our children or from ourselves. We like to label all big emotions, whether positive or negative, as bad, as wrong. It's like something's wrong, right?

And if anything, I want you to walk away from this episode assured that, one, you are not alone, and that it is very, very normal for your kids to have emotions and for you to have emotions, and there to be struggle in the middle of a transition season.

“It’s All Okay. It’s All Normal. Nothing Has Gone Wrong.”

And I don't know where you are, but if you could put your hand over your heart for just a moment, take a big deep breath, whether things are going great for you in this moment, or you are in a particularly challenging day, season, week, moment, whatever it is, take a big deep breath with your hand over your heart and say, "It's all okay. It's all normal. Nothing has gone wrong."

Can you feel that shift? I don't know about you, but when I remind myself, nothing's gone wrong. In fact, I'm doing lots of things right, and my kids' emotions are not a comment on me as a mom and me as a parent, like my whole energy shifts, right?

Not only do I show up better for my kids, but I show up better for myself. I stop sacrificing myself for them and for everyone else around me, right? I protect my me time, my rest time. I give myself permission to be a human and to have emotions, right? To let things be a little bit confusing or hard for a while, and not trying to fix every little thing.

So I want you to give yourself permission right now for things to be a little bit messy in this transition, for emotions to be a little bit messy. You don't have to go on a big deep-dive hunt to figure out why you're feeling what you're feeling. We could just accept it. Here we are.

What If You Treated Parenting and Transitions Like an Experiment?

When it comes to all parenting, as it at least occurs to me, and also as we navigate seasons of transitions, like from summer to school, most of the time, it's an experiment. Okay?

There's no manual here to navigate the transitions in our children, right? And I wonder what would happen if you spend more time being curious and in experimentation mode instead of trying to get it right and trying to manage every little emotion and trying to prevent every little meltdown with your kids, and instead just had the spirit of trying things, learning, figuring out what works, and trying again.

What If All of Your Emotions Were Okay?

What do you think would be different for you if that was your energy? What if all the emotions that come from your children and for yourself are okay during this season? Everyone was allowed to feel whatever it is they want to feel and respond to this change season in whatever way their body responds. What if it was just all okay?

If you stopped trying to prevent your kids from having meltdowns and strong emotions, and you stopped trying to prevent your own sadness, yes, sadness often comes with transition, how much lighter would life be if you stopped resisting it?

If you were in one of my programs and you worked with me, one of the things you would hear me say time and time again is that all emotions are okay. They are neither positive or negative. They're not good or bad. They're not right or wrong.

We like to label emotions as being kind of negative and positive, which usually what we're really saying at the end of the day is negative emotions. Like they just don't feel really good to us. They don't have a good physical experience in our bodies. Emotions like overwhelm or stress or sadness, disappointment, failure, all of them, what if they were all okay and it was okay to feel them?

What if you actually wanted your kids to feel and experience all of them? What if?

Brooke Castillo is a coach that I followed a long time ago as I was starting my coaching practice, and she likes to say that life is 50/50. It's 50% on the good-feeling emotions and about 50% on the not-so-good-feeling emotions.

What if it was just okay to feel both ends of the spectrum because it was evidence that you're living a full life, that you're going after lots of good things? What if it was evidence of all of the joy and achievements you've created in your life?

So what I want to offer to you today is that whatever emotions you're experiencing today or over the last few weeks or in this season, no matter how long it lasts, all of them are okay and normal.

Everything Shifted When I Stopped Judging the Transition

This is a very simple message of this podcast episode today, but it's really been on my heart to share, remembering back to those early years of my daughter and starting school and going year after year thinking my daughter was like a monster and overtaken by aliens, right? For like six weeks out of the year, wondering what was wrong and what I was doing wrong.

Everything shifted as I started to anticipate her emotions and her challenge and my own. When I stopped judging her and myself for the experience of the transition, everything started to shift.

I started to show up differently for her. I was able to be more steady. I was able to be more compassionate. I was able to troubleshoot differently. I was able to stay calm. I was able to feel great as a parent because of how I was responding to her.

It's all okay. It's all normal.

And so I encourage you, if you haven't listened to the last few episodes of the podcast, I really do go back. Each episode in the series, it's really, they're not very long episodes, but they're going to help you have a really great fall back-to-school season, which, of course, is setting you up for a great holiday season and close of the year.

Your Kids Don't Have to Get the Leftovers of Your Energy

So I want to take a moment and remind you that you also don't have to do this alone. If you are not experiencing the joy and success that you want as an ambitious working mom, this is what I do as a coach.

I help high-achieving women experience massive growth and success in their career, if that's what you want, and experience at the same time, balance and joy and presence in being home. Your kids do not have to get the leftovers of your energy or your presence.

You do not have to sacrifice all of yourself to get the results and the success that you want to achieve. There is another way, and I can help you get there.

Finish the Year Strong Without Sacrificing Your Work-Life Balance

If you are at all intrigued by that idea, finishing the year strong and learning a repeatable process to help you remain successful and balanced, I encourage you to schedule a free strategy call.

This is a no-commitment call. You and I are going to get on the call just one-on-one. We're going to talk about a vision for your life. We're going to cast vision. We're going to figure out the obstacles on you achieving that vision, and then I'll lay out for you all of the possibilities of what coaching could look like so you can make a really informed decision on if this is the next step for you.

There is a link in the show notes to that 30-minute strategy call. Do be sure to take me up on that. It is free, and I would love to connect with you as you enter into this fall stretch and into the end of the year.

Working moms, all emotions are okay. You are a great parent. Nothing has gone wrong. Until next week, let's get to it.

Start Your Day with More Calm, Focus, and Confidence

If you wake up most days spinning with a hundred different priorities vying for your attention, then the Daily Kickstart is exactly what you need.

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This daily practice is the same tool I offer to all my clients, and it's going to show you exactly how to lead your day instead of react to it. It takes just 10 minutes a day, and the impact will ripple through everything, your mood, your energy, your presence with your kids, and how you lead at work.

My clients indicate time and time again that this tool was the one that made the biggest difference for them. And I'm offering it to you totally free.

You can download it by going to www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/daily-kickstart.  And of course, I'll have that for you in the show notes as well. All right, working moms, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson