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Back-to-school prep for ADHD families starts with you. Simple decisions to make now, from meals to meds to bedtime, so you start the year less loaded and more regulated.

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It's late July. The kids are still in swimsuits, but the back-to-school bins are already at Walmart, and the school emails are landing. You know it in your bones: if you're stressed, everyone's stressed. So before we prep the kids or the teachers, this first episode is about you.

This kicks off a three-part back-to-school series, and Part 1 is all about taking weight off your shoulders before the year starts. I walk through the two battle zones where school stress hits hardest (mornings and evenings), then give you the small, decide-it-once moves that quietly lighten the load: setting your school breakfasts and lunches on rotation, the launch pad and weekly clothes systems, outsourcing groceries and repeat purchases, handling the med check and school form now instead of on day one, and easing bedtime back in 10-minute shifts instead of one brutal Sunday night. The principle underneath all of it: support what your child's brain and your brain need, and let go of what neither one does. Pick one or two of the heaviest rocks and move them now.

Inside this episode

• The Raising ADHD™ principle for back-to-school: support what your brain and your child's brain need, and let go of the rest.
• How to find your worst battle zone, mornings or evenings, so you focus your energy in one place.
• Decide breakfast once: build a short rotation that cuts decision load and makes grocery shopping easier.
• The launch pad method and the weekly clothes organizer, plus why doing it at night beats doing it in the morning.
• How to end the daily lunch negotiation by deciding home-lunch and school-lunch days ahead of time.
• Outsourcing that protects your nervous system: grocery delivery and subscriptions for the repeat items you always run out of.
• The two ADHD-specific tasks to knock out this week: the medication check and the school medication form.
• How to reset bedtime without a fight by shifting 10 to 15 minutes a night, dimming lights, and easing screens and reading back in.
• The one rule to close: pick one or two changes that take the biggest load off you, and let the rest go.

Timestamps

00:00 Late July, the in-between, and why this episode is about you
02:56 The one principle: support what the brain needs, drop the rest
05:09 Making mornings easier before school starts
14:00 Ending the daily lunch negotiation
18:39 Outsourcing groceries and repeat purchases
24:24 Med checks and school forms to handle now
26:48 Resetting bedtime without a fight
31:27 Pick one change and share it

Read the full transcript

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2531405/19557708-beat-back-to-school-burnout-the-adhd-mom-s-prep-plan-for-a-calmer-school-year/transcript

One thing to do next

Grab the free Morning Toolkit, the decide-it-once system for calmer school mornings, at raisingadhd.org/morning.

Coming up next week

Part 2 of the back-to-school series: getting your ADHD kid ready. We'll dig into the routines, regulation, and expectations that help them start the year steady, without you turning into a drill sergeant.

Resources and related episodes

Free Morning Toolkit: raisingadhd.org/morning
Free Executive Function Check-In quiz: raisingadhd.org/quiz
Ep38: ADHD Summer Survival, 5 Small Things Saving My Life Right Now
Ep34: The Best Daily Routine for a Child With ADHD (Summer Edition)
Ep9: The ADHD Bedtime Battle, Why Your Child Won't Sleep and How to Finally Fix It
Find me on Instagram: @raisingadhd_org

Hosts

I'm Apryl Bradford, a former classroom teacher with a master's in education and mom raising a child with ADHD, alongside my husband Dr. Brian Bradford, a child and adolescent psychiatrist.