End of Year Burn Out
Like many of you, I am a member of many social media communities for parents, carers and teachers of neurodivergent kids.
And as the end of the year approaches, so many posts seem to have the similar themes:
His behaviour seems to be getting so much worse…
She is refusing to go to school.
My kid just got suspended for the fifth time this year.
Maybe we need to change meds? It's like they have stopped working.
I don’t know what to do. Help!
As the end of year approaches so many neurodivergent kids enter burnout. For my eldest son Term 4 (here in Australia) has been a write off since he started school a few years ago. Wherever you are in the world, as the end of year approaches these wonderful magic-brain kids get TIRED. Autistic brains take in 40% more information and input than their neurotypical peers. It must be exhausting.
But this year we were determined to not end the year in a death spiral - because when our kid entered burn out, so did we. And this makes it near impossible to parent and help your child when they are struggling. We were all pulling our hair out trying to figure out how to support him, keep him (and other students) safe and make it to the holidays.
And I can honestly say that this year my kid has thrived compared to what has come before. Yes, there have been moments, but right now we are a few weeks from the end of the year and he is still going to school every day (other than planned breaks, as opposed to emergency calls from the school to come and get him). This time last year that was definitely not the case.
So, what did we do? Below is some of our end of year strategy for our AuDHDer:
We stopped some extra curriculars (only keeping the low demand ones), even opting out of school assemblies, sports and other large group activities
We identified the most challenging environments for our kid (in our case Before School Care) and stopped attending
We planned mental health days ahead of time to ensure it worked best for school and our work schedules
We lowered demands and we gave more flex within routines e.g. more safe foods, more down time
If your child is in burn out please be kind to yourself. Identify which strategy is the low hanging fruit - maybe something simple like safe foods, and start taking manageable steps. As I always say, you’ve got this.