The reasons kids shut down before summer break

As the school year winds down, many kids start to burn out. They might lose motivation, feel big emotions, or struggle to follow their usual routines. In this episode, you’ll learn why behaviors like shutdowns and meltdowns are signals, not problems, and what to do about them. Plus, get tips to lower stress levels, reset after tough moments, and help your child finish the year strong.

• Listen: What is a “good summer” for kids with learning disabilities?

• Listen: How to make summer learning fun

• Read: School burnout in kids who learn and think differently

• Read: 6 signs your child is burned out

Julian Saavedra: Summer is a few short weeks away. And your kid, who held it together most of the year, is suddenly falling apart. They're refusing to do homework, they're just shutting down. Maybe they're melting down over things that never used to really be a big deal. Honestly, by this time of year, a lot of kids are just straight done. Guess what? So are parents. So are teachers. Everybody's just done.

But for kids who learn and think differently, they may even have a bigger reason to be done with school. And once you understand it, you'll have a much better sense of how to actually help. Welcome to "The Opportunity Gap," a show where we talk about how to navigate the education system. I'm your host, Julian, an assistant principal with over 20 years of experience. Today, we're going to talk about when your kids are done for the year. Why it's normal and what you can do at home to help them get through these last few weeks.

So as I said, we're going to be talking about what end-of-year burnout looks like. There's a bunch of very clear-cut signs. This could be — your kids are really irritable or there's a lot of negativity. And that could be the "I don't want to go to school today." That could be refusing to do any homework that they normally love to do. That could be taking their very sweet time to get themselves ready to get on the bus.

That could even be emotional outbursts too. These are all things that could be related directly to what they're experiencing at school. And so the question really is, well, what is going on in this moment? Couple of key things. So up until now, a lot of our kids might have been masking the frustration they're feeling. Typically, kids with ADHD and learning and thinking differences, they have to work really hard to keep things together during the school day.

So by the time they get home from school, they are exhausted. And they might even be tired of hiding how hard they've been working. Let's compound that over the course of eight, nine, or 10 months. And at this point, some of these small frustrations that they've been holding inside — they start to feel unbearable. And that's when they can't hold it in anymore. So if you're seeing any of these behaviors, it's not a problem with your child; it's a signal.

So here's one thing that I definitely want to point out. Teachers, administrators, everybody at school — a lot of times we notice this burnout too. Here's what we're doing at school to help. A big one that I know a lot of middle schools, high schools, and even now in younger grades — we make sure that funner activities are happening towards the end of the year. Projects. Now for our kids with learning and thinking differences, sometimes projects can cause a lot of anxiety because it's a lot of stuff to do.

But in some cases, it also causes a lot of joy because it's a way for our children to show their learning in a different modality. A project with a clear-cut set of directions and a clear product — it really helps to switch things up so that the monotony of the school year is not the same. And that can be a great way to address some of the burnout. There might also be a lot more check-ins about how our kids are feeling.

On a scale of one to five, five being great, one being you're a little tired, show me with your fingers how you're feeling. You might hear things like that happening in the school day. One of the things that I really recommend for a lot of my teachers is — make sure that you're giving children an opportunity to show maturity and responsibility. That's a great way to break up some of the routine and allow for our children to have something to look forward to.

So I'm a big believer in assigning kids jobs. And this is something you can do in school, but you can also do at home. I know my daughter — she's super excited. My daughter is 10, and she was nominated to be a member of the safety team. So she got a really cool reflecting sash that she gets to wear once a week and she gets to walk the hallways during one of the class periods and make sure that kids are going to class and making sure that kids are being nice to each other.

Now that's not something she got to do in the beginning of the year, but during the spring, she and a few of her friends have been able to do that. And it's been such a breath of fresh air for her. Because she's so excited that, all right, even if I'm feeling a little burnt out from school, on Thursdays when it's my day to be safety, I got to be prepared. And little things like that where it gives a little bit of extra responsibility — it can make all the difference in the end of their school year.

(04:52) The concept of positive narration as a tool for teachers and parents to combat burnout.

Julian: Another thing that you might see teachers doing is something called positive narration. It's a great way to help address burnout. Positive narration is when, instead of saying what a child is doing wrong, you're narrating what the child is doing correctly. And you're giving very specific terms for how they're doing it and why they're doing it. So a lot of times you might hear yourself or a teacher say, "Good job. You got it right. Excellent."

Well, what's good about it? It doesn't give specificity for the child. They don't know what they did good; they just hear the word "good" or "great," but they're not sure what that means. So positive narration — it turns that around and gives a very specific bit of feedback in the moment to reinforce something that the child is doing well. That could be, "Wow, you're awake on time, your hair is brushed, your teeth are brushed, and you're completely ready for school."

So instead of saying, "Hey, great job being on time," you're giving very specific feedback on what actions they've done well. And for our children with ADHD and other learning and thinking differences, giving that specificity — it really, really helps. So positive narration is also something that you're going to hear a lot more of when children are experiencing burnout. Last thing that I would recommend — and this can go for both home and school — pile on those extra incentives.

The end of the year is supposed to be an enjoyable time. It's the time when all your school trips are happening or maybe there's carnivals or field days or some other big experience that schools try to fit in in those last couple months. Now for some kids, that's a really big motivating factor for them. "Hey, guess what? Your field day is happening in two weeks. Aren't you so excited?" I know my son — he's going on a camping trip.

So that's been really a big focus for our conversations at home. Like we're going camping with our whole class, so we got to practice getting ourselves prepared. We've added timers into the morning routine because, you know, we don't want to be the slow ones when we're getting ready in the morning when we're camping. And so if we're adding in some of these upcoming events into our daily conversation, it's a great way to again address some of the burnout that our kids might be experiencing. And especially for our younger kids, we want to make sure that we're recognizing all the positive things they've done, but we also want to make sure that they understand we can support them as they're pushing through.

(07:21) Actionable strategies for parents to manage their children's stress at home as the school year ends.

Julian: All right, last thing. And let's think about all those things I listed at the beginning of the episode. Your child is not getting up on time, your child is giving you some lip when they talk back to you, they're not feeling so great about school. And it's happening right now and it's happening every day. And you're listening to this and you're like, "Julian, what am I going to do? I want to add all these incentives and do positive narration, but right now, I just need to get this child to school and I need to make sure that they're on point for making the year end strong."

So here's a couple of things that you can do right now — like tonight, tomorrow. Number one, lower the temperature. Take out the things that are nonessential. It is okay to let your kids off the hook a little bit to help with some of the stress that they're feeling. Don't jump down their throat because they didn't get everything done. If they missed a homework assignment — it's okay, they're in fourth grade; it's not going to be the end of the world. Don't take away the routines completely, but it's okay to break a little bit of that if you're noticing that your child is super stressed out.

Secondly, prioritize emotional reset. Now what do I mean by that? That's a pretty big lofty term, but looking at — a big blowout might happen or some kind of big energy is happening, some big feelings are happening — reset. Go outside. Do something fun as a family. Do some games. Do something to reset the energy. And most importantly, every day is a fresh start. Don't hold on to what happened yesterday and bring that into today.

You might want to address it really quickly, but then focus on the here and now. And this could sound like, "I know that yesterday was a little rough, I know that we had some big feelings, but today is going to be a fresh start. Let's think about what are a couple things we want to get done today together." So there's a way that you can reframe it instead of going right back to how they were feeling the day before. And you can even incorporate some of that positive narration from the very start.

And last but not least, make sure that you talk to the school. And it could be a quick email, it could be a quick phone call. It doesn't have to be a formalized meeting or anything, but just reach out. So this could be a teacher, this could be a guidance counselor, this could be one of the administrators, this could be a case manager, a coach — somebody at school — and check in with them to see how things are going.

Then that can be the start of a conversation about, "Hey, what are you seeing at school?" If school is seeing something different than home, then that's when you can ask, "Well, what are you guys doing at school? Maybe I can try some of that at home." So all that to say, burnout is a normal thing. You are not failing as a parent. You are doing great. It is normal; it happens. And especially for our kids who have ADHD or who learn and think differently, things are going to get a little bit difficult.

And that's okay. Talk to your child's teacher about ways that you can both support them but also help them go through the end of the year. And if you're looking for some more info about what to do over the summer break, we have a lot of past episodes on "Summer Learning" and something called "Summer Slide" that you can check out on Understood.org.

Thanks for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners. So if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at opportunitygap@understood.org. And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode. This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia.

If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give. "The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Julie Subrin and Gretchen Vierstra. Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DiMartino. Briana Berry is our production director. Jordan Davidson is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key and Scott Cocchiere. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, OG family.