Penny Williams [00: 00:01]:

When we are in that reactive space, we tend to only focus on putting out fires. That's all we can do because we have so many fires. But when we're proactive and we're prepping ahead of time, we're setting ourselves and our kids and our families up for success, there are less fires to put out.

Penny Williams [00: 00:23]:

Welcome to Beautifully Complex, where we unpack what it really means to parent neurodivergent kids with dignity and clarity. I'm Penny Williams and I know firsthand how tough and transformative this journey can be. Let's dive in and discover how to raise regulated, resilient, beautifully complex kids together.

Penny Williams [00: 00:42]:

Oh, and if you want more support.

Penny Williams [00: 00:45]:

Join our free community at Hub beautifullycomplex Life.

Penny Williams [00: 00:53]:

Hello. Hello, friends. Welcome back to Beautifully Complex. I am excited to have you here and today I'm gonna talk about Back to School. And I know that it is mid July, and traditionally, especially here in the United States, we don't go back to school until August, some even the first week of September. And so mid July might feel really early to you to be thinking about Back to school already, but a lot more students are in the year round schedule of school and they have these bigger breaks periodically throughout the year. And so they're sort of starting their new school year in mid or late July. And so we are going to dive into prepping for Back to School here in July so that those who are heading back will have these tools and strategies.

Penny Williams [00: 01:54]:

And for those who have some more time, you just have more prep time, right? We're starting that process early enough that that proactivity and that prep is going to be successful. It's going to be effective every year. Now in July, I do a Back to school prep week where we get online together and we complete these preparation activities and create tools and documents and strategies that are going to help us both with the transition back to school and with having a more successful school year. We're doing it all in real time together, so we're not just watching a workshop and then you have to go and implement and get it done. We are doing it together in real time. We are getting it done and checking boxes. And last year was the first year that I did it and people really enjoyed it, said it made a world of difference for them. So I am hosting that again this year in late July.

Penny Williams [00: 03:01]:

But in this podcast episode, I want to give you some of the strategies that we're going to work on in Back to School Prep week. I want you, whether you join us for prep week or not, to have some of these strategies that I sort of learned the hard way that I found really, really helpful, really useful, always. Of course, being proactive is more useful than being reactive and trying to put out fires. When we are in that reactive space, we tend to only focus on putting out fires. That's all we can do because we have so many fires. But when we're proactive and we're prepping ahead of time, we're setting ourselves and our kids and our families up for success. There are less fires to put out. There are not, none.

Penny Williams [00: 03:51]:

I'm not going to lie to you. There's always challenge. It ebbs and flows. But you will be set up for more success and less challenge, and so will your kid. So let's talk a little bit first about how I came to some of these strategies. You know, if you've been a listener here for a while, you know that I have a neurodivergent kid who is now, at the time of recording this 22. So we have finished that K12 public education, and it was very, very difficult. Very, very difficult.

Penny Williams [00: 04:27]:

He struggles with not only ADHD and autism spectrum, but also dysgraphia, also pretty extreme executive function deficits. Emotional regulation was often a problem because he did not feel seen, heard, understood, or any sense of belonging at school. And so there was a lot of emotion behind that and a lot of difficulty managing those feelings. So we got the diagnosis of ADHD toward the beginning of his first grade year. His teacher in first grade, if you've read my book Boy Without Instructions, you know she was an angel. I call her Miss Marvelous in the book. She was just so open to all different learning styles and recognized that challenging behavior was a signal of a need. And so she really worked with us to try different strategies to be more creative and flexible in expectations for him in the classroom and in the way that he learned and in the ways that he showed how he learned and what he was learning.

Penny Williams [00: 05:38]:

And so that was great. And I felt like I had some tools in my toolbox. I had some knowledge of what might be useful in the classroom. And so I decided to meet the second grade teacher ahead of the start of the school year. And she was so open to it. She was so open to accommodating him and doing whatever he needed, which was wonderful. Like, I was so relieved when we had this meeting a couple weeks before school started. And she had a student teacher in the classroom that year, too, and the student teacher was also there.

Penny Williams [00: 06:09]:

And they came up with all sorts of creative ways to help him to be successful in their classroom. And then school started, and we walked in the first day, and all the desks were in groups of like four or five. And then there were two desks over to the side that were taped off in the side that were for my kid. And she was trying to give him a lot of space, right? Because we talked about how his stuff was everywhere. And his first grade teacher had taped a rectangle to give him sort of this boundary for his stuff around his desk. And a boundary for if you're supposed to be at your desk doing seat work. If he was inside that tape, sitting on the floor, laying on the floor, whatever, if he was inside the tape and doing work, he was meeting the expectation. And so this teacher took it so much further, but actually to a point where my kid felt really isolated.

Penny Williams [00: 07:03]:

He felt even more like he didn't belong, right? And so she was really leaning into with all of her heart, trying to accommodate him and help him, but it was sort of so overzealous that it didn't keep an eye on making sure that he still had a sense of belonging to. And fortunately, she was very open to these conversations. And one morning I went in and I said, you know, he's just really feeling like he's isolated and like he doesn't fit and he doesn't belong. And I was wondering if I could help you and we could just move these desks really quick and find another spot for him. And she was like, absolutely. I'm so sorry. You know, she felt so bad. I'm like, please don't feel bad.

Penny Williams [00: 07:50]:

We're all trying to figure this out, right? We're all trying to figure out how to navigate this. And so going into his third grade was like, I'm not going to say a word. I'm just going to see what happens. And boy howdy, that was not an appropriate solution either. And so over time, I had to find that balance of how much to prep teachers without going too far, because they needed to experience him, they needed to get to know him, they needed to get to form a connection and relationship and see how that was going to play out. Not over months, but over a week or two with a little bit of information that we give them at the beginning and we work through in depth all of that in back to school prep week. But I'm going to give you just a few quick action strategies here in this episode so that you can get started on that whether you want to do prep week or not. So let's talk a little bit before we get into those quick wins.

Penny Williams [00: 08:55]:

Why back to school feels so hard for complex kids. It's not just that they struggle in school and that they don't want to be there because it's too hard. There's a whole lot more going on there. And that transition is also really hard. It's not just about getting up earlier or finding the right backpack, the perfect binder or planner. What's really going on underneath the surface is nervous system dysregulation. Big transitions, like going from free time in the summer to school routines and this more rigid schedule are full of unpredictability. They're starting a new school year.

Penny Williams [00: 09:40]:

They don't know what to expect. It's new teachers, it's new people, it's new students, it's new concepts that they're learning. It's new expectations. There's so much unpredictability there. And for kids with sensitive or neurodivergent nervous systems, that unpredictability can feel like danger. They do not feel safe. When things feel unpredictable, their brains go into high alert. What's expected of me? Who's my teacher? Will I remember where my classroom is? What if I mess up? What if I make a mistake? What if kids make fun of me? What if somebody's picking on me? On and on and on and on, Right? That's not just worry.

Penny Williams [00: 10:23]:

It's really survival mode, folks. Their emotional brain and survival brain are taking over and they are running the show. And then what does that mean for their thinking brain? It's checked out, it's dimmed, it's much, much, much less accessible, if accessible at all. Then we're going to layer on executive function, demands of a school day, time management, task initiation, emotional control, organization, working memory, social emotional layers to that also. And that's a lot for any kid. But for our kids, it can be completely overwhelming and cause shutdown. So when you see a meltdown, when you see that shutdown, if you see refusal to even go to school, I want you to please remember that that is not bad behavior. Because in my book there's no such thing as bad behavior.

Penny Williams [00: 11:21]:

It's dysregulation. But it's a nervous system that is sending a signal that it needs help. It's a signal that that child student needs help. It is not defiance. It's a mism between expectations and capacity, even biological capacity. Kids have to be available to learn. When they are dysregulated and their thinking brain is less available, if at all available, guess what? They might be in the classroom, they might even be still and quiet. They're not learning anything.

Penny Williams [00: 12:00]:

They're not learning anything. So the nervous system is very, very, very important here in our kids school experience and in that transition back to school. But back to school doesn't have to mean back to chaos. Only if we understand what's really going on. If we don't, if we're not looking deeper, it is totally going to be just back to chaos for you. That's exactly what we're going to unpack in more detail in back to school prep week. But right now I want to offer you a few quick tips so that you have some tools in your toolbox for back to school if you want to get deeper and get more. Of course, as I have said, you are welcome to join us for back to school prep week and I'm going to let you know how at the end of the episode.

Penny Williams [00: 12:50]:

So let's jump in. Quick tip number one, prepare the system, not just supplies, folks. Back to school isn't just getting the supply list and going to Walmart or Target and buying the supplies and being ready to send things in on the first day. Right? There's so much more preparation, especially, especially for neurodivergent kids. So we're preparing the system. What does that look like? Focusing on routines, making things more routine, making and creating rituals. We're building habits through doing that so we have less demand on executive functioning skills. We're using visual schedules.

Penny Williams [00: 13:35]:

I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference a visual schedule can make. Even for older kids, even for teens. It can be an icon instead of a picture, right? We can shift it to feel less juvenile if that's needed. But having checklists, having lists, having visual sort of icons that I can just glance and go, oh yeah, hygiene, it makes a difference. Especially when we're talking about executive functioning deficits. We also need to set up the home environment. Less clutter, less stuff, less chaos. Dimmer lights if that's a thing for your kid.

Penny Williams [00: 14:20]:

Softer sounds and tones if that is a need for your kid. We had an after school decompression ritual that really saved our evenings because if we came home and we did homework right away, it was not giving my kid a chance to recharge, to have his nervous system get regulated again, to have a break from the demands and the stress. And it was a complete and utter failure. There would be a meltdown, if not multiples, every single day. And then I transitioned into, okay, you can have some free time, we'll get a snack, we'll you know, decompress, but no screens, because I didn't think we could transition from the screens to homework. And over time, I realized my kid was telling me he needed to escape into electronics for a short period, maybe 30 minutes, so that his system could get back online. That was what worked for him. It may not work for your kid.

Penny Williams [00: 15:32]:

Your kid may love screens. They may never, ever transition to homework after you introduce a screen. But we were very clear about the expectation and the routine and that it was a short time period and you were expected to transition and take care of other things and then you could go back to that later if everything else was done. And that really, really helped. And I had to get over my own belief and assumption and mental block about screens before homework to find that thing that really actually was very helpful, despite the fact that I believe that it absolutely couldn't be. So think about, talk about with your kid. What does a break look like? What does recharging after school so that you have the ability to do homework look like? And if your kid doesn't have homework, if they're in a school that doesn't believe homework, then hallelujah, Amen. I am doing a happy dance for you and with you, because how I wish that was our reality, but it was not.

Penny Williams [00: 16:33]:

And this is true for everybody whether your kid has homework or not. Focus on relationship first. I had two rules when my kids were in school. Their mental health came first and our relationship came first. If homework didn't get done, fine. I don't care. Because my kids mental health, emotional health, and my relationship with them mattered more than anything else. I encourage you to take that same perspective and belief.

Penny Williams [00: 17:01]:

It really does make a huge difference. Preview your routines now or soon, before school starts. Set them up together with your kid. Set up those visuals early. Don't do it two days before school starts, because then you're starting to build the pressure. You're adding pressure that they're already getting because in two days, school starts. Do it early. Do it together.

Penny Williams [00: 17:27]:

Take your time, get their input, but make sure that you give them a preview of the tools of the routines, of the expectations, so that you're setting them and yourself and your whole family up for success. Quick tip number two is to collaborate with your school, with your teachers. Try, try, try not to take on an adversarial relationship. And we had a recent podcast episode on this with Scotty Weintraub about creating collaborative relationships with the school and how that makes a difference in your advocacy. I encourage you to listen to that episode as well. But we want to initiate communication with teachers ahead of time. And we had a couple of different things that we always did for that. We always went to the open house night where you got your schedule when he was older or when you previewed the classroom and met your teacher.

Penny Williams [00: 18:42]:

And if there was a schedule, we walked the schedule. We did lots of things that really helped. We outline all of those in Back to school prep week. But you know, setting up the tone of the relationship with the teachers is super helpful. Share a one page summary of your kids IEP or 504 plan. One page front only, not front and back. A very simple kind of quick reference so that teachers understand what are their goals and what are their accommodations from day one. Because teachers typically have many kids in their classroom with an IEP or a 504, the IEP documents are ginormous and it seems like the stuff that you really need is buried in there.

Penny Williams [00: 19:33]:

When I started making this quick reference guide for teachers, it changed so much. They knew from the get go what accommodations they needed to be providing. We didn't have to wait until things fell apart. Me remind them that there is an iep them try to go find it and read it. And all this time that elapses in all of this, right was time of lost learning for my kid and it was stressful for everyone. So not only are we preparing our kids, but we're also prepping their teachers. And again, we're setting up a collaborative relationship, a collaborative tone. And we are leaning into proactive partnership rather than reactive panic.

Penny Williams [00: 20:21]:

And what often happens when we're reactive is it's emotional and it can get nice and kind of ugly and we don't want that. Nobody is going to make anything better with that sort of adversarial relationship. Quick tip number three, our last one, front load for emotional safety. As we talked about earlier in the episode, your kid needs to feel safe at school to be available to learn. And that safety isn't just physical safety. It is emotional safety, cognitive safety, social safety. All of those things matter a great deal at school. We not just going to school and getting academics.

Penny Williams [00: 21:07]:

There's so much more at play and we need to have all of that on our radar to set our kids up for success. And this is really one of the most powerful and often overlooked strategies for supporting kids in school. So what does front loading emotional safety even mean? It means that we're looking ahead proactively and we're going to ask ourselves three questions. One, where is my child? Most likely to feel dysregulated during the school day. What are those sort of pitfall areas, those sort of sticky, sticky times, sticky points, right? What routines or moments tend to set them off? What do you already know might be challenging for your kid? I don't like to make assumptions that something is definitely going to be challenging, but think about what might be and really look at it proactively. And then that third question you're asking yourself is, where is my kid most vulnerable? To overwhelm, to shutdown, to blow ups, to meltdowns, to refusal. With school, these are the areas that you want to be looking at very proactively. Talk with your kid about some of it.

Penny Williams [00: 22:31]:

Ask them what they need, ask them what they feel like might set them off during the school day. What they feel like might lead to dysregulation, what they feel like might lead to overwhelms, shutdown, meltdown, blow ups, not wanting to go, not even being able to go. Then we take that information and we create scaffolds around those moments to support our kids nervous system. Let's look at an example really quickly. I used to dread mornings with my kid. Oh my gosh, it was just so much chaos. Nothing would happen. I would nag, nothing would happen, I would repeat myself, nothing would happen.

Penny Williams [00: 23:14]:

And I would end up yelling. Like every single morning I would end up yelling because it was the only way I could break that spiral of chaos and get the attention necessary to get the shoes on, to start walking to the car, whatever it was, to brush your teeth, to put some stinking clothes on, it was just horrible. It started the day so awful for everyone and we all dreaded it and it affected everybody in the household. I would walk on eggshells trying to avoid the meltdown. And yet we would still have explosions because the eggshells didn't work right. Things don't get done when we're walking on eggshells and trying not to trigger something. And of course I tried to stay calm. Of course I tried to stay calm, right? We all want to be calm, of course we're trying to do that.

Penny Williams [00: 24:10]:

But it would devolve nonetheless every single day because we didn't have the systems in place and I didn't understand what was causing all of this. To be able to be more proactive, to be able to lean on some tools and strategies so that we didn't have chaos. We didn't have to yell to get out the door on time with our teeth brushed and clothes on our bodies. And of course it makes everything worse. Our reactivity only escalates our kids reactivity. You cannot help a dysregulated kid regulate if you are dysregulated yourself. You cannot co regulate if you are dysregulated yourself. If you have high intensity, you are co escalating.

Penny Williams [00: 24:57]:

You are not co regulating. So eventually I realized that something had to change. I was definitely missing something and I had to create more of a sense of safety and predictability. That unpredictability was huge for my kid. It was really very derailing for him. And things just couldn't get done that way. You know, we would definitely go into shutdown and nothing would get done. So when we were creating, when we were focusing on safety and predictability, we weren't focused on we have to get these things done, we have to get out the door at this time, that was still important.

Penny Williams [00: 25:41]:

I'm not saying that it's not important, but we are focusing on connection. We are focusing on what does the nervous system need to feel safe enough to follow these steps and get these things done and get out the door without everybody yelling and melting down. And I created this visual morning routine card that was like a game. It was a miracle. I'm sure I've talked about it here before and I provide the templates for it in Back to School prep week and teach you how to create them and how to use them successfully. Because it's not just a checklist. There's much more to it than that. And we also had sort of this launch pad routine.

Penny Williams [00: 26:27]:

We started with making choices and prepping the night before. What do you want to pack in your lunch tomorrow? Are you buying lunch at school? What do you want for breakfast tomorrow? We're laying out your clothes for tomorrow. We're making sure the shoes are by the door and ready. And my kid was making these choices where those choices were important to him. He didn't care what he wore to school. So I just set something out appropriate for school and the weather. He did care a lot what he ate for breakfast. He did care what was in his lunchbox.

Penny Williams [00: 26:55]:

So those were the things that he helped with. Right. I had to get his buy in. If I went and prepped all these things the night before and the next day he was like, I don't like any of those choices. Then we were in a worse spot in the morning instead of a better spot in the morning. Then we added that visual checklist that I was just talking about. And that checklist was for good enough. It was not my ideal of everything that got done in the morning and that we all left skipping and chanting and singing out the door for school, right? Let's be real, real life.

Penny Williams [00: 27:29]:

It was good enough. What are the basics that need to get done? We need hygiene. We need clothes on, we need shoes on. We need food. Everything else can sort of wait. There's no perfectionism in the mornings. You will never, ever have one peaceful morning if you are searching for perfection because it doesn't even exist. I also learned to keep the lights low or off in the morning.

Penny Williams [00: 27:59]:

We didn't do bright lights, we didn't do loud noises. Sometimes there would be music, but it would be soft. What could my kid's nervous system handle in the morning? Thinking about that makes all the difference. We were then building a rhythm, not a schedule, not a checklist, right? We weren't checking boxes. We were creating a predictable flow and that changed everything. Flow is a beautiful thing. People create some flow, create some routine and rituals so that there is a rhythm and that rhythm makes all the difference to the nervous system. As a side note, my kid was always up before me, so I didn't have to wake him up in the mornings.

Penny Williams [00: 28:48]:

And I know that that's a struggle for a lot of you. And if he did struggle, if I did have to wake him up in the mornings and I knew then what I know now, I would have started with sort of a buffer zone. I would have sat quietly with him and been present while he woke up for a few minutes. Not asking for anything, not making any commands, just, hey buddy, it's time to start getting up and then zip it. That can shift that tone right away in the mornings. One client I've had even started doing morning stretches with music with their kid. So they were having a transition ritual. They were doing regulation and they were co regulating and.

Penny Williams [00: 29:36]:

And again, it really shifts that tone and how you begin the school day. We're talking about emotional readiness here. We're not talking about perfection, we're talking about emotional readiness. Because when kids feel safe and seen before any demands are placed on them, then they can access their thinking brain. They're more flexible, they're more cooperative, and they are way less likely to explode over the small things like a spilled cup of milk or a seam in their sock. But also seamless socks, folks. They can change your life in the morning too, I promise. Tagless clothes and seamless socks are a thing.

Penny Williams [00: 30:17]:

So if mornings are rough in your house, I want you to do two things. Pause and ask yourself, what does my child's Nervous system need in those moments at that time of day. And then you are going to build a simple scaffold, routines, rituals, visuals, gentleness, low demand that are going to help your kid regulate, not just managing time and tasks. So if you'd like to do back to school prep week with us, we dive deeper into those things. We dive deeper into a whole bunch of other things. You would leave back to school prep week with your advocacy binder completed, done, ready for advocating effectively ready for being really productive in that. Right. Like your binder is going to be there.

Penny Williams [00: 31:10]:

You're going to know how to reference things and you are going to be on it with advocacy. We are going to do those routine cards using my templates. We are going to personalize them and create them together in real time. We are going to do some things around nervous system. You are going to first and foremost complete your child's profile and you're going to take a quiz that tells you where their nervous system is most of the time so that you can create these systems, tools, strategies, preps, all the things that we're doing that are individualized for your kid, they're going to work for your kid. Again, not perfect parenting, proactive parenting. So if you want to join us for back to school prep week, you can go to parentingadhd and autism.com prep p r e P. You will get all the details, all the sessions, the schedule, everything there to know if it's a good fit or not for you.

Penny Williams [00: 32:14]:

If it is, we would love to to have you. There was so much collaboration when we did this last summer. There was a lot of crowdsourcing. Parents are sharing their ideas and what's worked for them and we even go into things like making your life simpler. How can you make dinner time easier? How can you reduce the demands on yourself as a parent to have less chaos and less stress during the school year? I really hope to see you there. It is not just getting things done. We have fun, we support each other. You will leave feeling so much less alone and so much more prepared for the school year ahead.

Penny Williams [00: 32:59]:

You can also find the show notes for this [email protected] 320 for episode 320 and I will definitely have the link there to register and get more information about back to school prep week as well. If you are listening to this after after prep we cap and after the end of July 2025, you can purchase all of the replays and you can use it in the exact same way to walk you through prep for this school year coming up, or for any school year in the future. So I know a lot of people find us later after the time frame in which the episode's published, so there's something there for you as well. And I do wish you as smooth a transition as is possible in our complex families, and I will see you on the next episode. Take really good care.

Penny Williams [00: 34:00]:

I see you. You're doing hard and meaningful work, and you don't have to do it alone. If you found this episode helpful, share it with someone who needs it and leave a quick review so others can find this support too. When you're ready for next steps, the Regulated Kids Project is here with the tools, coaching and community to help you raise a more regulated, resilient child. Get more [email protected].