Before the Bell Rings: A Nervous-System Approach to the Back-to-School Season
Brittni Winslow MS, OTR/L
Back to School
This time every year, as we browse the aisles for school supplies and new backpacks, I tend to feel the same energy all around me. The energy that is rooted in the overwhelm of parents during this complex season, and the thought of whether this school year will feel smoother than the last.
Whether it is anxiety, defiance, shutdown, aggression, or avoidance, the layer underneath a lot of the back-to-school transition is rooted in the nervous system. So, before that first bell rings, I wanted to lay out a few practical tips to help you head into the new year feeling a little more supported.
Co-regulation is how children borrow calm from the steady adults around them. It is also the reason your own regulation is not a luxury.
Start with a Reframe
When a transition is hard, behavior gets loud. Mornings fall apart, homework becomes a power struggle, and a child who was fine all day comes unglued the moment they get home. It is tempting to read this as defiance or a lack of trying.
What I have seen from my 14 years as an occupational therapist is that behavior is almost always communication from the nervous system. The most useful shift is to trade “Why won’t they just do what I asked?” for “What is making this hard right now?”
That single question can shift from judgment to curiosity and puts a completely different energy toward the problem.
Use a Different Lens
I look at back-to-school through three lenses: sensory processing, regulation, and executive function. A common misconception is that you need a diagnosis to consider these, but the truth is that you do not. Every human has a sensory system, a regulation “battery,” and a set of executive-function skills that vary in their effectiveness.
Lens One: Sensory Processing
School is one of the most sensory-intense environments we ask our kids to function in. Fire drills and echoing hallways, cafeteria smells, fluorescent lights, scratchy clothes, and hours of sitting still. If your child’s system is working overtime to filter all of that, they have far less left over for listening, learning, and holding it together.
The strategy? Prepare the body, not just the backpack.
That might look like a sensory-friendly wake-up routine, adding movement before school instead of rushing out the door, packing a few regulation tools (a fidget, a chewy, or noise-reducing earbuds), and building in intentional decompression time after pickup.
Being mindful of the impact of the sensory input your child experiences can help to minimize the restraint collapse that happens when they reunite with their safe person at the end of the day.
Lens Two: Regulation — and Yours Comes First
Co-regulation is how children borrow calm from the steady adults around them. It is also the reason your own regulation is not a luxury. Self-regulation works like a battery, and it drains all day through hunger, noise, decision fatigue, and everyone else’s needs. When your battery is empty, co-regulating a melting-down child becomes nearly impossible.
Consider this your permission slip to put your own oxygen mask on first. Notice what depletes your battery and what actually charges it, and protect one small thing this week, even imperfectly.
Your takeaway? Taking care of your own regulation is what makes taking care of everyone else possible.
Lens Three: Executive Function
Executive function is the brain’s operating system. From getting started and remembering the next step to planning, staying flexible, and managing time, all of these skills make up our executive function.
A common trap parents find themselves in is that when something is hard, they step in to rescue. When you are time-bound to get out the door, and your kid is struggling to tie their shoes, I totally get it. But when we have the opportunity and time to give them the scaffolding and encouragement to build the skill, it pays off in the long run. Frustration followed by success builds far more confidence than a smooth save.
Try this instead. Swap “They can’t do this, so I’ll do it for them” for “Which skill is missing here?”
Once you get an idea of what the breakdown is, you have a better chance at putting steps into place to help support their learning and find some of their own independence.
- A visual schedule for the morning externalizes working memory so no one has to hold the whole sequence in their head.
- A backpack checklist by the door, a planner for assignments, and a lunch packed the night before all take the load off a tired brain.
Once we build the support in, we can fade it slowly as the routine becomes automatic.
When Worry Shows Up
Back-to-school anxiety is one of the most common forms of childhood anxiety, and the goal is not to erase it but to build tolerance and confidence through preparation and connection. It shows up in many shapes: stomachaches, clinginess, meltdowns, shutdown, or a subtle slide backward in skills your child had already mastered.
When those feelings surface, resist “You’ll be fine!” in favor of validation: “That makes sense that you’d wonder about that. Here’s what we know.”
I have watched this play out in my own home. My middle daughter had always loved school. The morning before third grade was just as exciting as the prior years, but as the week went on and seemingly overnight, she was struggling and flooded with anxiety.
Once I started asking a few questions, I learned that her class was being told they were finally old enough for end-of-grade testing, and that pressure landed on her hard. It was the first time she had really had to feel that kind of stress, and her body showed in ways her words couldn’t find at the time.
Rather than wait to see if she would “get over it,” I worked with the school right away, bringing in the school counselor and starting a 504 plan so the support was formal and consistent. Her nervous system was asking for help, and the sooner we answered the call, the sooner she found her footing again.
Most kids need a couple of weeks to adjust, but if you are still seeing significant physical complaints, ongoing school refusal, or significant regression well past that, that is your signal to bring in the teacher and possibly an occupational therapist or mental health professional.
One Step at a Time
You do not need to have all the answers before the first day. Meet your child, and yourself, where you are, and take one step at a time. If you are looking to launch into the back-to-school season with even more support, I built a workbook that will walk you through your family’s sensory map, how to communicate with your child’s teacher, and journaling prompts to consider during this transition.
If you want to dive deeper into understanding the three lenses I shared here, I do that work with families as well. You can learn more on my website.
Brittni Winslow MS, OTR/L is the Owner, Executive Director of Emerge Pediatric Therapy. Emerge Pediatric Therapy is dedicated to raising the standards of care by providing quality occupational, speech, and physical therapy paired with wraparound care. This includes caregiver education and home programming so that each child and family is treated as a whole, with care and respect.
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