Back-to-School Season Is More Stressful for Me Than It Is for My Kids

The start of school is always exciting — the fresh notebooks, the first-day photos, the promise of new beginnings. But it’s also always a bit more stressful than I anticipate. Not for my kids so much, oddly enough. For me.

My kids’ crises pass quickly, but they still throw me off

Last year, my middle daughter was driving herself to school for the first time. The morning had all the nerves you’d expect: traffic, new routines, figuring out parking. She came home in tears.

“I hate the minivan,” she said. “I hate the spot I got. I hate that guy.”

“That guy” was the student parked next to her. She’d bumped her car into his while trying to back out of her assigned space. Not a major accident, but enough to unravel her on day one.

I sprang into action. Should we call the school and request a new spot? Should she drive our smaller car? Should I drive her again?

I spent days brainstorming possible fixes. I even dreamt about it — as I’m prone to do when I have something on my mind.

A few days later, I cautiously suggested a few solutions. She blinked at me.

“Oh, it’s fine now,” she said. “We’re actually friends. He helped me back out today.”

Crisis over. Emotional storm, passed. No intervention needed.

This year, it was my youngest daughter who sent me spiraling. She started at a new high school — a great one, but very different from her last. And not the same one her sister goes to.

“I wish I had stayed at my old school,” she said that first afternoon. “It’s so big and different.”

My mom-heart panicked. My brain lit up with possible fixes. Could I transfer her back? Get more involved? Organize a social? Learn lunch schedules and stage a “spontaneous” meet-cute with potential friends?

But by the end of the first week, she was chattering about teachers she liked, the friends she was sitting with, and the conversation she had with a senior who walked her to the library.

She was fine.

I often want to step in even when my kids don’t need it

Turns out, I react more strongly to these transitions than my daughters do. I wouldn’t call myself a helicopter parent — I don’t monitor their grades or email their teachers. But when one of them feels off, even for a moment, I feel it in my whole body. I don’t want to take over, I just want to fix the hard parts. Smooth the path. Pad the corners a bit.

But they rarely need me to do any of that. They have their own resilience, their own coping skills, their own ways of figuring things out. And they do figure things out — often faster than I do.

It’s humbling. And honestly, a little uncomfortable.

My girls are growing up. They are becoming themselves in ways that don’t require my full-time emotional project management. And while I’ll probably never stop feeling deeply when they’re struggling, I can learn to sit with those feelings instead of acting on them.

I’m still here to listen, offer support, and yes, quietly dream up backup plans. But I’m working on not letting my own discomfort steer the ship.

Sometimes parenting means holding back — not because you don’t care, but because you do.

So I’m trying to helicopter less. Or maybe just hover at a higher altitude.