159: Back to School Blitz – Part 5 – Your ADHD Mindset Superpower – Embrace Being a Fish

Back to School Blitz, Part Five: The Mindset Piece

We’ve spent this Back to School Blitz series on the mudroom launch pad, the homework zone, the closet overhaul, and the endless breakfast-lunch-snack rotation. But the piece that matters most isn’t a space at all. It’s the mindset you and your kids carry into the year, especially once things stop going according to plan.

The fresh start feeling is real, and it’s not the problem

Every new school year, our brains light up with the belief that this is the year we get it all right, clear calendars, no missed deadlines, no procrastinating, everything in place for a genuinely successful year. That optimism is a real strength of ours, and I don’t think it needs fixing. We don’t need a total personality overhaul to have a good year, we just need to embrace who we already are, the same brains that get labeled as the downside of ADHD are the ones that carry this resilience and hope into every new beginning. So go ahead, set the calendar, lay the plans, let your kids catch your excitement. That part isn’t the issue.

The real test comes at the first bump

Nobody gets a flawless year. The bump might come from something missed on your end, your kid’s end, or from a teacher who doesn’t quite accommodate how your child learns. However it shows up, your reaction to that bump is where the actual growth happens, for you and for them. This is exactly where being a fish instead of a monkey brain becomes an advantage. Fish go with the current, shift when the river shifts, adapt when there’s an obstacle. Type-A monkey brains tend to react to disruption with frustration or lashing out, you’ve probably seen it in the parent group chat when schedules come out and everyone’s convinced their kid got the short end of it.

Reframe the teacher or class your kid didn’t want

When your kid gets the teacher they didn’t want, or a schedule that disappoints them, resist the urge to either dismiss it entirely (“you’ll deal with bosses you don’t like someday too”) or spiral with them into how unfair it is. Instead, help them focus on how to survive and adjust within that particular class. Every teacher, the phenomenal one and the one your kid can’t stand, teaches something. Sometimes it’s academic growth, sometimes it’s simply learning how to cope with a situation you didn’t choose, and that skill is worth just as much.

Sometimes they need sympathy, sometimes they need perspective

I love the story from Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, where he called his mom to complain about an impossibly tough professor, wanting her to simply take his side. Instead she said something like, that does sound hard, and I know when your father was your age he was fighting the Germans, but I’m sure you’ll get through this too. It put things in perspective without dismissing him. You know your kid, and sometimes they need you to sit in the difficulty with them, and sometimes they need you to help them see it’s smaller than it feels. Either way, they grow from working through it, and you can’t tell a good “worst teacher ever” story later if you never actually lived through the struggle.

Model it, don’t just manage it

While you’re handling the closet, the mudroom, and the snack drawer this year, remind yourself you’re also going to be the one modeling how to handle the bumps. Set the tone each morning, reflect with them each evening, and help them see that there’s always a choice in how to respond to what the year throws at them.

Your practical, actionable step

The next time your child hits a school-year disappointment, big or small, pause before reacting. Ask yourself whether they need you to sit with them in the frustration first, or whether they need a little perspective to shrink the problem back down to size, and let your response model the resilience you want them to carry all year.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.