125- Summer Burnout in Neurodivergent Families

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Welcome to Every Brain is Different, the podcast where we celebrate the unique world of neurodiversity. We are your hosts, Samantha Foote, a neurodivergent, Board Certified Music Therapist and mom to three kids of ADHD and autism. And Lauren Ross, an ally to the neurodivergent community with over 10 years of experience supporting children and adults with autism.

This podcast is for parents like you. Navigating the world of neurodiversity with love and compassion. Together we'll create a world where every brain is valued and celebrated. We're excited to embark on this enlightening journey with you.

Transcript:

Samantha Foote: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Every Brain is Different Podcast. It is Samantha and Lauren here with you today, and we are going to talk about summer burnout today. So, just talking about what you can do if your kids are maybe a little burned out with summer, or you're burned out with summer, because if you are, school is [00:01:00] right around the corner. So, be excited. If you're not burned out and you want summer to continue, I'm sorry.

Lauren Ross: I feel like burnt out parents and burnt out kids at the same time is just, sounds like a bad time.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, that's never good. So, yeah, so this summer I've deemed it my summer of yes, and I was like, "I am going to do everything and say yes to everything that I possibly can, as long as I can, like, feasibly do it." Because I love going out, I love doing things, and I learned that my family does not. And they were not into going out all the time and doing things.

Lauren Ross: So, yes for you, no for everyone else.

Samantha Foote: Yeah. So, I get a little burned out when I am home for too long, but literally every other person in my family gets burned out when we're away from home for too long. And I feel like we were doing a [00:02:00] pretty good job of going out, but also staying home, 'cause w- I realized that pretty early on in the summer that my family needed to be home more than I did. And so, I feel like we were doing a pretty good job and everyone was good until the month of July happened, and we had a family reunion at my in-laws' cabin with my husband's family one weekend, and then the next weekend we had a cousin reunion on my side of the family at the same cabin. And then we had my mom's birthday party that weekend, so my out-of-town cousins could come to it, and then my one cousin was like, "Well, I can't come to the birthday party and I can't come to the reunion, but I really wanna see you, so I'm gonna come up the next week and we're going to hang out." And I was like, "No, we're not doing that." And she came anyway. So it was fun, it was fun, but [00:03:00] my kids were complaining about having to go in water again. And I was like, "What are you talking about?"

And then, my son had a neurology appointment in Utah, which is five hours away from where we live. And he had that for October, but then the neurologist called and said, "Based on what's happening with him, I wanna see him earlier. Can you come next week?" And they called, like, the week of the 17th. And so we went down there on the 23rd after my cousin went home. And when we got back, it was my husband's birthday the day we got back, and I said, "Do you wanna go out for your birthday? Do you wanna go do something?" He's like, "No. I just wanna be at home, and I just want to sit and do nothing." And my family did nothing for three days to... And that's when I realized, the burnout-

Lauren Ross: The burnout was real.

Samantha Foote: The, the burnout was real. And so, [00:04:00] it, you know, when you're burned out, it m- it might just look kind of like depression or kind of like overstimulation. Your kids might be overly emotional or there might be behavioral changes.

Honestly, with my oldest son, I was like, "Has a demon possessed you?" Like- ... he will just all of a sudden, like a f- switch flips, and he will just be so angry over... And it's usually when I say, "Hey, we have to go do this," or, "We have to go do that." Like yesterday, I had to go to a doctor's appointment and he had to come with me, and he was so angry that he had to go, but then after we went and we got home, totally fine for the rest of the day. And so, that's what it looks like. Like, they don't wanna go anywhere, they don't wanna do anything. Then when you ask them to do something that you have to do, then, you [00:05:00] know, that emotional dysregulation comes out. And usually he's pretty chill, so I was like, "What is happening with you?"

Lauren Ross: Right?

Samantha Foote: But, but yeah, because overstimulation, like they're overstimulated. Like, we went to the river, my son went to the river, like five times in a week I think, because he went up early with his dad, went down the river, then we went down the river a couple days later. Oh, he went four times, and then the next week we went on a different river, and then the next day we went on the same river back in where the cabin is, and when we did that, he straight up refused. He was like, "I'm not going." "I'm not." He's like, "I'm sunburned. I'm not doing this." And when we were on the river, we went to Blue Heart Springs. When we were there, he just gave up in the middle of the river, and he said, "I'm not going any further." And I [00:06:00] said, "Well, you're on your own paddleboard, so how do you expect to get back to the shore?" And he said, "I don't care. The river's gonna take me." And he laid down on his board and refused to move. And I was like, "Cool. Cool, cool. What are we gonna do?"

Five minutes before that, he was happy, he was paddling, he was doing all the things, and so I think that's what it can look like. Like, your kids are happy and they're doing well, and then all of a sudden they're just done.

Lauren Ross: Yeah.

Samantha Foote: And it hits them. And so if you see that, like respect that. And so I told him, I mean, we were in the middle of the Snake River- And the wind-

Lauren Ross: Options limited.

Samantha Foote: The wind was pushing against us.

Lauren Ross: Oh, no.

Samantha Foote: And that river is more like a lake. Like, it's not like a river that you can just sit and the water will take you down the river. Like, there's a slight current, but not really. And so I was like, "Dude, you at least have to hang onto the [00:07:00] board." And he was like, "I can't." And I said, "You have to hang onto my board, and I will paddle us both." And he said, "I can't." And I said... Finally, I convinced him. I don't know what I said to convince him, but I convinced him, and then we went down the river.

But that's kind of what it looks like, like you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, and then you are not fine.

Lauren Ross: Yeah.

Samantha Foote: You are not fine at all, and-

Lauren Ross: No transition there ...

Samantha Foote: nothing is okay. And like, it's, I feel like it can be a gradual thing, but sometimes it's really not. And sometimes, like for him that day, he was just like, "I'm not doing this anymore." And so I respected it, obviously, because I had to. But then even when we got home, I was like, okay, I didn't demand stuff of him. I didn't say, "You have to do this." Only the bare minimum of what needed to be done was done, because he just needed to chill and be by himself. So [00:08:00] that's an important thing, I think, with burnout, is just letting them have downtime, whatever that looks like. So they might have a little extra screen time, or my son really likes playing with Legos. Like, he hides in his room and just plays with Legos all day. And someone was like, "Oh, you shouldn't let him be that withdrawn." I'm like, "Well, he's not really. Like, it's kind of my fault because I made him do all these things.”

Lauren Ross: Yeah

Samantha Foote: because, and it wasn't intentional. It just happened, you know? But when I was a kid, I would have loved doing all those things, and so I didn't really think about it too much. But yeah, but that's how burnout happens.

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Lauren Ross: Especially I think with the summer too, because it, it, you're not only, like, fighting whatever the activity is, but also, I don't know, it's just the routine is different, you're interacting with more people differently, like the structure is not as much, and so just, like dealing with that in addition to whatever activity might be. Like, I can imagine for neurodiverse children how exhausting that might be and feel, so.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, because summer already is, like, more relaxed and more [00:10:00] chill, and you don't have quite the routine that you have during school. And so I know a lot of kids, even if you don't go out and do a lot of things, a lot of kids get burned out because they don't have the same strict routine that they have at school. And so unless you implement that in your home, which is awesome, but I don't, and so I know a lot of people don't, it's really hard. Like, they have all the best intentions to do that, but then life happens. But, when you have to go to school, you have to go to school, you know? So yeah, so a lot of kids get burned out just on not having that strict routine, and they really crave that strict routine. So if your kids are starting to get burned out, create that routine for them and try to stick to it as much as you can.

You know your kids the best, so recognize the signs of burnout, you know, like changes in behavior, like we said, increased sensory sensitivities, increased... like, actually decreased threshold [00:11:00] of tolerance for things, and then communication cues. If they say, "I don't wanna do this"- Maybe that's why. If it's an activity that they really like doing and then all of a sudden they don't wanna do it anymore, that's a clue that they're burned out because they're not enjoying the things that they used to like.

Another thing you can do is create calm spaces for them, so sensory-friendly spaces. You know, we've talked about sensory-friendly spaces. It's just what your kid wants. So, you know, if they like pillows, if they like soft music, if whatever they want in their sensory space, and just create a safe space for them to go where they can decompress.

And then promote self-regulation. You know, offer different strategies that they can use for self-regulation. Practice the strategies before they need them, so when they're in the moment of crisis and they need them, then they can use it, they can use the strategies. Like this week, I was in music therapy working with this kid, and [00:12:00] we are working on stopping, observing what's around him, and then proceeding with an action. You know, so he's, like, less impulsive. And I asked him what strategy he was going to use this week when he got frustrated, and he's like, "I'm gonna use the..." And he said, like, this specific breathing technique. And so you can do that with your kids, like focus on one a week or focus on one for the whole month and be like, "Okay, for this month, we're gonna use this strategy whenever you get upset." And then you can use that and practice, like if it's star breathing, you can practice the star breathing before they need it and just say, "Hey, you know, like every morning we're gonna practice star breathing," or just put it as part of your routine so then when they do melt down because they're overwhelmed and burned out, you can bring that in and help them, you know, breathe and manage their own lives.

Lauren Ross: [00:13:00] Self-regulate.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, self-regulate. That's what I wanted to say. Um, but-

Lauren Ross: I can tell the burnout is real.

Samantha Foote: Burnout is real in my life right now. Like, I'm supposed to present at a conference in two days. I have not gone through the workshops. I'm doing two workshops. Have I done it? No. But that's the ADHD way, and I'm going to get it done, and it will be awesome, so.

Lauren Ross: Always is.

Samantha Foote: But the burnout is real, and I am ready for school to start again. So you're ready for school to start again, and you're looking for some back to school strategies. Check out next week's episode because that's what we're gonna be talking about, and we're gonna talk about, you know, different ways that you can transition back to school and how you can make that routine again, and what to do if your kid is feeling maybe kind of anxious about [00:14:00] going back to school. So yeah, join us next week for that.

And if you have any good strategies for navigating burnout, let us know. I would love to hear your strategies. Um, maybe I'll put it on Threads. Today I put something on Threads and I just said, "I hate to say this. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't like reading with my children. I don't like reading bedtime stories because I'm burned out at the end of the day, and I don't want to do that." But I do it, obviously. There have been some wild reactions to that, but also community building reactions where people are like, "Yes, this is what I don't like in parenting. This is what I don't like doing," and anyway, so yeah.

Lauren Ross: Not all rainbows and sunshine.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, yeah. You don't have to like every aspect of parenting, and that's okay. But if you do have any good burnout strategies, [00:15:00] let us know. Or you could try what we talked about today, like recognizing the early signs, creating calm spaces, and promoting self-regulation. If you do any of those and they work out well for you, let us know what happened.

You can find us at everybrainisdifferent on Instagram. You can message us if you want to. And with that, we are going to sign off for today. So everyone have a good week.

Lauren Ross: Bye.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. We hope this discussion on neurodiversity has provided you with support, understanding and inspiration. If you're looking for more support, Or you can go to everybrainisdifferent.com and download the ultimate guide to parenting your neurodivergent child.