Quick summary: This post explains why the summer before a new school year is the best time for parents to address early signs of anxiety, school avoidance, or emotional struggles in their child. It covers reaching out to school staff before the fall rush, identifying a special education advocate in advance, tracking behavior patterns, and checking therapist or evaluator wait times, all so families aren’t starting from scratch once school begins in the fall.
We noticed in the spring, before school even let out, that there was more tension at school and at home. More anxiety than we’d seen before. We told ourselves it was just end-of-year burnout, everyone’s tired, everyone’s ready for a break, this is normal.
Then summer came, the anxiety continued, and it seemed to creep into activities that used to be easy. As the start of a new school year crept closer, things were getting more tense, less excitement about seeing friends, and more worry about what was coming. Something was definitely different, and we knew it. But we were still telling ourselves it was probably fine and everything would be okay.
Then our family went through a hard loss, and everything that had been simmering came to the surface. We ended up in full school refusal by fall. We were blindsided and scrambling to figure out support we hadn’t even imagined would be needed, or thought to look into a few months earlier.
Your summer may not look exactly like ours did, and honestly, I hope it doesn’t. But if you’re noticing changes in your child or teen, and somewhere in your mind you are sensing a little warning flag, I wanted to share a few paths I wish I’d considered back then. Because even if school is out, summer still gives you some time to plan and act, without the pressure of September, when everyone else is just starting.
Noticing that flag is one thing. Knowing what to actually do with it is another, and I think it is important to understand that there isn’t just one path you can take. If you think your child may be struggling with anxiety or depression, or something else, therapy is usually the first thing that comes to mind, and from our experience, it’s worth considering. Sometimes testing or an evaluation is what helps you actually understand what your child is dealing with, instead of guessing. For us, the transition to middle school definitely brought out new anxieties and challenges, and understanding what those are can help you determine the best path to get support.
If what you’re seeing is starting to affect school and learning, an IEP or a 504 plan might end up being part of the picture too (I’ve written about that here Understanding Mental Health 504 Plans and IEPs for Children and Teens.) While I am sharing this now, I think it is important to add that you don’t have to decide on any of this right now. This summer isn’t about locking in a plan; it’s about giving yourself enough runway to ask the right questions before the school year starts and makes that harder to do.
Why summer is the time to get ahead of it, not fall
I get why waiting feels natural. School’s out, the acute stress is gone, you want to enjoy those fleeting days without the pressure that comes with a new school year. So why deal with it now? Here are a few reasons why doing some of this work in the summer will give you a jump start when fall arrives.
Waitlists don’t take a break. Therapists who work with kids are often booked out weeks to months, especially the closer you get to the school year starting. If you wait until the first week of school to start calling, you might not get an appointment until October or November. If you think your child may benefit from talking with someone, starting the search now means you could actually be seeing someone by the time school starts, not two months into it.
Evaluations take time too. Whether it’s a school evaluation or a private one, these are not same-week appointments. We went the private route first, and even with that head start, it took many weeks, between the private evaluation, the school’s own assessments, and getting everyone in a room for meetings. Testing can take multiple sessions, and reports often take weeks to write up afterward. If you want documentation in hand by the time school starts, summer is genuinely your only real shot at that timeline working out. An IEP requires more formal assessments, so if you think that is something you want to explore for your child, getting a jump on it will help.
A lot of families get in line for help the moment school starts. The first weeks of September are when every parent who noticed something over the summer finally calls the school, and every family that had a rough spring finally books that evaluation. If you reach out now, before that rush, you’re more likely to actually get in front of the people who’ll be providing support, instead of joining a line that’s already long by the second week of school. Most schools only have a small number of staff supporting students. The fall is also the time when they are transitioning kids already getting support into new routines and schedules, so it is a mix of supporting those kids already getting support and figuring out what is needed for kids who now need support.
You can request records now, when the office isn’t buried. If you want a copy of your child’s cumulative school file, or any existing accommodation plans, attendance patterns, or notes from teachers, requesting that information early means someone can actually get to it. Request the same thing in the first week of September, and you’re behind every other parent doing back-to-school logistics, plus the office itself is slammed with new enrollments and schedule changes.
Summer gives you cleaner information. Without the daily grind of school, you get to see your kid outside that pressure cooker. Is the hard part really the schoolwork, or is it mornings, or transitions, or being around a lot of peers, or unstructured time? What you notice now, away from the classroom, can actually help you and any provider figure out what’s really going on, instead of everyone assuming it’s “just school.”
What the rest of this summer can hold for your child’s mental health
You don’t need a plan by Labor Day. You need a handful of small things moving in the background, so September doesn’t start from zero.
One of them is reaching out to the school, even now, while there’s still summer staff around. Fewer people are in the building, but usually someone is, a counselor, a case manager, sometimes a 504 or special education coordinator. A short email or call, just to say here’s what we’re starting to notice, what would the process look like if we needed support, puts you on someone’s radar before the September rush hits. You’re not committing to anything by asking. You’re just not waiting until everyone else is asking too.
Another is finding out who could help you navigate this if it gets more complicated than you expect. An advocate isn’t something you necessarily need to hire this summer. But knowing who’s out there, having a name or two you could call if things escalate, means you’re not searching for help in the middle of a crisis. We didn’t bring one in until we were already deep in it, and it was an advocate who first said the words “mental health IEP” out loud to us, something we hadn’t even known was possible until then. I wish we’d known to ask sooner. Other parents in local support groups usually know names. So do pediatricians and therapists, if you ask.
Somewhere in the middle of our own version of this, I started writing things down. Nothing formal, a notebook, sometimes just a note in my phone when the notebook wasn’t handy. What happened, what seemed to set it off, how things looked afterward. I wish I’d been more consistent with it. The days move fast, and within a couple of weeks, I genuinely couldn’t remember: was that blowup two weeks ago or three, and what actually triggered it. It’s impossible to hold all of that in your head, even when you’re sure you will. When I did have notes to point back to, it was incredibly helpful. They turned “it’s been hard lately” into an actual pattern I could describe to someone else.
And if you haven’t already, it’s worth making a call or two just to ask about availability, whether that’s a therapist, someone who conducts mental health and educational assessments, or both. You don’t have to book anything yet. But a single phone call telling you it’s a two-week wait versus a two-month wait can completely change how you think about the rest of your summer.
None of this requires certainty about what’s actually going on. It just means using the time you still have.
You’re not overreacting by thinking about this now
I know the voice in your head might be saying that maybe you’re making too much of it, maybe it’ll sort itself out, maybe you should just wait and see. I had that same voice in my head, and sometimes that voice is right. Plenty of rough patches really are just rough patches.
But if you’ve been carrying this feeling for a while, if it’s summer and the thing you hoped would fade hasn’t faded, I would encourage you to pay attention to that feeling. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t need a diagnosis in hand or a plan with a name yet. You just need to start the process of gathering some information while you still have the runway to do it before the first bell rings again.
If therapy ends up being part of what you’re considering, What To Do When Your Child Needs Therapy walks through how to actually find and vet one, so you’re not doing that search from scratch while everything else is falling apart.
Starting now doesn’t mean something is wrong. It means that if something does need support, you’ll be ready instead of scrambling. And if it turns out to be nothing, you’ve lost nothing but a few phone calls and a little bit of peace of mind that you checked.
Right there with you,
Laurie
Laurie Hinnant is a parent who spent years navigating the professional support system for her family, and found it far more confusing, inconsistent, and exhausting than it needed to be. She founded Together We Navigate to give other parents the real-talk guidance she wished she’d had. She also holds a PhD in Community Psychology and brings 25 years of health research experience to everything she writes, but she writes here as a parent first.