Why Does Your Child Fall Apart the Moment They Get Home From School?
Your child holds it together at school and falls apart at home. Learn why after-school restraint collapse happens and what neurodivergent kids need at the door.
School, IEP, or 504
The school keeps calling. Your kid is "capable but not applying himself," or she's quiet and polite at school and falls apart the minute she gets in the car. You've been to the meeting where everyone talks fast, hands you a stack of paper, and you leave not sure what you just agreed to. If that meeting left you rattled, you're far from the first parent it happened to. Maybe your teachers don't see the struggles your kids are going through and don't see the point of a 504 Plan or IEP.
Schools often read executive function problems as effort problems, and a kid who holds it together all day may not look like she needs support at all. Parents described that after-school collapse for years before it got real attention, and now more teachers know to look for it. Too often a 504 or IEP is seen as a response and is only as good as what's written in it and whether it gets followed. We work on being proactive and preventative: what your kid actually needs, how to ask for it in the school's language, and how to keep it working after the meeting is over.
Start with these
Free resource
Get the free Values and Strengths Workbook
The workbook I start coaching with. You figure out what actually matters to you and what you're actually good at, so you can build your life around both instead of around who you think you should be. For adults with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD, diagnosed or wondering.
For more, check out these Resources!
Book
Gifted and Distractible
Julie F. Skolnick
Julie Skolnick's guide is for parents of twice-exceptional kids, the ones who are gifted and also ADHD, autistic, or dyslexic, and who confuse every teacher they meet. It's strengths-based, with a hard focus on advocacy: how to get the school to see both halves. Her background is legal and education, not clinical. For parents who keep hearing "but he's so smart" as if that settled it.
Podcast
The Autism ADHD Podcast
Holly Blanc Moses
For parents and teachers of Autistic and ADHD kids who want the practical school-and-home version.
Holly Blanc Moses is a licensed clinician and AuDHD herself, and her show is for the adults around autistic and ADHD kids: parents, teachers, and therapists. Behavior, school, and what it looks like when autism and ADHD show up in the same kid at the same time. Her exact license title varies across pages, and her BCBA credential may concern some autistic advocates. For the people raising and teaching those kids.
YouTube channel
Understood
Understood.org
Free, plain-language, and trustworthy for parents and adults alike.
Understood.org is a nonprofit with expert reviewers behind its content, and its channel covers ADHD, dyslexia, and learning differences in short videos. How ADHD works, what happens at school, what a learning difference looks like from the inside. For parents and teachers trying to figure out a kid, and adults with ADHD who want the basics done right.