Why Summer Break Doesn’t Feel Like a Break for Working Moms With ADHD
Have you ever looked forward to summer break, only to find yourself more exhausted by July than you were during the busiest week of the school year? Or noticed that the "fun, relaxed" version of summer you pictured feels about as accessible as Harry Styles concert tickets?
For many working moms, especially those managing the specific challenges of an ADHD brain, summer rarely removes stress the way we are conditioned to believe it does. What it does remove is the scaffolding that was quietly holding everything together. And that can make things feel ten times more stressful, at a time when the world is giving you the message that things should feel relaxed. If this sounds like you, you’re not alone, and I see you.
The Rhythm of the School Year Was Doing More Work Than You Realized
During the school year, a lot of the structure you rely on is built for you. If you're someone who has spent years masking symptoms, and compensating for executive functioning challenges, whether or not you've ever had a formal ADHD diagnosis, that external structure does a lot of invisible labor, by giving your brain fewer decisions to make and fewer transitions to manage on your own.
Then summer comes and suddenly you're the one generating the entire day's structure, often while still working full-time, and often while managing kids who are also more dysregulated than usual because their own routines have disappeared, too. And that’s a lot to carry, especially for someone who is already carrying a lot, and already working harder just to keep up with day-to-day tasks.
Why Does Summer Feel Even Harder for Moms with ADHD?
Many women who are discovering they have ADHD in their 30s and 40s have spent years managing their internal challenges by building rigid external systems. This often means over-planning, over-preparing, structuring, and scheduling. It works, often really well, until the systems that made it sustainable get disrupted.
When external structure disappears, what often surfaces isn't just fatigue, it’s a sense of exhaustion that even a weekend of sleeping in can’t fix, and feelings of intense guilt (“I should be able to handle this” or “I should be enjoying summer, what’s WRONG with me?”).
This doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, that you’re a bad mom, or that you need to “just try harder.” What it may mean is that your nervous system is overtaxed, and that it may take something more to shift it in a real way.
Signs It Might Be More Than Just Summer Burnout
For some women, the shift from the predictable routine of the school year to the loosely structured days of summer can actually feel more overwhelming. This is a nervous system response, and may be part of a pattern that's been present for a long time. This could be:
Chronic self-criticism that doesn't match reality. You're managing a job, kids, and a household with no built-in support, and you still hear a nagging voice in your head telling you that you aren’t doing enough.
A lifelong sense of being "too much" or "not enough." And feeling like you have to work harder than everyone else just to stay on top of your life.
Burnout that doesn’t feel better with rest. You plan a “relaxing” weekend and still feel just as depleted on Monday.
A growing suspicion that ADHD might be part of your story. Particularly if you were the "good student" or "responsible one" growing up, and no one ever considered ADHD because you didn't fit the typical image (most women and girls don’t).
What Could Help?
For many women, taking a step back and challenging some of the negative thoughts they are having about themselves, and reframing them in a more positive light, can be the first step forward. For example:
Your kids being loud, bored, or underfoot is not evidence that you're failing at creating the “perfect summer” that social media wants us to believe is now the norm. Your kids don’t need a Pinterest-worthy summer and a 17-ingredient snack. Popsicles and cut-up watermelon work just fine.
"Good enough" is a completed task, not a compromise. What are some of the high standards you hold yourself to? Ask yourself what it would feel like to let some of these go, even just for the summer. Frame it as an “experiment” if that helps.
The exhaustion you're feeling is telling you something about what your body and your nervous system need right now. Slow down, just for a moment. Listen to it.
Try sensory grounding. It won’t fix what’s underneath, but can help you to slow down, even just briefly. Try the 5-4-3-2-1 technique here or the spiral technique here.
But the truth is, real and lasting relief often doesn't come just from finding better ways of managing symptoms. It comes from doing the deeper work, through approaches like EMDR, to address the early experiences that led us to believe we needed to be perfect, needed to mask to fit in, and that no matter what we do, we are never quite enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I feel more overwhelmed in summer than during the school year, even though I technically have less on my plate?
It’s likely that the external structure of the school year was doing more invisible cognitive work than you realized. The consistent wake-up times, the morning routine, a place for your kids to go every single day, not to mention the added structure of after-school activities and sports. When this built-in scaffolding disappears, your brain has to generate a sense of structure on its own, which is a significant additional load, especially if you're already compensating for undiagnosed ADHD.
Could this mean I have ADHD, even though I did fine in school as a kid?
It's possible. Many women, especially those with above average intelligence, mask ADHD symptoms for years by over-relying on external structure, like lists, timers, visual cues, and reminders. When something like summer break gets in the way of that structure, the system often starts to fall apart.
How is therapy for ADHD different from ADHD coaching?
Whereas ADHD coaching focuses on improving executive functioning through strategies like time management skills, prompts, visual cues, and learning to work with your strengths, approaches like EMDR address the underlying patterns that drive ADHD-adjacent symptoms like perfectionism, masking, and feelings of inadequacy. EMDR addresses earlier relational or developmental experiences that created the belief that you needed to over-function in the first place, rather than managing the symptoms on the surface. Both of these approaches are effective in different ways, and are complementary to one another.
If this summer is surfacing something bigger than an over-scheduling problem, you don't have to figure it out alone. Schedule a free consultation and let’s talk about what’s really going on beneath the surface.
Susan Candiloro, LCSW-R, is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist and EMDRIA Approved Consultant offering virtual therapy in New York and Florida. With over 25 years of experience in the mental health field, she runs a fully private-pay practice outside of Albany, NY, specializing in women navigating the lasting effects of relational and developmental trauma, including anxiety, perfectionism, and people pleasing, as well as women with late-diagnosed ADHD. Interested in working with Susan? Reach out here.