As a new school year begins, many families are focused on new teachers, new schedules, and new expectations — but one of the biggest challenges is something many parents don’t recognize: cognitive load. In this episode, Mary Miele and Director of Student Services, Amy Nathan, explore why the first weeks of school can feel overwhelming for both children and parents, and how simple, intentional routines can make all the difference.
They share practical strategies for reducing stress, building executive functioning skills, encouraging independence, and creating systems that help children thrive from elementary school through high school and beyond. From morning routines and Sunday planning sessions to homework habits and family calendars, this conversation offers realistic tools families can begin using right away.
The goal isn’t perfection — it’s creating consistent routines that give children the confidence and mental space to learn, grow, and enjoy school.
In this episode:
- Why cognitive load increases at the start of every school year
- How predictable routines reduce stress and improve learning
- Ways to build independence without doing everything for your child
- Practical planning strategies for elementary through high school students
- Why grace and consistency matter more than perfection
If you’re preparing your family for a successful school year and want personalized guidance, reach out to the team at Evolved Education Company at admin@evolveded.com. They’re here to help your child build the skills and confidence needed to thrive.cess with confidence.
Episode 90 Transcript
Mary Miele (00:03):
How do we make the transition back to school successful? How do we position our child for admissions
to a top choice school? How do we navigate private and public school admissions? My child was
diagnosed with a learning challenge or ADHD. How do we chart the strongest path forward? We need a
tutor, but what does highly effective tutoring look like? We need test preparation, but how do we
approach it strategically? Welcome to Be Evolved: Building Strategic Educational Paths. I’m Mary Neely,
founder of Evolved Education Company, and we’ve been doing this work for over 30 years. In every
episode, our excited team examines a question that our families are facing right now and gives you,
listener, a new way to think about it, informed guidance for making decisions and practical strategies you
can implement. From nursery all the way through college, we help families move from questions to
clarity, from strategy to action, and from vision to reality.
(01:05):
Let’s get started. Hi everyone. Welcome to a new season of Be Evolved. I am very excited to talk about
today’s topic, which is all about how to get you ready for back to school. I’m here with Amy Nathan. Hi,
Amy.
Amy Nathan (01:26):
Hi, thanks for having me on. So happy that everyone’s joining us as families getting ready for a new
school year.
Mary Miele (01:35):
Exactly. And there’s just something about the end of July, August, September that feels so exciting, of
course. But let’s be honest, it’s also very overwhelming. I know you have younger children. I have older
children. I don’t think it really stops being overwhelming because of all of the new things that are
happening and even things that used to be are out of practice. So it’s new teachers, new classmates, new
expectations, new schedules, sometimes even a brand new school. And meanwhile, parents are juggling
school supply lists, extracurricular activities, transportation, childcare, sports schedules, lunches,
homework, trying to get everyone out of the door on time. It is a lot to manage.
Amy Nathan (02:28):
Yeah, exactly. And I think one thing we hear families say is, “Why does everything feel so overwhelming
in those first few weeks?” And the answer is pretty simple. It’s because everybody’s cognitive load has
increased.
Mary Miele (02:43):
And let’s start there because it’s a phrase, it’s two words that are very important for us to understand. It’s
what this episode is actually all going to be about. So what is cognitive load? It’s really simply the amount
of information that your brain is trying to manage at one time. So the amount of information your brain is
trying to manage at one time. No other time in the school year is your brain trying to manage so much and
think about your child too, right?
Amy Nathan (03:17):
Right. Yeah. I mean, if you think about your first day at a new job, you’re trying to remember names.
Where do I park? What was the computer password they gave me? Which bathroom should I use? Who
reports to whom? What meetings you’re supposed to attend? Even if you’re great at your job, your brain’s
working overtime and just managing all this new information. So that’s exactly what school, even a
school they’ve been at for so long, a new school year feels like for our kids.
Mary Miele (03:49):
Exactly. I mean, I’m just thinking about the students that I’m working with right now who are going to be
starting school and I’m thinking they’ve been attending this school year to year, but there’s a new
classroom, there’s a different teacher, there’s different expectations presented to them. Maybe there’s a
locker for the first time, a new lunch schedule or different classmates coming in. So their brains are caring
a lot even before they start doing the actual academic work.
Amy Nathan (04:18):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s why the first week of school, it’s not the time to expect perfection, they’re
time to build routines. And routines reduce cognitive load because they eliminate unnecessary decisions.
Mary Miele (04:36):
Right. I mean, parents sometimes think like, oh, routines are so restrictive. They’re just boring and sort of
repetitive. We don’t maybe love them as adults because we can manage so much more. But we actually
see them as freeing. And this has a lot to do with that cognitive load concept when children don’t have to
think about what comes next. They have more energy in their mental space to be available for all of this
new learning.
Amy Nathan (05:04):
Right. Yeah, exactly. That availability is so important. I think about the mornings. If every morning with
your kids starts with, where are your shoes? Did you brush your teeth? Where’s your backpack? Did you
grab your lunch? Did you pack your lunch? Everyone is starting the day feeling stressed. Everyone is
feeling that energy. And we’ve all been there sometimes more often than not, but every day, everyone is
starting their day stressed then. So instead we recommend creating this predictable sequence. Wake up,
get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, grab your backpack, walk out the door. And when that becomes
really automatic, and obviously things come up, but we want to have that automaticity as much as
possible, the morning becomes calmer then.
Mary Miele (05:55):
Exactly. And we’re going to sort of frame up now some strategies depending on how old your child is. So
if you have a child who’s in elementary school, even pre-K, let’s say, or kindergarten, first grade, second
grade, third grade, fourth grade, the visual routines work beautifully. Pictures, simple checklists, even
sticky notes that you put out on the table that they can turn over, cards, things like this. Young children
love knowing what’s coming next and presenting that visual schedule is so helpful.
Amy Nathan (06:31):
Yeah. And I have young kids and it’s a wonderful opportunity to start building independence. So parents
often will kind of think, and myself included sometimes, shouldn’t I just do it for them? It’ll get done
faster. Of course it’s faster, right? Of course. But if we pack the backpack every day and we organize
every folder, children never really learn the skills themselves. Instead, we guide them. We stand next to
them, ask them, “What do you still need before tomorrow? What looks like it’s missing from your
backpack? Check your folder.” Eventually that will become their inner monologue and they’ll begin
asking themselves that question.
Mary Miele (07:17):
It’s amazing. And it just goes into then what comes next, which is once you’re in middle school, this is
when your executive functioning starts becoming super important. So if you have a grade six, seven,
eighth grade student, all of a sudden now they have multiple teachers, they’re changing classrooms, there’s
long-term assignments to handle. There’s sports, there’s clubs, there’s all of the social dynamics happening
and their bodies are changing. It’s a huge jump. Yeah.
Amy Nathan (07:45):
Yeah. Yeah. As somebody who taught middle school for a very long time, one of my favorite things that I
used to tell to parents was to have a Sunday reset. And I do this with actually my own kids at home who
are not in middle school, but a Sunday reset. It’s how I organize myself for work too. Just spend 10
minutes together every Sunday. Look at the calendar, talk about what’s coming up, talk about sports. Oh,
you’re going to have two games this week. Let’s look at your academic load. Let’s talk about how we’re
going to balance this. Let’s talk about any family events, anything unusual that’s happening that week.
Middle school kids included, they love to know if the routine is changing a little bit. Having that time to
process it and just have it in the back of their mind that something different is happening this week, that’s
important.
(08:36):
And planning ahead, as we all know, it just dramatically reduces the stress of the week. Even if it’s a
conversation.
Mary Miele (08:43):
Exactly. And this is what you’re doing with your child. So it’s that we teach a lot here are the I do, we do,
you do. So if you are in the earlier years maybe holding some of this middle school type Sunday planning,
and then eventually you’re going to do it with your child, the hope is once they’re coming out into high
school, now they have this as part of what they do and they can deal with even more complex planning,
which is sort of the whole point of this podcast. So just remember, you don’t have to solve every problem
as a parent. You can help your child instead make that plan. That’s the shift that we’re trying to really
emphasize here.
Amy Nathan (09:22):
And the modeling, I think, of your thinking and your process is really important. I think you can do that at
any age really, but modeling like, oh, it looks like I have a really busy week at work. I’m going to get my
groceries done on Sunday and plan ahead for the week. Kind of just showing them how you think and
how you think through things so they can see how it’s applied to other situations.
Mary Miele (09:50):
Yeah. And I just want to interject really quick there because it’s really all about decreasing your cognitive
load and taking care of what’s in your brain in that way. You’re looking ahead and you’re saying, wow, I
have a really busy week, therefore I’m going to adjust what else I have on my plate to make sure I don’t
have my brain working on that massive cognitive load and I’m getting overwhelmed and then I’m shutting
down and having a meltdown, et cetera. So it all goes back to that same concept.
Amy Nathan (10:16):
Right. And I find we just talked about elementary and pre-K and middle. And by high school, oftentimes
I’ll get parents who call us for executive function coaching or tutoring, and parents are wondering how
involved should they be? So our answer always is stay involved, but change your role. Move from
manager, I’d like to say to coach, let you be mom, let you be dad, whatever that is. Instead of asking, did
you do your homework? Did you get that done? Ask baby, what’s your plan for getting everything done?
Mary Miele (10:51):
That’s such an important distinction. I really think it’s key that we’re still supporting and we’re providing
those key questions to prompt that thinking, but we’re helping the students to really think through their
own systems instead of us being the reminder app because college and eventually adulthood doesn’t come
with parents reminding them about every single assignment. Yeah, for
Amy Nathan (11:20):
Sure.
Mary Miele (11:20):
So let’s just go back because there’s been a lot that we’ve just kind of unpacked and shared with you all.
So let’s just review some practical tips that you can implement this week if you’re thinking, wow, I get
cognitive load. That makes a lot of sense. I want to make sure I really take care of my cognitive load as a
parent and my child’s cognitive load as well. So you, Amy, we’ll kind of go back and forth. You can share
one, I’ll share one. We’ll kind of go like that.
Amy Nathan (11:47):
Yeah, love it. Cool. So I think my first tip then would be pack backpacks the night before. Just that I have
these little hooks outside in my mudroom and I have one kid’s backpack on one hook, others, and I pack
them the night before with my kids so they know what they’re bringing. Sometimes I don’t remember
something that came up and my almost second grader, he’ll say, “Oh, we needed to bring an object for our
show and tell,” and he’ll go grab it. But we’re not doing that as we’re running out the door and scrambling
for the bus. We’re doing that the night before when we have more time.
Mary Miele (12:27):
Exactly. And similarly the night before, taking a look at the weather, taking the look at the clothing that
you’re going to be wearing is key to do because you don’t want to be doing that in the morning either.
Reducing the cognitive load in the morning is so key. So have your kids start that process, look at the
weather, look at what’s happening to pick out what it is you’re going to be wearing so you know, and also
even extend that to after school. So know what needs to be happening after school. Know when there’s
gym class. I mean, there’s a lot of things to consider when it comes to clothing. One of the tips that we
also use here, which is a little more advanced, is to use functional organization for clothing. So for
example, if your child plays soccer, maybe making a drawer just for the soccer clothes.
(13:10):
So that way, even if it’s practice uniforms, actual uniforms, the different gear that they might need, it all
goes in one door. So when they’re thinking about planning for soccer, they just know where to go and
they can get anything they need for that activity. That’s a really great way of also reducing their cognitive
loads. They don’t have to go find the shirts within all the other shirts. They can actually just go and get
what they need for that particular activity. So that’s another way of simplifying the cognitive load for your
kids and eventually maybe they have a drawer just for sleeping gear or just for uniforms or just for
another sport or activity that they might be doing. It really helps that process though so nicely.
Amy Nathan (13:51):
I remember when I first started here a few years ago, that was one of the most helpful tips for me as a
parent. And it’s amazing because everything is in one drawer, so my son’s not shifting around his jersey
drawer and then signing a pair of shorts in the shorts shelf or whatever it is. It’s like everything is just in
one spot and he comes down with everything in one kind of swoop and it’s so much easier. And it was
just such a valuable tip. I have these little crates in my garage for all his tennis stuff and whatever it is, it’s
just all in one place. It’s not divided up and it reduces the cognitive load for everybody. So I love the
functional organization tip. So amazing. And in that regard too, I would carry that over to other things
they might need for school, water bottles, chargers, whatever kind of tech supplies that they need, have it
in a consistent place and somewhere that makes sense for them to grab and go when they’re going out the
door.
Mary Miele (14:57):
Exactly. And now getting into planning time. So we just talked about planning things. Now we’re talking
about planning time. So having a family calendar that everyone can see is so key, and it’s key for multiple
reasons. One is it helps the entire family know what they’re doing and where everyone is, but it also helps
children at every age see time in an extended manner. They don’t in their brains. In the executive
functioning, which happens in the frontal lobe, children do not have always the capacity to see beyond
today, beyond the moment. They don’t really understand time. And if you have a child with ADHD, they
may have time blindness, which means they don’t know about what’s coming up. They can’t see it in their
brains. They can’t hold onto it. If you have a kid with week working memory, it’s hard to hold everything
in place that you’re going to be doing in the weekend when it’s Wednesday.
(15:52):
So having something that everyone’s used to using, it doesn’t really matter what it is, but it needs to see
the full view of the month. And if you can do multiple months, that’s even better. And it really is a place
where just the general topic should be going. So for example, this is when mom’s going away for
something. This is when dad’s going away. This is when we have a soccer match tournament thing. This
is when we have a back to school night so it won’t be home. It’s really those kinds of activities that we’re
putting on the family calendar. For a personal student, that calendaring would look different. For you
personally, that would look different. You might have civic meetings you have for work and your child
might have civic due dates for tests and quizzes and different things they’re going to be doing for their
own work.
(16:37):
So really starting the process of having a family calendar and a personal calendar and giving them those
systems. Once they’re getting into the high school arena, everything for them is digitized. So them
working on setting that up for themselves on their computer and their phone is something you can do
ahead of time with them or you can hire someone at Evolve to do it with them. But essentially you want
to make sure they have a system so they also start learning things like back planning. They also should be
shared on the family calendar so that it pops up and they can see in a different color what’s going on with
the family so that they’re aware, “Oh, this is the night everybody’s out. I’m going to have to take care of
myself tonight.” Or, “Oh, this is when my parents are traveling. I’m going to have to know that as part of
the other context of what’s going on here.” So it’s important to start early.
(17:30):
We always want to start early with all of this, but certainly you want to have a family calendar that’s a
look and a feel for that. We have something called a skylight, which helps me to transition a younger
child who needs that visual posting to the digital, which is inside people’s phones and computers. It’s
hidden because it displays it for the full family here. And everyone’s used to it. They’ll just look at it and it
also displays the weather. So I can see them all going, “Wait, what’s going on this week?” And then they
start processing. So set all of this up early and only stick to one system. There’s a million different
planners, there’s a million different calendars. Whatever works, make it consistent because again, that
decreases that cognitive load for everybody.
Right, totally. Yeah. And again, we can certainly help with that. Our executive function coaches are
amazing. Another thing that I think about as the school year starts, usually depending, homework doesn’t
first day, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re getting homework in every class and a million assignments,
but it’s important to have a consistent homework time, a specific time when homework is done whenever
possible. So that might look different every day depending on their extracurriculars or their sports, but
consistent homework, a block of time to do homework is really important. And oftentimes we’ll have
families work with some of our executive function coaches to block that time out, to say, let’s look at your
schedule. Let’s take a look. If you’re working with a high schooler, when do you feel like your body is
ready to do the homework? We know that adolescents and their brain chemistry and their sleep and all of
that, it’s very different.
(19:25):
Later at night, sometimes kids are operating at their optimum level of effort. So that’s important to have
that consistent time and routine. For a younger student, it might be when you come home before you go
do your sports. So it’s all about finding the best optimal time for your student and your child and helping
them to know that homework is part of the routine. It’s not like a one-off or an aside. It’s part of the
routine.
Mary Miele (20:00):
Exactly. And for our college students, what I do with the first class work is often I’ll put together a look at
their class schedule and then we identify when they need to do the work for each of those classes because
they don’t meet every day. And high school kids sometimes have this too, where they have a eight-day
schedule or something like this. And so they really have to almost be strategic in knowing, we’re not
scripting out exactly what they’re doing in every block, but we’re just saying for economics, this is the
dedicated time you’re going to think about that subject and do that work and go into the syllabus, see what
you have to do, study a little bit because that class meets the next day and it’s just on the calendar. So they
can shift it around, but it definitely is earmarked. And high school kids need to start this process too, so
it’s never a bad idea to get strategic.
(20:51):
And in addition, it’s good to have just a routine that you take just like you do in the morning where you do
things in the same order and then you don’t have to think about it. Same thing with homework. It’s like get
open your Veracross or where they post the assignments, the Blackbaud, and make a plan and then get out
your materials. Sometimes you have to relearn things you didn’t learn, so you have to account for that.
And then you have to maybe ask for some help, then you get your homework done, and then you have to
turn it in. So it’s really mapping out all of those steps that we don’t think about that kids need to have
support with. And if they’re not getting their homework done, you find them procrastinating. Getting at
that early and redoing those strategies is going to be key because it’s much more difficult to retrain the
brain into those pathways than when they’re established one way or the other.
(21:42):
I would just like to add that we want to protect sleep. This is one of the things parents can do. And it’s
sometimes things that parents, I find parents feel that they don’t have control over, but they absolutely do.
And I think it’s very important to set and really enforce the bedtimes for students. And it could be in
collaboration when they’re in high school, it could be in collaboration when they’re in college obviously.
But when you have a younger child, setting that bedtime routine, working towards sleep is really key.
And it’s one of the biggest contributors to increase cognitive load is being tired because now you have to
deal with that on top of everything else. So we can help if you find that to be something of issue as well.
Yeah. And I think obviously sleep is such a huge factor. It impacts everybody’s mood. But also I try in the
beginning of the school year not to also over-schedule. So it’s okay to just say no to one or more activities
while everyone’s just settling into a new routine. So it’s okay to just start lighter and then see what their
workload is like, what their mood is like when they get home, how tired they are. So just a thought. It’s so
hard. We’re all doing a million things. We want our kids involved in everything, but over-scheduling can
definitely contribute to some issues in the first few weeks.
Mary Miele (23:06):
Sure. And just think about yourself when you’re getting back into maybe a workout routine, how sore you
feel in the very beginning. You’re not going to want to just take a particular class every single day after
school or when you’re starting something new. So just easing in is sometimes the very best and most
healthy way of handling it. So let’s talk about a mistake that we see every year just to give parents a clear
guide of what maybe to clearly avoid. So I think something that we’re trying to really lean into is
cognitive load and decreasing that cognitive load is such an important strategy. But also there’s an ability
then to provide agency for our students, meaning they get to pick up the ors and row them. So how do
they do that? Well, it’s when parents don’t solve every single problem that’s coming up in all of this
immediately.
(24:00):
So tell us a little more about what you’re seeing with this problem, Amy.
Amy Nathan (24:04):
Yeah. So I think it’s our nature as parents and as educators, everybody to just want to help and fix and just
be like, okay, I know what the solution is. Let me just help you. Instead, just pause for a minute and ask
questions. So maybe giving your child that agency, like you mentioned, the independence, what do you
think would help? What could you try tomorrow instead? What would help us avoid what happened this
morning tomorrow? How can we make this easier next time? So when you ask them these questions, it’s
not to. And also I will caveat you ask these questions out of the moment, not in the moment when they’re
having a hard time or when the assignments have built up and they’re turning something in late or when
they can’t find something. These are done out of the moment in a calmer moment.
(25:01):
But in this way, you’re teaching them problem solving instead of dependence and reliance on you. You
are giving them agency to come up with the solution. And asking questions is a really powerful tool. It
really gets you the information too that you need to help them. So asking your kid, “What are you
thinking happened here?” And you might learn something that you might’ve thought the problem was one
thing and they might reveal something. It was like, “Oh, oh, I’m sorry, that was in the laundry room,”
whatever it is. So you might learn something out of it too in addition to helping them to start rely on
themselves more.
Mary Miele (25:46):
Sure. And it’s such an exercise in feeling uncomfortable. So saying in the book, Power of Questioning,
which is available also that I wrote, it talks a lot about the power of a question in that it already, just by
asking it, starts the cognitive uncomfortableness, which we don’t like. And so kids will try to solve it just
instinctively, and so will we. So parents have to tolerate being really uncomfortable in that moment for
our children to show them that sometimes the answers don’t come right away and get us out of this
uncomfortable moment. Sometimes we don’t know how to handle a new class with a new teacher that’s
not going well, but staying in the question is sometimes the exact place we need to be. So when all else
fails, you might just lead that way and say, “Let’s just stay in this question for this week.
(26:40):
How could we make this morning routine better? How could we make this class better with this tricky
teacher? How could we help you with navigating this new afterschool activity that is a lot of extra
energy?” Just stay there. You never know what’s going to come up. And I think that’s the beauty of this
mistake, but also this process that we’re really talking about in this part of the podcast.
(27:08):
So just in terms of the parents listening, we just want to remind you that these strategies that we’re
teaching, these routines, they don’t happen overnight. So the first week of school is usually very messy.
Sometimes the second week is too, your children are going to pop up and show you parts of themselves
that they’re struggling with, and it’s going to surprise you and deregulate you. And all of this is normal.
And I think just hearing that could be the most important thing you take away.
Amy Nathan (27:39):
Absolutely. And I think that the first few days, the first week or two, it’s hard. Don’t judge what your child
is capable of based on those first few days or week. Every routine takes practice and we’re not looking for
perfection, but consistency. So staying consistent. If it is one bad day with the routine, don’t just drop it.
Just try to stay with it. And habits, as we all know, take time to form. So just stay with it. And small
improvements every day, they really add up. And listen, if you are having a hard time or give yourself
some grace, but you also know that you can reach out to me for our executive function support. And we’re
always here to talk through. We do not have a one-size-fits-all approach. Every child is different and
every approach needs to be different. So we’re always happy to support here.
Mary Miele (28:36):
Absolutely. And as we wrap up today, we’ll go back and forth, Amy. Let’s just share what we’d love every
family to remember. I’ll say one thing, Amy will say the next, and you can sum up everything for your
brain. So number one, most important, the topic of the podcast, reduce the cognitive load by creating
predictable routines.
Amy Nathan (28:58):
Yeah. Number two, build independence gradually. Do things with your child before you expect them to
do things on their own. That’s that I do, we do, you do approach.
Mary Miele (29:12):
Definitely. Number three, plan ahead. Even just 10 minutes on a Sunday with your family can reduce so
much stress.
Amy Nathan (29:23):
Yeah. Number four, I love this. Remember that routines create freedom. The more automatic everyday
tasks become, the more mental energy that frees up for that student. So they have more space for learning,
creativity, friendships, and enjoying school.
Mary Miele (29:45):
Exactly. And finally, everyone, give everyone, including yourself, a little grace during those first few
weeks. The new school year is a fresh start and it’s okay if everything isn’t perfect. Stay in that question.
Get a little messy. It’s really, let’s normalize it.
Amy Nathan (30:04):
Yeah. And what I love what we do at Evolved here as we wrap it up is we believe that successful students
aren’t just the ones who know the most or who get an A+ on everything. They’re the ones who have
systems, routines, executive functioning skills that allow them to thrive. And those skills can be taught,
practiced, strengthened at every age from kindergarten through high school and college and beyond.
Mary Miele (30:30):
Yes, absolutely. And just thank you so much for joining us for this important topic today. You’re already
on your way, and if you enjoyed this episode, I hope that you can share it with other parents in your life
who are getting ready for the new school year. And if you’d like to learn more about tutoring, executive
functioning, or school support services, we’d just love to connect with you. And until next time, we’re
wishing you and your family a wonderful and skilled and decreased cognitive load start to this school
year. Thanks so much for listening.
Amy Nathan (31:05):
Thank you.
Mary Miele (31:08):
Thank you for listening to another episode of Be Evolved: Building Strategic Educational Paths. If you’re
navigating an important educational transition or wondering whether your child’s current educational
experience could be stronger, you do not have to determine the next step alone. Visit our site,
www.evolvededucationcompany.com to schedule a complimentary intake consultation. During this
confidential conversation, you can share your vision for your child. Explain what you’re working to
accomplish and tell us where you need greater clarity. We will recommend a strategy and explain how our
services can help put it into action. Follow Be Evolved for fresh thinking and practical strategies from
nursery through college. The right educational path begins with understanding each student and becomes
reality through strategy and implementation.