July 31, 2025

Four Mindful Back to School Strategies with Lasting Impact

Motivation naturally ebbs and flows throughout our lives - especially during the school year. What if you could harness those high-motivation moments to make the inevitable low-energy times easier? That's exactly what mindful motivation allows us to do.

This final episode in our summer skills series explores four practical strategies to leverage your back-to-school energy surge for long-term success. When we recognize the natural cycle of motivation, we can practice a profound form of self-compassion: letting our present motivated self take concrete actions that will support our future less-motivated self.

First, I share how spending just 30-60 minutes getting a high-level view of your calendar can transform your experience of the next several months. Next, we explore how creating space for children to express their school-related worries now prevents emotional buildup later. The third strategy involves helping kids envision their potential and growth, shifting from past struggles to future possibilities. Finally, we look at how being intentional about school preparations can build intrinsic motivation and autonomy.

These mindfulness techniques aren't about pushing yourself beyond capacity - if you're feeling depleted right now, simply tuck these ideas away for when your motivation naturally rises again. The beauty of mindfulness isn't just being present in the moment; it's also using present awareness to care for your future self.

Ready to bring more mindfulness to your family's back-to-school transition? Listen now for practical tips you can implement right away, whether you're riding a wave of motivation or simply surviving summer.

For our Summer Skills Series Episodes, click on the topic you're interested in below:

Can a Redo help during reactive moments? Yes!

Master the Art of Active Listening

What if discouragement is just a feeling, not an identity? The power of a reframe.

For a calendar that covers the holidays at a glance, click here.

To learn more about mindfulness coaching click here.

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.

To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.

To review the podcast click here.

00:00 - Introduction to Mindful Motivation

02:16 - Getting a High-Level View

05:41 - Managing Pre-School Year Emotions

10:20 - Envisioning Growth and Possibility

12:49 - Intentional School Prep Tips

17:20 - Closing and Resources

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You're listening to the Stress Nanny Podcast and I'm your host, lindsay Miller.

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I'm here to help you keep an eye on your family's stress levels.

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In our fast-paced lives, the ability to manage stress has never been more important for kids or adults.

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When it comes to stress, we have two choices we can decrease stress or increase our resilience to it.

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Here on the number eight ranked stress podcast, I interview experts and share insights to help you do both.

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When you tune in each week, you'll bring your stress levels down and your resilience up so that stress doesn't get in the way of you living your best life.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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Welcome to this last episode of our summer skills podcast, where we've been talking about simple ways you can incorporate mindfulness into your summer routine so that it's easier to use mindfulness during the year.

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We've covered the redo, active listening and reframing over the past few weeks and today I'm going to share some practical tips around mindful motivation.

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As humans, our motivation ebbs and flows.

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When we are experiencing moments of high motivation, it can be helpful to set ourselves up for success in the inevitable low motivation moments.

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That way, in our more chill or relaxed times, instead of being frustrated that we're not at level 10 motivation.

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We can just look back and thank our really motivated self for taking good care of our less motivated self.

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This insight in and of itself is important because it allows us to practice understanding and compassion for ourselves and for others when motivation fluctuates.

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So if we're mindful or present with this tendency to have moments of high motivation and low motivation, we can set ourselves up for success by taking a few extra steps to make tasks easier in the long run.

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This is how we use motivation mindfully.

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As we wrap up summer and begin to prepare for the school year, a lot of us feel a kind of preparatory energy around the school year and instead of just doing the basics, we can leverage that motivation to help us just do a few simple extra things.

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That will add some steadiness despite our fluctuating motivation levels over the next couple of months.

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Today we'll talk through four ways we can mindfully capitalize on new school year motivation.

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And don't worry, I recognize that every summer is different and some of us might be rolling into the new school year on our last energetic reserves.

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If you're at a moment where motivation is ebbing, feel free to stick these ideas in your back pocket for a time when they're resonant.

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Don't think that I'm asking you to run faster than you feel able to at this moment.

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Okay, so the first idea is to get a high level view of the rest of the school year.

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If you take 30 to 60 minutes to just figure out what's going to be happening over the next couple of months, it makes such a massive difference in how those months flow.

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We've been doing this in our house this week as the sports orchestra, sat and school schedules have rolled in and I feel so organized when I know how the next few months are shaping up.

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I feel at odds and kind of chaotic when all those details are scattered, but when I can synthesize them I feel a lot more at ease and that ease carries me through months.

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So the 30 to 60 minutes, it's worth it.

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Many of you know that my other company is the Essential Calendar and it's a powerfully simple tool that helps families get organized.

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My dear friend Crystal made the first calendar years ago when our kids were tiny, and I remember a conversation we had at our little subdivision park where she was explaining how she made a simple grid calendar where the months flowed together and she could see a whole season at a glance.

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And as we're like pushing our kids on the swings, she's talking to me about how amazing this calendar was, and at first I was kind of confused by her enthusiasm because I was like it's a calendar, we all have calendars.

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But a few weeks later she brought over one of these calendars she's made for me to try, telling me it would make such a big difference.

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I'd just been using my monthly calendar and didn't think it would be much of a change, but I tried it anyway and I was totally floored at how looking at the months a little differently made a massive impact on our experience.

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I loved being able to see how all the months and activities fit together, especially during the crazy busy stretch of back to school Halloween, thanksgiving, christmas and New Year's.

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I have not been able to use a monthly calendar since, and I loved it so much that Crystal and I made a website and now we share this tool with thousands of families around the world.

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Everybody has their own method, but I love our calendar because I can just pull out my phone with all the appointments that I have in there the school calendar, the sports schedules and I just color code my little heart out to get a glimpse of how we'll roll through the rest of 2025.

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If you want an essential calendar which is simple and beautiful enough to prominently display thanks to Crystal's design genius, I'll link to it in the show notes.

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We'd love to send you one and you can use the code STRESSNANNY for 25% off.

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However you make it happen, give yourself the gift of sorting out some of the details for the rest of 2025.

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You can look at trips, holiday plans, times when you need some space, and that's actually one of my favorite things about calendaring this way.

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Once the calendar starts to fill up, I get pretty particular about the open space and I'm hesitant to add more if I don't have to.

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I know sometimes it can't be avoided, but there are times when we can really do ourselves a favor by checking on where our open spaces are and leaving them open, so we build in some relaxation and some downtime during those crazy months where there's so much going on.

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If you just sit down and take seriously less than an hour, your future self will thank you.

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So that's my first mindful motivation tip.

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The second one ties in some of the other skills we've been working on this month.

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If you missed those, I'll link to them in the show notes.

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This is where we're helping our kids understand what they're feeling and, instead of holding all those feelings in and having them explode out right when school's starting, we're like letting those feelings emerge as they're feeling them and we're helping kids work through them real time, so those anxieties and worries don't build up when it comes to like school or friendships or new fall activities.

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A lot of times right now in coaching, I'm hearing phrases like I'm worried about or I don't know if, or like I don't I'm not sure my friend is.

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You know, fill in the blank, anxiety by definition is uncertainty about the future, and anytime we're starting something new we feel a lot of uncertainty.

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As parents, we often want to help our kids move through that feeling as soon as possible because we want them to be confident and it's hard to see our kids vulnerable.

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But if we can take a minute to listen to those worries and help kids get specific about what they're worried about, then we have a lot of information we can use as we help them prepare for school over the next few weeks and we allow them to voice those worries instead of bottling them up.

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Our brains are like magnifying glasses or flashlights, so they will look for what we tell them to look for.

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So if you know what worries your child, like magnifying glasses or flashlights, so they will look for what we tell them to look for.

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So if you know what worries your child is magnifying currently, you can acknowledge, normalize and validate those worries with phrases like I hear you, when we start something new, there's a lot of uncertainty, because they may not recognize that uncertainty is what they're feeling.

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Or say something like that's great self-awareness.

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It makes sense that you're feeling nervous.

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Or say something like that's great self-awareness.

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It makes sense that you're feeling nervous about starting middle school with a whole new space and a whole new teachers and a whole new routine.

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Then, once we have more specific information about what they're concerned about, we can look for moments to help them build confidence.

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And that's where we're helping them reframe.

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So we're shifting from how they feel.

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Once we've acknowledged and validated it, it's easier for them to let it go.

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But until we've acknowledged and validated, like we've talked about, it's kind of like trying to hold a beach ball underwater and it's going to pop up somewhere, right.

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So if all those feelings are just like just under the surface but they're not getting communicated in some way shape or form, then when they do have a moment where something big happens, all those feelings tend to come up at once.

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So if we can slowly help them work through those feelings before school starts, hopefully they'll be in a better position to flow through whatever other feelings come up at the moment, instead of having this backlog of feelings they've got to work through.

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This other part is helping them to see themselves differently.

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So once we've unearthed how they're feeling and they're free to shift their attention to something else because their brain isn't hyper-focused on it, then they start to see.

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They're open to seeing other things.

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So instead of seeing only the unknown about a new teacher, we can help them reflect back on other moments when they had a new teacher and it worked out great.

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Or we can help them look at experiences they've had over the summer that illustrate bravery.

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Summer's often full of new adventures and there are plenty of opportunities to highlight courage.

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And when we can help them see their courage, resilience or bravery and make that a part of like how they see themselves, then we can help them recognize that they've been uncertain before and handled it and they can do it again.

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So when we help them internalize those moments of bravery.

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We can refer back to those moments throughout the school year when motivation or courage are low.

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But that starts with us just taking like a minute to prep them for the school year emotionally with like these moments of conversation.

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So in all of our new school year energy allow yourself to lean into like the emotional moments in a way that, like maybe in the thick of homework and driving kids from practices and being exhausted and trying to make dinner it's kind of hard to do In summer we can do some of that prep work right and start those conversations now so that in the crazy moments of the school year we're just saying like remember strong Sadie who did a swim meet for the very first time, or remember when John was on the go-kart and was a little nervous but decided it was going to be more fun if he gave it a try and so he went for it and loved it.

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Those are the things we can refer to quickly when we've had these kind of like foundational conversations.

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The third way we can use motivation mindfully is an extension of this courage conversation.

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One of the things I noticed about kids is that they tend to remember past struggles and assume they will face similar challenges in the present.

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While there's definitely wisdom in learning from the past and our brains are designed to remember and avoid hard things, it can be helpful to invite kids to see their growth and envision their potential.

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So once we've kind of assaged some of the worries that they have, we can take it next level and help them start to consider what's possible.

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So this week a lot of my mindfulness kids are doing a visioning project where we think about the version of themselves that they want to be as they start school.

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While we can't magically fix struggles, we can begin to consider a future where the struggles are different or where we've grown in a way that makes those struggles much smaller.

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One phrase in particular that I use with my mindfulness kids is I've put a lot of effort and energy into learning to manage big feelings, so I'm going to be okay.

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Or it's possible that I've changed, or the situation has changed, or, as one of my mindfulness kids puts it, it will probably be a whole lot less terrifying than I'm imagining it to be.

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And then another one of my personal favorites there's evidence that I can rely on myself to get through anything when kids can practice self-awareness and see themselves in these new ways, whether it's through coaching, conversations with you or courageous moments.

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They're willing to consider a future where their strengths can shine through in any struggle.

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But those conversations only happen if we curb our tendency to say don't worry about that and instead say tell me more about that.

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And then invite them to consider some of the things we've talked about here, like what the feeling is, what specifically they're concerned about, what evidence we have that they have shown bravery or courage in a similar moment, or how they see themselves to be this year, what's possible given their potential.

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And again, I think that the visioning of potential is much easier after we've already helped them manage the big feelings, because when we're feeling scared and nervous, the nervous system isn't in a position to get curious and creative about what's possible because it's contracted and tense.

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So once we've helped them move through those feelings and move into a more open space, then they're more willing to consider what's possible.

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And then my fourth mindful motivation tip is to be intentional about school prep.

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When we're out scouring the aisles of Walmart or Office Depot for the items on the material list, we can take a few extra minutes to find items that feel joyful or fun and those extra minutes are going to pay off throughout the whole school year.

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Right, and I know, while in the middle of a Walmart aisle it can be tricky to like find extra energy.

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Taking the time to do this and help your child find items that spark joy will have a lasting impact on your child's experience during the school year, because they use those items every day.

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Earlier this month, one of my clients sent me a text about the textured breathing strip stickers at Walmart, and all my mindfulness coaching clients are getting those this month.

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I also love using the Calm Strip brand for that, so that's another option.

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These textured breathing stickers are a great way to invite kids to presence during a boring lecture, a fidgety elementary school moment or a stressful test.

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I encourage my kids to find a place to put them that will be close by, so maybe on a water bottle, on a folder or on a desk if their teacher is super cool.

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They come off with some dissolvent, you know, at the end of the year, but some teachers are game for that and some are not, so check with your teacher first and use a water bottle or folder if it's a no-go on the desk first and use a water bottle or folder if it's a no-go on the desk For older kids.

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We also want to talk about pen colors or designs on folders or potentially spending an extra dollar or two on really cute dividers.

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That will bring a smile for the next nine months and give our child a sense of, like, autonomy and self-awareness in terms of what organizational tools work for them.

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One of the things that we often see with school is the like extrinsic motivation drives a lot of behavior, right.

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So the external things are grades and teachers and parents driving behavior.

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But if we can add a few things that kids are excited about, it can help them with a sense of intrinsic motivation because they have some say in situation.

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Right, it's not something happening to them, they're actively participating in creating it and I know it sounds funny to think that dividers or a cool folder or binder would be supportive of that.

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But really like when we put kids in the brain space where they're feeling a sense of autonomy and ownership that can carry through in other moments in really cool ways.

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Another thing I like to do at this time of year is looking at like what needs to happen before school starts, because if we can ease into that, it's going to be a lot easier than if we were like racing into the finish and I've had a lot of years when I'm just racing into the finish because I'm just surviving.

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So I totally get that.

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But if we know there are certain things that need to be done before the school year starts, we can make some reminder posters.

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At our house we like to use those big post-it sheets that go on the wall, like the really huge poster size ones, and then we make lists, we make timelines of what needs to happen before school starts or we use those at finals time.

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At our house right now the poster has big circles and correlating tasks like Viola, sat prep crew, soccer and the Great Gatsby, and then each time there's time spent on one of those tasks we add a small sticker dot to the big circle next to it, and as the start of the school year gets closer we want to see those circles almost full of sticker dots and that'll be a sign that we're prepared and we've done what we need to do before getting started.

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Any kind of visual to help kids see what needs to happen or, you know, as a reminder of the things that they're doing in preparation for the school year can go a long way toward making the start of the school year have a little bit more flow and a little less chaos.

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You could use any project or preparatory task in a similar way by helping kids come up with some sort of visual that they have ownership of and that supports the kind of behavior that they need to have going into the year, whether it's practicing an instrument you know, doing summer reading, whatever.

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So every summer is different.

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And again, if you're feeling like exhausted right now and just worn out, I totally get it and just keep these ideas in your back pocket for another time, if you have the motivation and energy and you're somebody who gets excited about the school year and is just ready to kind of dive in, use some of these ideas and see how it serves you going into the next couple of months.

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One of the things I love about mindfulness is that it gives us opportunity to care for our future self if we let it.

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So we're really present right now, but oftentimes those really present actions serve far into the future.

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So if you can take the time to be present in getting school supplies, in getting a high level view of the rest of the year, in listening to kids talk through worries and then encouraging them to see their future confident, courageous self.

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To see their future confident, courageous self.

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You will be served by those actions for quite some time.

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For those of us who are riding a motivational wave, we can take advantage of that energy mindfully and set ourselves up for the next few months with these simple yet high impact actions as we lean into that back to school energy.

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If you need a calendar, I've got a cute one that covers Labor Day to New Year's at theessentialcalendarcom and we have all the color coding accessories you can dream of over there.

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If you need a mindfulness coach for a worried or high performing, high tension kid, I've got you covered there too.

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Mindfulness coaching is half an hour a week and it makes a big difference because we consistently practice these types of tools and we invite kids to change the way they see themselves by practicing the tools building self-awareness, working through emotion and learning how to self-regulate.

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If you just need a few phrases or ideas, feel free to use the ones in this show to help you take a mindful approach to your back to school preparations.

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You've just finished an episode of the Stress Nanny podcast, so hopefully you feel a little more empowered when it comes to dealing with stress.

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Feel free to take a deep breath and let it out slowly as you go back to your day.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for your support.

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It really means the world to me.

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If you're new, I'd love to have you follow the podcast and join me each week, and no matter how long you've been listening.

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Slash the stress nanny and leave a review.

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The link is in the show notes.

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I'm so grateful for all my listeners.

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Thank you again for being here.

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Until next time.

Four Mindful Back to School Strategies with Lasting Impact

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