The week before term has its own particular weight. The summer has been long, the routine has quietly dissolved, and somewhere in the back of your mind is the knowledge that in seven days everyone has to be dressed, fed and out of the door by half past eight.
If your child has ADHD, or you suspect they might, that transition costs more than it does in other households. Not because you have done anything wrong, but because moving from one set of rules to a completely different set of rules is genuinely hard work for a brain that finds transitions difficult. The good news is that most of that cost can be paid in advance, in small amounts, over the week you have left.
Here is a day by day plan. One job per day. Nothing that takes more than half an hour.
Day 7: Start moving bedtime
If your child has been going to bed at ten and needs to be asleep by half eight, do not attempt that jump on the Sunday night before term. Shift it back in fifteen minute increments, one increment per night. Seven nights gets you nearly two hours.
The morning matters as much as the evening. Waking up fifteen minutes earlier each day pulls the whole sleep window with it and is often easier to enforce than an earlier bedtime, because a child lying in bed awake is not actually asleep.
Sleep difficulties are extremely common in children with ADHD, and this is the single change that will make the most difference to the first fortnight of term. It is also the one that needs the most lead time, which is why it goes first.
Day 6: The uniform dry run
Not a try on. A wear.
Have your child put on the full uniform, shoes and all, and wear it for an hour around the house. This is how you find out that the collar is unbearable, the label is a problem, the new shoes rub, or the trousers are the wrong texture. You want to find that out now, while the shops are still open and there is time to order a different pair, rather than at 8am on the first day when there are no other options and everybody is already crying.
Sensory sensitivity is common in ADHD and autistic children and it is not fussiness. A seam that a child cannot stop noticing will occupy a real portion of their attention all day, in a classroom where they already need every bit of it.
Cut out labels. Wash new uniform before it is worn so it is softer. If shoes are a battle, seamless socks and a bit of extra room help.
Day 5: Build the bag, then photograph it
Pack the school bag completely, exactly as it should be on a normal day. Then take a photo of the contents laid out.
That photo is the thing. Stick it inside the bag, or set it as the lock screen on an older child's phone. On the mornings when nobody can think straight, rebuilding the bag becomes a matching exercise rather than a memory exercise, and it takes ninety seconds instead of fifteen minutes of shouting up the stairs.
Do the same for the morning routine if it helps. A short visual sequence of what happens in what order, on the fridge or the back of the bedroom door. Apps like Brili Routines and Tiimo do this digitally with timers built in, and Time Timer makes visual countdown clocks that show time passing as a shrinking block of colour, which is far more useful than a number for a child with a shaky sense of time.
Day 4: The one email to school
Before day one, send a short note to the new teacher. Not a case history. Five or six lines.
What helps your child. What tends to go wrong and what it looks like when it does. What you would like to be told about, and how. If your child already has a diagnosis, an EHCP or a support plan in place, say so and offer to talk before term starts.
The point is not to pre load the teacher with problems. It is to be a known quantity from the first week rather than a name that appears after the first incident. If you need help understanding what a school is legally required to provide, IPSEA gives free, accurate advice on special educational needs law in England.
Day 3: Write the first day script
Children with ADHD often struggle less with the school day itself than with the unknowns around it. Take those away.
Talk through the actual sequence. Who takes them. What the gate looks like. Where they go first. Who they sit near. What happens at break, at lunch, at home time, and who is collecting them. If the school has an open afternoon or the site is accessible, walk the route.
Then give them one line for the thing they are most worried about. If they do not know anyone at lunch, the line is what they say to sit down at a table. If they get lost, the line is who they ask. One sentence they can actually use beats a general reassurance that everything will be fine.
Day 2: Rehearse the morning
Run it once. Real time, real clothes, real breakfast, out of the door at the actual hour.
You will find out that it takes eleven minutes longer than you thought. That is the entire point of doing it on a Saturday rather than discovering it on the Tuesday.
Day 1: Lower the bar
The last job is the one people skip.
Decide now, in advance, what the first week is allowed to look like. Not the ideal version. The realistic one. After school restraint collapse is real: a child who has held themselves together all day in a demanding new environment often falls apart the moment they are somewhere safe, which is usually your kitchen at four o'clock. That is not a sign that the day went badly. It often means the opposite.
So plan a light first week. No new clubs. Nothing scheduled straight after school. Easy food. Early nights. Expect the meltdowns and you will handle them better than if they blindside you.
And do the same for yourself. The run up to September is exhausting for parents in a way that very little else is, and you are allowed to do half of this list and call it a good week.
If this week has raised questions
Sometimes preparing for term is what makes the pattern visible. If you have found yourself thinking that this is harder in your house than it seems to be for other families, that is worth paying attention to.
Our free ADHD quiz for children takes a few minutes and gives you a clearer sense of whether what you are seeing is consistent with ADHD. It is a screening tool, not a diagnosis, but it is a reasonable place to start.
If you already have a diagnosis and what you need is practical support at home, our parent support programme works through boundaries, routines, emotional regulation and communication in eight steps, built specifically for parents of children with ADHD.
And if you want answers rather than another year of wondering, you can read about how a child ADHD assessment works, including what happens at each stage, before you commit to anything.
