The Summer Plan That Finally Worked for My Neurodivergent Family

It has started. The end-of-year chaos. The class parties, the award ceremonies, the teacher gifts, the “what are we doing this summer” spiral.

And honestly? The chaos doesn’t even stress me out that much. What stresses me out is the mental load of thinking through what summer is actually going to look like. Because for moms with ADHD, summer is not just a schedule change. It is a full restructuring of how our days, our brains, and our energy work.

Here’s where I am right now: my days feel compressed. I work from home and I’m mostly in work mode from around 10 to 2, but I genuinely have six to eight hours of work I want to get done in that window. Work that I love, by the way. Work I choose. That urgency actually helps me, because my ADHD brain needs a reason to get moving and stay on task.

But some days, it is a lot.

And summer is coming for all of that.

In some ways, I’m looking forward to it. No more pickups at three specific times from three different places. No more being held hostage by the school calendar. There’s freedom in that.

But here’s the part I didn’t understand about myself for a long time, and the part I want to say out loud in case you need to hear it too: I need my quiet. I need my structure. I need my deep work time. Not just to run my business, but to function as a human being and to be a patient, present mom to my kids.

For years, I got emails from coaches telling me how to set up my business so I could be fully present with my kids all summer. At the pool. On vacation. On the playground. No phone. Just vibes and sunscreen.

And I thought that was supposed to be the goal.

It took me a long time to admit the truth: I love my kids deeply. I also very much still need to work. Not just because of income (though yes, that too), but because my brain craves that stimulation. I need to create and think and teach. That is not a flaw. That is how I am wired.

Once I stopped trying to fit into the “present pool mom” vision of summer, I could actually start planning a summer that worked for our whole family. Including me.

• Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell. Technically a romance, but Rainbow writes plus-sized women’s inner lives with such honesty and tenderness that I found myself just feeling really seen. Here’s the link: [Cherry Baby link]

• Mhairi McFarlane audiobooks. I have been burning through these on the Hoopla app (free through my local library) on weekend mornings. Fun British rom-coms with surprisingly real, layered characters. Exactly the right mix of cozy and genuinely good. Honestly, I’ve loved them all and they are perfect for listening while you do home projects.

• Using ChatGPT to build a Sign-Up Genius in 10 minutes. I needed to pull together a contribution list for Libby’s end-of-year party and I would have procrastinated on it for a week. Handed it to AI and it was done while I waited for my coffee to brew. We’re doing an ice cream party theme and I found this cute blog with ideas and these easy crafts on Amazon.

Here’s the thing about summer: it removes all the external scaffolding that quietly holds your life together during the school year. The pickup times. The school schedule. The built-in rhythm of Monday through Friday. For neurotypical people, summer is a relief. For a lot of moms with ADHD, it is a slow-motion unraveling.

Without structure, decision fatigue takes over. Every morning becomes “so what are we doing today?” And if you’ve got neurodivergent kids who also need predictability, that question can derail everyone before 9 a.m.

Add to that: the shame spiral. You see the summer bucket lists. The pool days. The crafts and the “18 summers” countdowns. And if you are trying to also protect your work time or your alone time or your sensory needs, it can feel like you are failing at summer before it even starts.

You’re not failing. You have different needs. Your kids probably do too. And there is a way to plan for all of that.

Here’s how I think about it at a high level:

• Summer planning is about figuring out what you and your kids actually need, not recreating someone else’s highlight reel

• Structure is not the enemy of fun. For families like ours, structure IS the fun. It’s what makes the fun possible.

• “Anchor activities” (the consistent, repeating things that give your week a spine) are the foundation. Everything else gets layered in from there.

• Neurodivergent kids often do better with fewer, familiar activities than a jam-packed rotation of new things

• Your needs as the parent matter and they belong in the plan, not as an afterthought

The details of how to actually build this out, including the specific framework I’ve developed over 15 years of doing this with my own three kids, is in the paid section below.

🔒 Paid subscribers: Keep reading for the real-life version, including how I categorize summer activities into three types to make planning way less overwhelming, the specific lessons I learned the hard way (including an expensive camp that was a complete disaster), and the step-by-step way I build out our summer calendar so I stop dreading it and actually feel ready.