Before School Chaos Starts 🚌
I got this message last week and it's got me thinking…
A mom who came through my Family Rules, Chores & Systems workshop held a back-to-school family meeting this weekend. New chores laid out. Reading log ready. Duties assigned by name.
“You have changed my life.”
That's what happens when you get ahead of it. Guys, I'm constantly yammering on about “proactive communication”…with my couples, with the corporations I speak to and coach for, and especially with my parent clients.
Here's what I see every single September: families get blindsided by the schedule shift. Summer was loose — late nights, flexible mornings, no one really had to be anywhere. Then school starts, and suddenly there's a 6:45 am alarm, a tech turn-in time, homework expectations, after-school activities stacking up... and nobody talked about any of it.
“How do they not KNOW?!?!”
So the first three weeks of school look like this: you're nagging, they're resisting, everyone's exhausted, and you're having the same argument every night about screens and bedtime and why nothing got done.
That's not a discipline problem. That's a communication gap.
When routines change, expectations need to be re-negotiated — ideally before everyone is tired and frustrated and saying things they don't mean. A proactive conversation protects the relationship. A reactive one costs you a ding to your relationship's wellbeing.
So before school starts (or even in the first week — it's not too late), sit your family down and talk through:
New wake-up and bedtime expectations
When tech will get turned in and where it lives overnight
What the chore schedule looks like now that schedules are fuller
After-school routines — what happens when they walk in the door
Any new rules that need to go up alongside new responsibilities
You don't have to have all the answers. You just have to open the conversation — and let the kids be part of building the plan. That's what makes it stick.
If you want the templates, the structure, and a step-by-step process for running that family meeting (so it doesn't turn into a free-for-all), my Family Rules, Chores & Systems for Discipline Workshop is the place to start. It's what this mom used. It's what dozens of families have used to go from reactive chaos to a home that actually runs.
Back to school is one of the best times of year to reset. Don't wait until everyone's already losing it to have the conversation.
Proactive communication > reactive communication,
P.S. Already went through the workshop? First — go have that family meeting. If you need a refresher, CLICK HERE to log in to your account. You have everything you need. And second, if you haven't tried the Ask Mika chatbot yet, now's the time. I trained it on the full system, ADHD and big-feelings parenting, all of it — and it's honestly a little creepy how well it knows the approach. It's like having me in your pocket for the moments when you don't have time to think. You get 10 free questions just to try it, and unlimited access is on sale through August 20th. → Try it here
