If you are counting down the days until school starts, feeling short-tempered and exhausted, and then feeling guilty on top of it, you are experiencing end of summer burnout, and you are not alone. In this episode, Lisa Candera explains where autism mom burnout actually comes from and why the constant role of being your household’s cruise director and emotional regulator drains your tank. She offers practical, low-effort ways to refill that tank and close out the summer without the pressure to make it perfect.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why burnout comes from the energy required to run your household nonstop, not simply from the number of things you are juggling as an autism mom.
- How taking space, letting other people manage their own relationships and feelings, and refusing to layer guilt on top of your rest can make that rest genuinely restorative.
- Why dropping the pressure for the end of summer to look a certain way, and choosing simple, easy wins instead, will leave you with more energy heading into the school year
Resources Mentioned:
- Sun, Moon, and Stars Autism Awareness Night at Quassy Amusement and Waterpark in Middlebury, Connecticut, on September 4, 2026 from 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM. This is a sensory-friendly event open to autism families, special needs families, and their allies. Registration is required through Sun, Moon, and Stars, as the event is not open to the general public. Register HERE.
Listen Here:
Transcript:
You are listening to episode 209 of The Autism Mom Coach, How to Overcome End of Summer Burnout for Autism Moms
Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. I am so glad you are here, and I hope you are doing well.
Before I dive into today’s topic, I want to share with you an event that is coming up in September. So for those of you who live in Connecticut or the surrounding areas, listen up. Sun, Moon, and Stars, which is a Connecticut-based nonprofit that serves autism families, is hosting its third annual Autism Awareness Night at Quassy Amusement and Waterpark This is an amazing opportunity for special needs families to enjoy a night out at an amusement park without the sensory overload, because this is a sensory friendly event, without the long lines, the big crowds, and most importantly, without the judgment.
The event will take place on September fourth, twenty twenty-six from five thirty PM to nine thirty PM.
Quassy Amusement Park is located in Middlebury, Connecticut. In order to attend this event and get the special pricing, you will need to register through Sun, Moon, and Stars, I will leave a link in the show notes please note that this event is open to p-autism families, special needs families, and their allies. In order to attend, again, you must register through Sun, Moon, and Stars because this event is not open to the general public. There will also be several autism sponsors throughout the park, including me and other autism-related advocacy programs in, in and around Connecticut.
This is your o-opportunity to stop by and have some informal conversations and connections with special needs advocates and other community organizers so that you can find more activities like this for your family and that you can connect with additional resources.
All right, on to today’s topic How to overcome end of the summer burnout for autism moms. If you’ve stayed on this long, you probably know what I’m talking about
The general theme of my coaching calls in the last couple of weeks has been moms who are absolutely exhausted. Summer is almost over for some and still a few weeks
They are tired, they are short-tempered, and they are counting down the days until school starts. And at the same time, they are feeling guilty for feeling the way that they do
One mom came to our phone call somewhere between stunned and livid. She has been spending the entire summer keeping her children very occupied with different activities and camps and with trips and activities, events, you name it.
And so on this day, she thought she was getting a teeny tiny little break because both of her daughters were down the street for a play date. Little did she know that those kids who were just so bored and they were not knowing what to do with themselves decided to take it upon themselves to walk to the store to get candy.
Mom was losing it, and she was at the point where so many of us get where it’s like, “Oh my goodness, another day of what are we doing? I’m bored. What’s next?” is really overwhelming
I have another mom whose child is pleased as punch to stay in his room all day and play on the Xbox. And so she’s struggling every day to just try to pry him out of his room to do something, quote unquote, “productive,” to get outside, to socialize with other people.
And again, she is tired.
So if this is you, you are not alone, and what I want to do is to give you some perspective that you may no longer have. You are used to being the cruise director and the emotional regulator for your household.
And during the summer, that role intensifies because of the lack of structure provided by school. But this is your normal, And because of that, you might not see the level of intensity and complexity that you operate on as an autism mom as your normal.
And sometimes you forget how much you are doing, how hard your brain and your nervous system are working all of the time to navigate the delicate ecosystem that you inhabit with your autistic child
And because this is just part of your day-to-day life, you have actually gotten to the point where you think it should be easier than it is, or you should be better at it than you give yourself credit for And this is what I see in so many of my clients. They are used to doing a lot all the time, juggling multiple variables
That’s not what causes burnout. The burnout comes from the energy, the fuel that is driving all of the action. And when you have been the cruise director and the emotional regulator every day for the past eight weeks, your tank is probably empty, if not in the negative. And that is where the burnout comes from.
That’s why you are impatient, snappy, annoyed, quick to jump the gun. That all comes from being on all the time without rest, rinse and repeat
And if that weren’t enough, there’s always this extra layer of guilt that is piled on that we should be more patient, that which we should be m- doing more than we are, we should be more productive, our kids should be having more s- more enrichment activities, they should be fighting less, you should be able to manage and referee better, et cetera.
When you add on that layer of guilt, you take something that is already really hard, really complex, and you add to it. Again, that is where the exhaustion comes from. Not only are you managing a complex environment whenever you’re raising a child with autism, and you’ve probably been doing it with little to no help, or you’ve been taking on the motherload, so to speak, of the responsibilities.
And like many autism moms, you are the point person, you are the person that they go to, adding to the overwhelm and the exhaustion. You are layering on guilt to that regret, and that makes it even harder. So that is what I want to help you with today. I want to talk to you about the ways that you can ease up on the burnout, you can refill your tank, so to speak, and that you can end summer on a positive note without all of the pressure, all of the expectations, and a feel- and a feeling that you’ve just spent the last few weeks yelling at your kid or just really annoyed by them
First, take some time for yourself. Now, you may not be able to take much time for yourself. That is okay. Some is better than none. This might be hanging out in the bathroom for five minutes, taking a walk around the block, being in the next room while the family is in the living room, even if they are bickering, going to Target and taking your sweet time Taking yourself out of the environment so that you can reset.
When you are in the same environment with your child, especially day in and day out, it’s going to get intense. You can turn down the temperature for yourself by removing yourself from the environment. If you can do this for five minutes, great. If you can do it for five hours, even better. The point is something is better than nothing Number two, let other people deal with it.
Let other people deal with their emotions. Let other people deal with navigating their relationships with one another. What do I mean by this? So many moms struggle to let their partner be in charge, so to speak. I see it with my moms on phone calls where they can hear in the other room an interaction between their husband and their child, and they know in their brain, “Ooh, I wouldn’t say that.
And they wanna go in and jump into the situation, taking that time away from themselves and refereeing, directing, coaching And I get it.
You know your kid really well. You know the things that set them off, and the last thing that you want is those two to be in the other room bickering. I get it. Here’s the thing. They need to have their own relationship, even if it’s not the way you would do it. Dad needs to figure that out on his own, no matter how painful it is for you, and you get to let go for a few minutes, a few hours.
You get to let go. He gets to be frustrated with them. They get to be frustrated with him. It is okay. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Yeah, but I come home from the break, and now I have to deal with whatever’s happening.” Okay, maybe. That does happen. However, if you just give yourself that break, and during that break, you really just let yourself chill, have the break, you’re not bracing yourself for what’s next, you are letting go, you’re going to be more relaxed.
You will be coming in with a calmer energy than you left with. And guess what? Sometimes, a lot of the times, when you walk back in, they’re gonna be okay. They’re gonna have figured it out, and they’re going to figure it out on their own, even if they figure it out in a way that you wouldn’t.
Maybe you walk in and your kid is on screen time and shoveling ice cream into their face, and your husband’s like, “Yeah, they’re quiet,” and he’s not wrong. The point is sometimes you need to let it be messy. You need to let other people figure the stuff out on their own, because if you’re not willing or able to let go of that, You’re putting yourself in a position where you think you always need to be there, where nobody else can handle it. And what that does is that gives you more pressure, more responsibility, and guess what? Less patience, more burnout, and that is what we want to avoid, or at the very least, lessen
Number three
When you are taking space, when you are letting other people figure it out, when you are letting other people have their own relationship and their own feelings, you need to be purposeful about the guilt because the guilt will creep in. It always does for autism moms. There are a few I’ve met, very few who are like, “No, I don’t feel guilty at all,” and that is amazing.
Really try to adopt that mindset that you are allowed to have free time, that you are allowed some quiet, that it is okay if somebody else is struggling. You’re struggling all of the time and you’re doing it pretty much without complaint. It’s okay if your husband or grandmom or the babysitter isn’t having the best time.
It’s okay. And if you can take this time that you take away and you are not layering it with guilt, that time will be more restorative to you, which is what we want. That is how you are going to ease up on the burnout by letting yourself
Have time to regulate, to rebalance so that your brain is clearer, your body is more relaxed.
Number four, drop whatever pressure you’re putting on yourself for the summer or the end of summer to look a certain way
If you haven’t done all the things that you wanted to do, that’s okay. You don’t need to spend these last couple of days or weeks focusing on what you didn’t do or what you think you should have done. Again, there is no upside to that when it comes to your energy levels and to your mindset.
And so if you are finding yourself on Facebook or Instagram and you’re looking at what everybody else is doing and you’re feeling a way about it, maybe cut that out for now. It’s not helping you
Instead, focus on what you can do in the next couple of days or weeks to have some nice memories, nice experiences. It does not have to be complicated or grand, just simple things to have nice experiences with your child and with your family before the school year begins.
And then finally, make it simple. Make it easy for yourself wherever you can. Again, if your kiddo is enjoying themselves going to the local pool or the local park, and that is a win, do it. Remember, you’re creeping up on the school year, and that is going to be its own exertion of pressure and energy. It is more than okay for the last days or weeks of summer to be lazy and easy for you and for your child
This is not the time to catch up on all the things that you haven’t done the previous six weeks. Take this one from me because I was guilty of doing this for so many years. My son would usually end ESY, that’s Extended School Year program, in July, then he would go on a couple of weeks of vacation with dad, and then I tried to pack those next two to three weeks with as many events, outings, day trips, weekend trips as I could.
And by the time we got to the first day of school, we were both exhausted. When in reality, the most fun that my son had most of the time was at our local pool, or even when we did go on day trips or weekend trips, the pool of the hotel, always a huge hit. So again, it doesn’t have to be grand. Just keep it simple.
Take the easy wins for yourself and your child so that you can relax, you can enjoy the last days or weeks of summer, and you can go into this next school year with more energy than you will have If you spend the next couple of days or weeks trying to cram everything in and make it perfect.
All right, on that note, school year is quickly approaching, and because of that, in August, I am going to be doing a back-to-school series of episodes to address the transition,
I’m going to cover everything from transitions, not just the transition back to school, but those transitions within a transitions that so many of our kids make when they’re going from, say, preschool, kindergarten to first grade, elementary school to middle school, and middle school to high school and beyond.
I’m also going to talk about how you set up this year in terms of your advocacy for your child with a broader team, so that when you go into this next school year, you are going to have a plan for how you respond to issues when they come up,
we’re gonna talk about the what if, and I wanna help you make a plan, so you can have these decisions made ahead of time. So when things do happen, because they will, you know what to do. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of the podcast.
Thank you for listening to The Autism Mom Coach. If you are ready to apply the principles you are learning in these episodes to your life, it is time to schedule a consultation call with me. Podcasts are great, but the ahas are fleeting. Real change comes from application and implementation, and this is exactly what we do in my one-on-one coaching program.
To schedule your consultation, go to my website, theautismmomcoach.com/work-with-me, and take the first step to taking better care of yourself so that you can show up as the parent you want to be for your child with autism.
