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Overloading happens when parents pack their child’s schedule with too many activities, drowning them in responsibilities.
As a result, children don’t have time for their homework, their minds are frayed, and their bodies don’t get the recovery they need.
Parents often don’t understand why their child is struggling with school, but sometimes the answer is very simple:
They are exhausted and overwhelmed.
Why Should Parents Avoid Overloading Their Children?
When kids are overwhelmed, they cannot create the space needed to learn essential executive function skills.
These include:
Communicating with their teachers to develop a workable plan.
Catching up on and completing missing assignments.
Learning to prioritize their time effectively.
As a result, these students normalize overloading their schedules. This may lead to:
Taking too many AP courses and feeling burnt out
Feeling like they are never doing “enough”
Packing their first-semester college schedule and ending up on academic probation
Children who grow up being overloaded often become teens and adults who continue the cycle. They:
Struggle to self-advocate and express when they’re overwhelmed.
Believe they must always push through exhaustion.
Overcommit themselves and miss deadlines due to overload.
Overloading is deeply tied into the American identity, starting way back with the formulation of the Protestant work ethic and nowdays showing up in the idea of "hustle culture."
We’ve written more about how to avoid this in our Failure to Launch Guide at UpSkill Specialists.
Why Does Overloading Occur?
Because parents hold significant power in a child’s life, many kids go along with overloaded schedules without speaking up.
They may feel obligated to please their parents or believe that their parents always know what’s best.
Parents, in turn, often justify their choices by thinking they are enriching their child’s life with violin, swimming, Mandarin, and other activities—without realizing they are actually setting their child up for burnout.
Common Mistakes Parents Make with Overloading
Mistake #1: Believing Over-Scheduling Is Necessary for Enrichment
Parents convince themselves that extracurriculars are essential for a child’s success.
They argue that their child “just needs to learn time management” while ignoring the glaring signs of stress—like missed assignments and constant exhaustion.
Mistake #2: Struggling to Prioritize
Many parents encourage their child to prioritize, yet they struggle with it themselves.
If parents are asked to choose between swimming, Mandarin, and violin, they insist that all are equally important.
When parents can’t prioritize, how can they expect their child to learn that skill?
Mistake #3: Ignoring the Warning Signs
Overloaded children show clear signs of distress:
Drowning in missing assignments
Exhaustion and difficulty waking up
Avoiding or dreading activities they once enjoyed
Passive-aggressive behavior about commitments
Rather than responding to these red flags, many parents push forward with their overloading agenda, believing that quitting an activity means failure.
Steps Parents Can Take to Prevent Overloading
Step 1: Figure Out Your Non-Negotiables
As a parent, you have the right to determine which activities are essential.
Make a list of priorities, numbering them from most to least important.
Rank school, extracurriculars, and other commitments so you can make informed decisions.
Step 2: Have a Conversation with Your Child
Approach your child and acknowledge their struggle:
“I can see you’re overwhelmed and exhausted. You’re missing assignments, and I want to figure out what we can let go of. Let’s start with a priority list.”
Let them rank their favorite classes and extracurriculars.
If they say they enjoy chess club but don’t care for swimming or violin, listen to them.
You can learn more communication strategies like these in my semester success blueprint course or take my executive function coaching certification course.
Step 3: Remove the Low Hanging Fruit
Once you have alignment around what is a low priority for you and your child, drop a few things that are not prioritized to make time for essentials.
If they drop violin and swimming, what will replace that time?
If school is the top priority, the freed-up hours should be used to catch up on assignments and reduce stress.
You can use my Ideal Week Planning template to create a visual weekly plan with your child.
This helps them see where their time is going and allows them to evaluate whether their schedule is realistic.
Learn more about how to build an ideal schedule with your student by reviewing this article: Teach Your Students How To Plan Their Ideal Week.
Step 4: Try a 30-Day Experiment
Propose making schedule adjustments for 30 days and reassessing the impact.
This allows flexibility and helps children feel more in control of their commitments.
The Bottom Line
Are you ready to lighten your child’s cognitive load and allow their executive function skills to bloom?
Start by ending the overload – here is how you can take action:
Prioritize what classes and extracurriculars they engage in
Discuss your priorities and compare them with your child’s priorities
Remove the low priorities from their schedule
Try this lighter schedule for 30 days to see how things go
Hope this helps 🤙🏻
P.S. If you want to work on executive function skills with your students, consider joining hundreds of other educators and parents who have completed my Semester Success Blueprint Course. In less than 2 hours, this comprehensive course will teach you and your student the system I developed to help hundreds of students learn how to manage school effectively and raise their self-awareness and engagement with school.
About Me
Hey! I'm Sean 👋
I'm a former public school special education teacher who realized that executive function skills are more important than knowing when George Washington crossed the Potomac.
Since then, I've made it my mission to teach anyone who will listen about how to develop these key life skills.
In 2020, I founded Executive Function Specialists to ensure all students with ADHD and Autism have access to high-quality online executive function coaching services. We offer online EF coaching and courses to help students and families.
Realizing I could only reach so many people through coaching, in 2021 I started the Executive Function Coaching Academy which trains schools, educators, and individuals to learn the key strategies to improve executive function skills for students.
In 2023, I co-founded of UpSkill Specialists, to provide neurodivergent adults with high-quality executive function coaching services.
When not pursuing my passions through work, I love spending time with my family, getting exercise, and growing my brain through reading. You can connect with me on LinkedIn.