By: Melissa “Dr. Mel” Robinson-Brown, Ph.D.
Founder & Senior Psychologist, Renewed Focus
Every August, without fail, I pull up the school supply list and go into full-on operation mode.
Not the casual, “grab a few folders and call it a day” kind of shopping. I mean line by line. Every glue stick. Every specific brand of pencil. Every last item, accounted for, checked off, done. Knock-off options? Nah…those didn’t exist.
Back-to-school night hits the same nerve. I don’t just show up. I show up. I make sure the teacher sees my face, and – I’ll admit it – there’s a part of me that introduces myself as Dr. Mel in that room, not just “Mom.” Some part of me wants the room to clock, early, that this child has someone in her corner who is knowledgeable, watching, and involved. When I trace that instinct back, it lands on my own mother.
She was the mom who volunteered to supervise lunch duty once a week. She was the one who showed up when a little boy in my class wouldn’t leave me alone. The little stinker punched me in the stomach once and then had the nerve to do it again even after my mother warned him. But I was sure to tell her after the second time and he never touched me again. Every teacher in that building knew her face and knew she was watching.
That memory is genuinely comforting to me. It wasn’t dysfunction. It was love, presence, and protection – and it worked. I felt safer because she was in that building.
I sat with this for a while trying to decide where my own back-to-school habits were coming from and whether or not they were connected to childhood experiences. Of course they were, but not in a way that suggests harm. But rather, repeating something that felt warm and loving and wanting to pass it on to my own children.
But it also reminded me that inner-childhood experiences, whether they created wounds or protection, are likely to resurface in some way at this time of year.
This Pattern Is Real – Just Not Where I Expected to Find It
Writing this made me think a lot about so many of the women I work with.
Many of the high-achieving women I see were “the smart one.” The kid whose intelligence got noticed early – and because of that, got sent across town. A better school. A more resourced school. A school that was majority white when they were the only Black girl in the room. A school that could “nurture the potential.”
On paper, that’s a gift. And it often was. But it came with rules that their moms and grandmothers said often, loudly, and firmly:
Don’t stand out – unless it’s for being excellent.
Don’t give the school a reason to call home.
Blend in enough that nobody asks too many questions about where you come from, what your house looks like, or what your family can and can’t afford.
That’s not a supply-list wound. That’s childhood trauma with a backpack on – the very real weight of being a kid who had to represent well before they even understood what they were representing.
And that backpack doesn’t stay in childhood. It shows up in the boardroom when you over-prepare for a meeting nobody else is losing sleep over. It shows up in relationships when you can’t just be average at something without spiraling. And it shows up right here, right now – in a Walmart aisle at 9pm, re-checking a list you’ve already checked twice –because some part of you is still making sure nobody has a reason to call home.
That backpack usually turns into over-functioning because some part of you is trying so hard to comfort the little girl inside who felt sad, longing, or hurt by what she didn’t get, or what she had to endure. Moments like this can feel like your chance to finally rewrite that story for her. But without noticing it, that same instinct can end up doing more harm than good.
Why September Can Quietly Reopen It
Here’s the thing about trauma triggers and parenting triggers alike: they don’t need your exact childhood to repeat. They just need the same ingredients – an institution, an authority figure, evaluation, the feeling of being watched and measured.
School start-up hands you all of it at once. New teacher. New building. New set of eyes deciding, in real time, whether your kid is “fine” or a “concern.”
You know what this actually feels like in the body. It’s 11:47 pm and you’re refreshing the school portal for the third time, even though nothing new has been posted since 4pm. Your jaw is tight. You’ve been planning your child’s outfit and hairstyle for the last 4 weeks. You need them to show up with their best foot forward. You’re scanning for your child’s teacher’s name to assure it’s one of the “good ones.” Suddenly tension starts building because the performance of involved perfect mom might be trying to take up space in your life again and you KNOW it’s exhausting.
And it’s not just an evaluation of your kid. Sometimes those wounds get transferred to your thoughts about your child.
The questions start stacking up fast:
Did I choose the right school?
Do I need to sacrifice more to send them to the expensive private school, even if their public education is solid?
Will teachers know that I’m involved?
Do I need to make sure I’m at back-to-school night, so teachers see my face?
Will my child understand that they’re being watched differently? How much do I remind her? Will that make my child anxious?
For the woman who spent her own childhood managing that exact dynamic – be exceptional, don’t stand out for the wrong reasons, don’t let anyone find a reason to call home – it makes sense that the first week of school can quietly reopen something old. Not always as a memory. Sometimes just as an unexplainable tightness in your chest when the teacher’s email lands in your inbox. That tightness has a name: back-to-school anxiety wearing a very familiar disguise.
It’s essentially school trauma showing up as emotional triggers in a body that never got the chance to fully put it down.
A Note on Guilt (Because It Will Show Up)
I want to be careful here, because I know not everyone reading this had the “smart one sent across town” story, and not everyone has the bandwidth to show up to every school event the way my mother did, or the way I try to.
That guilt makes sense, by the way. If you grew up watching a parent who couldn’t show up the way mine did – or wishing you had one who could – of course a story like this stings a little instead of just resonating. Comparison is going to happen. You’re human, not a robot running purely on self-compassion.
If this brought up guilt instead of recognition, I want to gently interrupt that. Trauma-informed parenting was never about doing the most. It’s about understanding why you do what you do – and giving yourself permission to do it differently when “more” isn’t available or isn’t actually what your child needs from you.
Questions Worth Sitting With
If any part of this landed, here are a few questions worth pondering:
Was I ever the “smart one,” the “responsible one,” or the one who had to represent well before I understood what I was representing?
Did I learn that standing out was only safe if it was for achievement – and dangerous for almost anything else?
When a teacher’s email lands, am I reacting to what it actually says, or to an old fear of “the school calling home”?
What did that vigilance protect me from once? Does it still need to work that hard now?
This isn’t a checklist to finish in one sitting. Inner child healing is more like noticing – one school year, one email, one back-to-school night at a time.
What I Did Differently This Year
This year, I did something different. At the end of last school year, when they sent around the form to buy the pre-packaged school supply boxes, I went ahead and placed my order. And haven’t thought about it since.
For me, this was healing. It allowed my perfectionistic, find-the-best-deal, save-the-most-money, get-every-single-thing-on-this-list obsessive self to have several seats instead.
And the “shocking” thing? The world didn’t end. My kid will have her supplies. I won’t even double-check that box. I’ll just hand it to her and tell her to take it to school.
And I taught little me that catastrophic things do not happen when you aren’t perfect. You survive, and you actually experience less stress.
And that is powerful.
So, Now What?
Back-to-school season will keep doing what it does – stirring up emails, meetings, and a whole lot of feelings you didn’t put on the calendar.
And while you might not be able to control the triggers, you can control how you respond to them.
Healing childhood wounds doesn’t always require a dramatic overhaul. Sometimes it looks like one small, different choice. Perhaps this is the year you also do something different.
Maybe your inner child wants you to be at back-to-school night because this was the thing you didn’t get. If it fits into your schedule, then amazing. But if it doesn’t, perhaps sending a quick intro email to your child’s new teacher will also communicate that you want to be involved.
If that school supply list feels like unnecessary stress and triggers your perfectionistic little person, perhaps try giving the list to your partner to attend to that task and give your inner child a break.
And here’s the flip side of over functioning worth naming: it doesn’t only show up as repeating what you knew. Sometimes it shows up as trying to fully correct what you didn’t have – all at once, before the school year has even started.
If you had a parent who wasn’t very involved, and the little girl in you is longing to give your child all the involvement you didn’t get, try resisting the urge to sign up for class mom, PTA president, and the fundraiser committee in the same breath. Add back-to-school night to the calendar and commit to being present. If your schedule allows for one more role, pick one instead of ten. Your over functioner wants to fully course-correct in a single semester – you don’t have to burn yourself out proving you’re not your mother.
This is exactly the kind of work I do with clients – helping high-achieving women recognize where old rules about representing well and staying safe are quietly still running the show, without shame, and without losing the parts of them that are working just fine.
If you’re noticing your own version of this, you can book a consultation with me or one of our Renewed Focus therapists.
Because your child deserves a prepared parent. But you deserve to understand where “prepared” actually comes from.
