Confidently Beautiful with Ciera
Confidently Beautiful with Ciera
End of School Year Survival Guide: Staying Sane When Everything Happens at Once
Feel like you're drowning in a sea of field day permission slips, dance recital costumes, and end-of-year teacher gifts? You're not alone! May brings a special kind of chaos for parents as the school year winds down and everything seems to happen simultaneously.
This episode tackles the overwhelming reality of end-of-school-year madness with practical strategies to help you maintain your sanity. We dive deep into five game-changing approaches: creating a comprehensive May brain dump with a visual family calendar, batching teacher appreciation tasks, preparing event gear in advance, protecting essential daily routines, and—perhaps most importantly—giving yourself permission to say no and embrace imperfection.
The mental load of parenting during this season is extraordinary, but these simple systems can create space for you to breathe. Rather than attempting to be everywhere and do everything perfectly, this episode encourages a more sustainable approach. As we discuss, "your presence matters more than your performance," and children benefit more from a grounded, present parent than one stretched too thin by impossible standards.
Whether you're juggling tournaments, recitals, final projects, or all of the above, these strategies will help you navigate May with more confidence and less stress. The chaos is temporary, but with intentional planning, you can find moments of peace even in this busiest of seasons. Remember—you're doing better than you think, and both you and your family will make it through with memories worth cherishing. Connect with me on Instagram @confidentlybeautifulpodcast and share your own sanity-saving strategies!
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you're listening to confidently beautiful with Ciera a podcast to help you stay confidently beautiful, because we all have confidence inside us. We just need to bring it out and I'm here to show you how body image, dreams, parenting, style, personality and more here we cover it all. Get ready to stay confidently beautiful. And we're back to another episode of Confidently Beautiful. I am your host, Ciera, and today we are going to be talking a little bit similar to what we talked about last week. Last week, we talked about systems that can help make mom life a little bit easier, but this week we're going to be talking specifically about end of school year chaos, because we are halfway through May and I'm sure you can feel the end of school year. Chaos, because we are halfway through May and I'm sure you can feel the end of school year chaos, and I want to make it as stress-free as possible for you. I have some tips that can help you to stay organized and present and hopefully be able to make it through this end of school year craziness with a little bit of sanity. We have field day, teacher gifts, tournaments, recitals, end of year parties, final projects it's all happening all at once. So how do we stay organized, grounded and somewhat sane during all of this.
Ciera:I'm going to give you some of my favorite simple systems and mindset shifts that can help to keep you confident and cool through the last part of this school year. Number one is to do a May calendar brain dump. So I do brain dumps frequently, but to specifically do one for May it can be so helpful because there is so much that goes in our brains for May, I feel like. So just to have like one big brain dump of just everything that's going to be going on in May and everything that you need to do can be so helpful. So think school events that you need to do can be so helpful. So think school events, practices, parties, spirit days, deadlines, everything that you might need. Just dump it all onto a piece of paper. And then I also like to just print out an actual calendar and to highlight important days, tape it on the fridge and just so everyone knows like, put in the calendar like these are the big days this month. Because there are so many big days in May. That is sometimes helpful to have that visual. Even if you're typically not a calendar paper calendar visual person, it can sometimes be really helpful in months like May, when we are just crazy and there are so many places that we all need to be, and it can also lessen your mental load. There are fewer surprises for you and your family members if you can all see it and you can also like visually, see any potential conflicts that might be in the way so that you can help to tackle them early.
Ciera:Number two is to batch the gifts and the appreciation stuff. So do all of your teacher gifts and all in one sitting. Have your kids sit down, write the thank you notes for all of their teachers all at once and put all of the thank you notes together and all of the thank you gifts together and just do it all together at once. That way is so much easier so that when you have like little gifts that you need to grab throughout the month, you can just grab them. They're all done, they're all ready. And it is just easier for you as the parent, but it's also easier for your kids, so you're not bugging them a million times like, oh, I need you to write a thank you note here and I need you to draw a picture for this person and this person. It can just all be done all at once and they can be meaningful and sweet and actually thought out. I like to keep a stash of gift bags and tags and tissue paper all the time all year, but this can be really helpful, as we have like those last minute scrambles or like maybe you forgot to get a gift for somebody and so you can just have those. And it does not need to be the Pinterest perfect, fancy, like over the top thing, just something simple, like just whatever is simple is what they're going to love. They're going to love something that is just from the heart and simple and something thoughtful.
Ciera:Number three is to prep your event outfits and your gear in advance. So I am a dance mom, so I have a lot of dance things coming up. So if I can get everything set aside I know I have all of her costume extras set aside, I know I have all of her costumes ready to go and I have everything ready. My son is starting baseball soon, so I have all of his baseball stuff, if I can keep it all grouped together and ready so that when his first baseball practice comes then we are ready and we don't have to hurry and rush during all of this to try and find where is this, where is this in this drawer and this on the shelf in the closet and all of the things. They're just all grouped right together. This is also true and it goes along with one of my suggestions from my last episode.
Ciera:I talked about how I have like a clothes organizer in each of my kids' closets. So, like with the special themed days for school, I already have those planned out and I don't have to think about it the morning of. They're already planned out a week before. So do that with whatever you have. Just think all of your events and just bunch all your outfits and your gear that you might need for those events in advance. Have a designated bin or a spot that for each of your kids special gear and this could be really helpful so you're not running through the house wondering where everything is. An optional item, if you have want to go even a little bit extra, is, if there's, if there's anything that you can't set aside, then to have like a checklist so that you can have it all ready. So if you know like I need to pack a lunch for this, like obviously you maybe can't pack a lunch three days in advance, and so if you just have a checklist of okay, this is what I need with this stuff, like, these are the other items that I'm going to need, and then you can have it all ready. That's also helpful, too, because if, if your kids are old enough, you can send your kids to grab the list and to start working their way through the list as you're preparing for the big events.
Ciera:Number four is to protect the daily routines that you can control. So what do I mean by this? Well, you can control if you get the laundry done. You can control if you pack the water bottles at night. You can control if you do your grocery pickups. Do all these things sound familiar? These are things from the last episode. If you haven't listened to the previous episode, go back to episode 66 and listen to it. I think you're going to find a lot of things that are really helpful for, like, just the plain boring routine days, but also especially for in these hectic, chaotic times in life. So just protect all of the things that are in your control. Protect all of the things in your house and your systems that you have in your house that you can control. This will help to reduce decision fatigue and it will help to just keep everything flowing the way that it is supposed to be.
Ciera:And number five is permission to say no, and it's okay if it's not perfect. You don't have to attend every single event. I just decided there was an event earlier this month that I was just like, nope, that is not going to happen. My husband was out of town with one of our other little kids and I didn't want to take the other three by myself and it was conflicting with another event that I had, and so I was going to have to leave early, leave one event early to go, get to the other event, and it was just going to be chaotic and I just thought you know what? It's not a big deal if I don't attend this event at the school, it's not a problem. My kids probably actually don't even. I don't even think they knew that the school was doing this event and so it wasn't a big deal. Just say no and I could just let go and it was not a problem and it made that night so much less chaotic. We won't be able to make it all the time, and that's okay. And if we have to say something to somebody, we can just thank them and graciously like thank you so much for the invite. I'm so sorry, but we're not going to be able to go. Or we can tell ourselves I am buying store-bought cookies and that's okay. I'm still a great mom. They don't have to be homemade for this event and I'm still a great mom.
Ciera:Your presence matters more than your performance, and so give yourself some grace. It's okay if everything isn't the way that you wanted it to be or the way that you think that everyone is expecting it to be. So quick recap May brain dump and a visual calendar. Batch teacher gifts or any other gifts that you're going to have to be giving this month. Prep your gear and your outfits early and have them all grouped together. Stick to grounding daily routines. Think all the things that you can control within your home and say no and ditch perfectionism. It's okay if you're not at an event and it's okay if not.
Ciera:Everything is the way that you have it in your mind or the way that you think it should be. Pick one of those and try it as we get through the craziness of this May. We're almost there. We're so close and I would love to hear your own sanity savers, so if you want to share them on Instagram. Tag me at Confidently Beautiful Podcast. I would love to hear them and just a reminder that you are doing amazing and this chaos is just temporary. We can make it through and we can be confident through it. Thanks for listening. Connect with me on Instagram at confidently beautiful podcast and share this episode with someone in your life who could use a little reminder of just how amazing they already are. Stay confidently beautiful.