The Last Week of School Feelings Nobody Talks About

The last week of school carries more than most of us realize. On the surface it's teacher gifts and car line and end-of-year parties — but underneath all of that is something much bigger. A chapter is closing. Your child is crossing from one version of themselves into another. And so are you. If you've been feeling something this week that you can't quite name — part relief, part grief, part nostalgia, part anxiety — this episode is permission to slow down long enough to actually feel it. Because this moment is worth more than your to-do list is giving it credit for.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why the last week of school is a threshold moment — and what that actually means for you as a mom
• The emotional cocktail of end-of-year that nobody talks about: relief, grief, pride, and anxiety all at once
• The feelings we don't give ourselves permission to have — including the relief that feels like guilt and the grief that feels disproportionate
• Why ambitious moms are especially prone to staying in logistics mode this week instead of letting themselves feel what's actually happening
• The identity wobble that quietly shows up when the school-year structure is about to disappear
• A simple end-of-year pause practice to help you close the loop on this chapter before summer begins
• What to say to your child this week — and why specificity matters more than you think
• Why you deserve an end-of-year acknowledgment too, not just your kids

If you've been holding it all together for one more week and haven't stopped to let yourself feel what this season is carrying — this episode is for you. You don't have to perform the right emotions. You just have to show up honestly for the ones you actually have.

MENTIONS IN THIS EPISODE:

📎 Grab the free End of Year Reflection Card — a simple one-pager with questions to help you honor this school year before summer begins, for your child and for yourself: https://experiencemotherhood.myflodesk.com/end-of-year-reflection 

Interested in a deeper space beyond the podcast? I’m gathering an interest list as I listen and discern what support might come next: https://experiencemotherhood.myflodesk.com/a-place-to-go-deeper

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only. In no way is this therapy or clinical advice.

Transcript

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This was last year. And I remember seeing the slideshow. I remember seeing him kind of, you know, getting the applause. And I started crying. And I'm in a room full of parents and I was trying to pull it together because nobody else seemed like they were crying or tearing up. And again, I wasn't allowing myself in that moment looking back to just feel that grief. And there it was grief. I mean, my baby, my last baby, was graduating from kindergarten. I'm, you know, I was already not having any preschoolers or toddlers beforehand. It just felt so monumental. And it really did catch me off guard emotionally. And maybe that's something that you might be experiencing too. And again, none of these feelings are wrong. They're honest ones and they're showing up. And I think the more we can honestly even just name what this week might be bringing up, the more actual presence you will have for the parts that matter. Motherhood is beautiful, but let's be real, it's also overwhelming. If you're a mom who loves her kids fiercely, but also has ambitions beyond the carpool line, you might be feeling something else too. Torn. You're keeping everything running, managing the schedules, the meals, the mental load, but you're also craving something more. Maybe it's your career, your creativity, or just remembering who you were before everyone needed something from you. And the guilt of wanting both, it's exhausting. From the outside, you look like you have it all together, but inside you're stretched thin, wondering if you have to choose between being a great mom and becoming the woman you're meant to be. Here's the truth: you don't have to choose between both. I'm Liz Emmerich, licensed therapist, mom of three, and someone who deeply understands the both and tension of motherhood. This is Experience Motherhood, the place where we dismantle the myth that you have to do it all or lose yourself. Through honest conversations with experts and moms in the trenches, you'll get mental health insights, grounded encouragement, and permission to build a life that honors every part of you. Let's live motherhood fully, honestly, and together. It's time to experience motherhood. Hello and welcome back to Experience Motherhood Podcast. It is almost the last week of school as I'm recording this, and maybe for you it is your last week of school. And if you're feeling something you can't name right now, that something that's maybe part relief and part sadness or part anxiety, maybe even part nostalgia all at once, I want you to know that it's not confusion. That's just what this week actually feels like when you stop to let yourself feel it, which most of us don't, because there's too much to do. The teacher gifts to pull together, the end-of-year parties, the forms, the pickups, the trying to hold it together for one more week before the whole structure shifts again. Today's episode is permission to slow down long enough to actually feel what this week is bringing up, because I think it's carrying more than most of us realize. The busyness of the last week of school is often a defense mechanism. And if you stay in the logistical mode, you don't have to feel the feelings. And there really is this weird emotional cocktail of this week, right? There's relief, there's grief, pride, anxiety, nostalgia, and sometimes guilt. Maybe that you're not even feeling the right thing. There's the mom who maybe feels nothing and wonders what's wrong with her. Both are completely normal and both are worth exploring. This episode isn't about summer prep. It's not going to be a checklist or a plan, but it's about giving yourself five minutes to actually be in the last week of school because it goes really fast and the feelings are worth something if you let yourself have them. The last week of school is really one of those transition moments that we culturally treat as logistical, right? There are things to wrap up, we have things to celebrate, things to hand off. But underneath all of that is something much more significant. There's this threshold moment. Your child is crossing from one version of themselves into another. And so are you. Often transitions really signal grief, but also growth, and they can live simultaneously together. And the end of the school year really is a micro version of this. You know, your child is closing a chapter. Your kid who started the school year is not the same kid finishing it. They have changed, they've grown, maybe sometimes struggled. There's something worth grieving in that, even when it's beautiful. And as a mom, we've changed too. Our relationships with our kids have evolved over this school year in so many ways that you may have not even fully noticed until right now, as I'm mentioning this. There's specific grief of a grade ending. You know, you're never gonna have a fourth grader again. You're never gonna have a senior again. You're never gonna have a preschooler again. That's real loss, even inside real celebration. And I don't believe enough people are talking about this really important transition that both our kids go through, but we go through as moms too. There can be so much pride that lives right next to your grief. I want you to name both. You don't have to choose one or the other. And there are so many moms that have kids hitting big milestones. You know, maybe you have a kid going from elementary to middle school, maybe middle to high school, or maybe even graduating. And this week can carry a lot of extra weight and it deserves some extra acknowledgement. Whatever you're feeling this week, even if it feels contradictory, even if it feels like too much or not enough, it makes sense. This is a significant moment dressed up as a busy week. Give it a little more credit than your to-do list is. So, what do we do with these feelings? Now, I want to name some specific feelings that come up in the last week of school that I think are really underlived. Meaning, moms feel them, but we don't talk about them because they seem like the wrong thing to feel. Now, one of these feelings is this relief that kind of feels like guilt. You know, some moms feel relief when school ends. There's a relief from the morning rush, the homework battles, the emotional labor of keeping up with everything school requires. And then you feel guilty about this relief because shouldn't they? Because shouldn't you be sad? Relief is not ingratitude. It's just honest, and you can name it without having any shame. Another feeling that I think comes up a lot is that this grief that we might feel feels really disproportionate. So maybe you're crying at the end of the year slideshow and you feel this heaviness you just cannot explain. And maybe it even feels embarrassing or like, oh my gosh, it's too much. But again, I want to reinstate that grief at a transition time is completely appropriate. You're allowed to mourn a chapter, even if the next one is good. Another feeling I think comes up a lot is this anxiety feeling, but it's addressed often as excitement. Summer's coming and you don't have it all figured out. You know, there's the child care, the schedule, the balance, and anxiety can, you know, have be a mask as, and so often anxiety that can masquerade as excitement or busyness is what shows up. So I want you to name it as anxiety so you can actually work with it instead of just staying busy through it. Another thing that I think comes up at the end of this time of year is this identity wobble that we have. You know, school provides structure so much for us as moms. There's a pickup rhythm, there's routine, there's a version of yourself that runs that particular machine, right? And when it ends, there's this question that can pop up sometimes of who am I in summer? And you're not gonna figure this all out in one week, but I want you to begin just to notice this wobble. That is your first step, okay? I've been hearing from so many of you who love the podcast, but are also craving a little more, a place to slow down, reflect, and not feel so alone in this season of motherhood. I'm still listening and discerning what that could look like, and I don't have it fully figured out yet. That might be a small group, some kind of guided support, or something else. But I'd really love to build it with you, not just for you. So if you want to be part of that conversation, I've created a simple interest list. There's no commitment at all. It's just a way to stay connected and have a voice in what's coming. You can find the link in the show notes. All right, let's get back to today's episode. I can think of so many different examples in my own life of these transitional periods. And one that often comes up to me, well, actually, there's two, but the one I want to share right now first is I remember going to my youngest, his kindergarten graduation. Now, my oldest didn't have a kindergarten graduation because COVID happened during his kindergarten year. And so there was some grief in that of not getting to experience what that felt like, but I didn't know. Um, then my middle child, he did have, I think, some kind of a graduation, but it was not what I guess I expected a kindergarten graduation to look like. So it wasn't a big to-do. It was just like a quick, oh, you did it and move on. It wasn't really that emotional, to be honest. So my third came around and it was time for him to graduate kindergarten. This was last year. And I remember seeing the slideshow. I remember seeing him kind of, you know, getting the applause. And I started crying. And I'm in a room full of parents, and I was trying to pull it together because nobody else seemed like they were crying or tearing up. And again, I wasn't allowing myself in that moment, looking back, to just feel that grief. And there it was grief. I mean, my baby, my last baby, was graduating from kindergarten. I'm, you know, I was already not having any preschoolers or toddlers beforehand. It just felt so monumental. And it really did catch me off guard emotionally. And maybe that's something that you might be experiencing too. And again, none of these feelings are wrong. They're honest ones and they're showing up. And I think the more we can honestly even just name what this week might be bringing up, the more actual presence you will have for the parts that matter. Now, I don't want to leave you with just feelings and nowhere to put them. So I'm gonna give you three small, really small, practical things you can actually do this week, and none of them take more than a few minutes. So the first tool is what I'll call the end-of-year pause. So before the last day of school comes and goes in a blur of cupcakes and car line, I want you to build in one intentional pause, just one. So, what does this look like? Pick a moment this week. Maybe it's a quiet drive, maybe it's a morning before any of your kids are up, or the night before the last day. But I want you to actually sit with the year. I want you to ask yourself, what was hard about this year? What surprised me? What am I proud of in both my kid and in myself? Now, you don't have to journal about it or do anything formal with it if you don't want. I want you just to think about it. I want you to feel it and I want it to just land with you. Now, this is different from the slideshow moment, which is public and communal. This is private and yours. And so, and it's so important to have these rituals of acknowledgement because it really can help your nervous system complete this loop on a chapter. And without these kind of rituals or acknowledgement, your transitions kind of blur together and we lose the meaning that they can carry. The year deserves a moment before you close the door on it. So give it one this week. Okay, the second tool that I'm gonna give you is to say the thing out loud to your kid. And this one is actually really simple and it might make you cry. And I'm gonna recommend it anyway. So before the school year actually ends, I want you to tell your child one specific thing you noticed about them this year, not a general, like, I'm so proud of you, but something really specific. So here's a couple examples. I noticed how hard you worked when math got difficult. Or I watched you make a new friend this year and it made my heart so full. Or maybe I saw how you handled that hard situation, and I think you're really brave. Anytime we can be specific, this can really signal to our kids that they're truly seen and not just loved generically. And this is a gift to them and to you because saying it out loud makes it real. So you could do this in the car, you could do this at bedtime, maybe on the last morning of the school year. It doesn't need to be just one moment, but it just needs to be said. They grow so fast you almost miss it. And I don't want you to miss this one. Okay, a third tool I want to give you is just giving yourself an end-of-year acknowledgement, too. I know you're gonna be tempted to skip this one, but I'm gonna ask that you don't. Mama, you made it through another school year. I know that sounds simple and it's enormous at the same time. There were so many mornings that you had to rush. There were sick days, there were the homework battles, there's the emotional labor of knowing every teacher's name and every friend situation and every schedule change. And I want you to ask yourself the same question you'd actually ask your kid. So, what was hard for you this year? What did you do well? And what do you want to do differently? And again, you don't have to have all these questions figured out, but I want you just to acknowledge that you showed up. You were imperfect, but you were consistent and loving for an entire school year. Self-acknowledgement is not a self-congratulations, but it's again closing this loop for us. It's how we build this internal evidence that we are capable, which is what makes the next hard season actually feel possible. You carried so much this year, and you're allowed to notice that before you pick up the next thing. So as you head into maybe your last week of school, maybe it's coming up with all of those class parties, the teacher gifts, the car line chaos, that end of your slideshow that will totally make you tear up. I want you to carry one thing with you. This week is more about, this week is more than logistics. It's a threshold, and you're allowed to feel all of it. Those complicated feelings, the pride that sits right next to grief, the relief you can feel, the relief you feel a little guilty about, that anxiety dressed up as summer excitement, all of it is welcome. And all of it makes sense. You don't have to perform the right emotions this week. You just have to show up honestly for the ones you actually have. So I made something for you to go with today's episode because I gave you a lot of tools and questions to ask. And really, it's just going to be a simple end-of-year reflection card. And it's just a few questions to help you close that loop on this school year before summer starts. It'll take you, you know, five minutes, and I think you'll be really glad you did it. You can grab the link in the show notes. And if you haven't listened to last week's episode, episode 101, that one is about why high-achieving moms struggle to slow down in summer and what to actually do about it. And it's a really good one, I think, that pairs with today. So until next time, go experience motherhood. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I hope this episode really brought so much value to your experience in motherhood. Please take a minute to rate and review this podcast and make sure that you're subscribed so you don't miss the next new episode. Until next time, go experience motherhood. The Experienced Motherhood podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing shared on this podcast should be considered clinical advice or a substitute for individualized mental health care. Although I am a licensed professional clinical counselor, this podcast does not establish a therapeutic relationship. If you're needing support, please reach out to a qualified mental health provider near you. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.