In this solo episode of the Unmasked Minds podcast, Sarah Wills (Sarah the Psych) shares her personal experience of feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated during a six‑week Australian school holiday with her blended family of six children. She explains how her neurodiversity (ADHD) amplifies the sensory overload of constant noise, lack of routine, and social demands. Drawing on her values‑led approach, Sarah discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations for herself as a parent, recognizing that not every activity (e.g., crafts, slime, screen‑heavy play) aligns with her energy and sensory limits. She outlines how to identify core family values (freedom, outdoor fun, rest) and use them to guide holiday planning, while balancing the pull to over‑commit to activities and social gatherings. The episode delves into guilt that arises from both staying home and working during holidays, the tendency to project unmet childhood needs onto children, and the pressure from social media highlight reels. Sarah offers practical strategies: establishing external and internal boundaries, reframing boredom as a creative catalyst, managing screen time, prioritising self‑care (exercise, Pilates, alone time), and using reframing techniques to shift expectations. She emphasizes that holidays need not be flashy; they can be remembered for simple, intentional moments that align with family values. The overarching message is that parents are not failing—recognising overstimulation, adjusting expectations, and caring for oneself can transform the holiday experience.
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Foreign. Welcome to episode five of Unmasked Minds, the podcast. I am Sarah the psych and I am coming at you from the middle of the Australian school holidays, which is a six week block. And I'm coming at you as a completely overwhelmed, overstimulated, pretty much over it mom. And I wanted to just talk through that really to normalize the school holiday overwhelm that so many of us experience and also potentially to talk a little bit about what's happening, why that happens for us and how we can manage it, be aware of it and potentially, you know, some tips and tricks and tools to work through it if you happen to be in the same place. So all of you that follow me on Instagram will know I have a beautiful blended family. We have six children and we also are the house where all the cousins, all the friends and families are over and playing all the time. So school holidays for us are pretty chaotic. And what I mean is they're loud, they're fun, they're adventures, adventurous, but they are also completely overstimulating for me. I'm a neurodiverse person and all that noise and all that lack of routine and inconsistency and fighting and all of this can feel like a lot. And that's the one thing that I need to look at when I'm in the school holidays is what is happening for me that is different to my normal routine and how can I support myself through that. So one thing I do in the school holidays, holidays, it's part of my sort of values led choices in life, is I try not to work. So I don't have my regular scheduled clients or my intensives or my retreats. I kind of put it like I work really hard and really long hours during the school terms when my kids are at school. And I as much as possible try to have the holidays off so I can be really present with them. Which in itself brings another challenge for me. One of the things I notice a lot, and I hear this so much through my followers on Instagram and also through my clients, is there's all this pressure at the moment to be present and to have balance as a parent. And what the hell does that even mean? You know, in my head it's like I'm going to wake up happy and I'm going to jump around and play and cuddle and be present with the kids and laugh with them and experience with them and build blocks and make craft and, and all of that. And it's so funny because even though over the years I've really come to realize that some of that is not me. Some of that is so far from what I enjoy, but why do I still expect myself to do it? So how do we set realistic expectations on ourselves as to being present in the school holidays will look like for us? For me, I'm very comfortable now in saying we don't do craft, we don't do like painting little spaghetti's and stuff in my house. We never have, we don't make slime, I've never made slime. All of that for me is too much, it's too fiddly, it's too sensory overstimulation, the mess gets to me, the noise, all of that. I don't have the patience. So for me it's. And I have to do it often throughout the holidays. It's like this reshift of my own expectations around how I show up as a parent. Now, in order to set your own expectations as to how you're going to show up as a parent, it's really, really useful to know your value because knowing your values allows you to focus on what's important to you and, and your family in this chapter of life. It's really, really important to know that in different holidays, in different times, you and your children and your family have different needs and therefore holidays or just day to day might look very different. And that's okay now once we know what's important to us and our family. So for example, for me and my family it is important that I'm around and I'm present and that we do a lot of like outdoorsy, fun activities. But it's also important that we do a lot of rest because I do have a tendency as a woman with adhd, I tend to just want to do more, do more, do more, be more, go and do stuff, right? But that becomes really exhausting for me and the children. So it's also about going hang on. Even though that feels good in the moment and at the time, am I over committing to activities? Am I over committing socially? Am I burning myself out in trying to be fun and exciting or in trying to tick the box that my values have been met these school holidays, and that's a really interesting one because we don't meet our values. Our values aren't a destination. It's not. I want freedom in my family's lifestyle. That's one of my values. Freedom. Freedom to be flexible, freedom to do, to go on adventures, freedom to work how I want to work, to play how I want to play. And to rest how I want and need to rest now. We don't get to a point in our life where we go, yep, sweet. I've done that. This school holidays, right? I've achieved it. It's a journey and it's a constant balancing act. And in the school holidays, one of the things I've had to learn is when to put in boundaries. You get to the holidays and all of those people that you haven't caught up with for months that you've been saying, yay, I'll see you in the holidays, they all come out, they're like, let's catch up. And you really want to catch up. But you've also got five kids who are overstimulated and they've got friends and they've got to be places. And how do you make time for you as well? I know for me, I often have this long list going into the holidays or time away from work, where I'm gonna do all the fun stuff with the kids, do all the life admin stuff, the doctor's appointments, the doing my tax return, which, damn it, I haven't done that yet. Not, I mean, my, My bad statement. I'm going to also look after myself. I'm gonna run, I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm also going to see my friends and be really social and have some wonderful times. And I'm also going to reconnect with my partner. It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself to just because you've got maybe one thing off the agenda, which might be work or kids going to school. We often also forget that when the kids aren't at school, there is so much more to do. There is every meal, there is entertaining the kids, depending how many kids you've got and what their needs are. If you have a neurospicy family like I do, it's balancing all, all the unique needs of all the individual children and the parents and trying to align to your values. And it's bloody tough. And I think the point of this episode was really to jump on here because I know so many of you are in the middle of the holidays and just say, I see you. I get it. And a lot of us, if not most of us, are experiencing a level of school holiday burnout, overwhelm or guilt. The challenges I just talked through are from a mom who has the privilege of staying home in the holidays because I made that choice to do that. I hear all these stories about working parents. I mean, in today's society, Most parents can't just take six weeks off in the school holidays. So the juggle becomes even greater because all of a sudden it's not just juggling. What are we going to do every day? I've got to bloody go to work. I gotta go to work. And how do I manage children's activities? Where do they go? What do I do? And in those situations, I see an incredible amount of guilt. The guilt, because then you're looking at parents like myself who are at home doing all the things and thinking, I should be doing that for my kids. What have I. What am I doing wrong? My kids are missing out now again, different chapters of our lives require us to prioritize different things. If you have to prioritize work in the holidays, then it doesn't mean your kids are missing out, you know, And I just, I really wanted to stress that one because I know that will feel so real for so many people, the guilt of it. You know, one thing I often notice is I'll be like, okay, I need to go and work for an afternoon. I've got some clients who need me, or I have some admin that I have to catch up on. And I'm sitting over here in my cottage working, and I feel guilty that I'm not back there with the kids. And then I think to my right, and this is where we do a bit of reframing and, and having a bit of awareness, like, hey, Sarah, your kids are actually fine by themselves for an hour, or they're with their dad for an hour. They don't need you. You're actually teaching them valuable skills by, you know, teaching them to play independently and not be completely directed by you. Side note, a lot of us parents are projecting our childhood unmet needs onto our children. Say, for example, if your parents weren't really available and school holidays could be a bit shitty for you, or you've got, you know, you just didn't have play or opportunities. Maybe you were less privileged than your family is now. Then we try to make up for what we missed out on with our children, but we so often go too far. You know, kids don't need to be told what to do all the time, to jump from activity to activity to activity. But we push that on them because we think that we need that it's filling an unmet need of ours. And if you, if that resonates with you, then that's something you can talk through with your therapist. You know, how do we learn to meet those needs of ours that were not met As a child, how do we learn to meet them now as an adult so we don't have to project that on to our children? One of the things that I often say to my kids, because they, you know, I'm guilty of that. And, you know, and as an ADHD woman, I want to be out there. I want to be doing things all the time, blah, blah, blah, lots of energy. And my kids are like that as well. But sometimes I say to them, guys, it's good to be bored because we actually have this whole society, this whole generation, man, I was going to say us, because I know a lot of you are the same included, where we don't know how to relax, where we don't know how to entertain ourselves. You know, I look at my youngest daughter and the minute she doesn't have something to do, she's like, give me something to do. Entertain me. And I get so exhausted by the constant entertaining that then I go, here, have the iPad. And then I feel the guilt from giving them the iPad because, hey, we can't give them too much iPad, too much screen time, right? And I do now say to them, it's good to be bored. It's good to be bored. Because when you are bored or you're not constantly entertained, that's where you can get creative. That's where you can get outside and do and evolve and make fun. Rather than have this dopamine delivered to you constantly, all the time, you got to work for it. It's like that delayed gratification that I could do a whole episode on, actually. But, yeah, balancing that as well. So I think what I'm talking about there is balancing our own needs in the holidays with what we value, but with also what we value in teaching our kids. What's important to teach our kids. What are those life lessons that we want them to learn? But, I mean, I'm also super guilty of going, you guys need to learn to be bored and sit in the moment and create fun while I'm scrolling on my phone. Because I just need constant dopamine mean as well. Like, I get it, it's tough. And we are this first generation that are, like, trying to teach kids in this world of screens and social media and constant stimulus. Probably worth noting, like, I know so many of you experience is guilt around screens and technology and. And stuff like that. We all know that it's not ideal for our kids. My personal stance on it is everything in. That's my view when it comes to things like screen time. It's also my Perspective when it comes to things like food, you know, there's always opportunity to nourish our children better. And I think eating healthy, nutritious, whole foods is very important. But I totally just bribed my kids with a bag of Cheetos so that I could come and record this podcast episode. Right. And I think that's one of the things that we do, again, we create guilt and shame for is when we like feeding our kids food that we know isn't great for them, but then we carry that around with us. So we carry around this guilt that I'm feeding my kids terrible food, I'm letting them use screen time, I'm getting overwhelmed and I'm yelling at them and then I feel guilty for that. Now, at the end of the day, it's the expectations that are driving us to feel this gap between us and our expectations. I'm not feeding them well enough, I'm not entertaining them enough, I'm not doing enough. I'm working too much. Right. The way to work on this or to change how we feel about this is to change those expectations. Yeah. It's not to do more. It's not to add more pressure to you because you're already feeling pressurized. Right. It's not to say, well, just do that. Just get up earlier and look after yourself and go to Pilates earlier so you can fit more in. It's actually about going, what is important and what capacity do I have in my unique circumstances? Because your circumstances are different to mine. Your circumstances are different to your sisters or your brothers or the girl, the other mum from school. Right. And so often we get stuck in the comparison trap. Social media has so many benefits, but one of the things that often happens is we look at people's highlight reel. We look at the beautiful photos they're posting of their family day out at the beach where mum and dad are both there and mum and dad are, wow, they're in love and lovey dovey and frolicking in the surf. What the fuck is that like? I don't frolic in the surf with my husband. I mean, I'd love to, but hey, we're right in the trenches at the moment and frolicking in the surf while we've got all the kids at the beach. It's just not on the to do list. Well, maybe it's on the to do list, but it's not on the capacity list at the moment. Anyway, I digress. Bringing it back. We look at photos, we look at reels, we look at heavily Curated stuff. And we go, I'm not enough. And it changes our expectations. If I just do more, maybe I will be enough. And it's not necessarily about doing less. It's about recognizing what you can do, what you are doing and being okay with where you are. Right. And using boundaries, whether those boundaries need to be with other people. You know, I've certainly got to the holidays and I had all of these plans to be social with all of my friends who I haven't seen for years because we've been living away and I've really had to go. I don't have the capacity for that. I love my friends and I really want to see them. These school holidays are just feeling a lot. Like there's just a lot going on. And I just can't put that on top of it. To go out all the time or to have people over all the time, you know, it just gets too much. So there's boundaries like that, but we also need boundaries within ourselves. You know, I am going to say, yes, the kids can watch some TV so that I can go and watch a YouTube video and do a Pilates workout. Right. Because it's important to look after ourselves through this time as well. The internal boundaries might be, I am feeling so overwhelmed today that I'm going to say no to that activity we had planned this afternoon. Or I am feeling so overwhelmed that we're just going to have an inside day. We are going to just eat whatever is already in the fridge. I'm not going to put the pressure on myself cooking extra meals. We are just going to be and do and rest. And that can be really, really difficult for some of us. But again, it's about coming home to who you are and what you know, even asking yourself, what do I want to remember about school holidays? And what do I want my children to remember about school holidays? It doesn't have to be flashy. It doesn't have to be dragging around to all the activities, showing up to all the events, putting yourself under financial stress, trying to keep up with what you think you should be doing in the school holidays. If my kids are older and they look back and they say, school holidays were so great, Mom. Because you were home and we had slow mornings and mom, you used to get up and have a coffee in the sun and we'd have a hot chocolate and we'd talk a bit. But then you'd go and do your own thing and read a book and we could play and do our own thing. And occasionally we'd go to the movies, but our cousins would come over for days on end. We would just make our own fun. But I'm going to be a happy woman, you know, I am going to be so content. And I think the gap doesn't need to be as big as it feels for you right now. If you do a little bit of reframing, take the pressure off. So I guess this episode was really aimed at all the overstimulated, overworked feeling like they're failing parents, mums out there, these school holidays. And my message to you is, you are not failing. The pressure is real, but it doesn't have to be. You have the power to change how you feel. And if you just take a moment and reset and ask yourself, why am I feeling overstimulated? What is happening right now and how can I see it differently? Can I change the expectations or can I just take some time to regulate myself? If your nervous system is overstimulated from all the noise and all of that, take some time to yourself and really ask yourself what is important in these school holidays and just do more of that. Thank you very much for tuning in. I hope you liked that episode and I love all your feedback. So please jump on, leave comments, come into my Instagram Sarah the Psych and let me know if you're enjoying these episodes and what you'd like to see next. Thank you.
