The end of the school year is supposed to feel like a celebration. Classrooms fill with memory boards and end-of-year awards. Social media is flooded with photos and reflections on “what a great year it's been”. There is a collective exhale as summer is here, and everyone seems ready to move on. But for some families, this moment feels very different.

If your child struggled this year — academically, socially, emotionally — the end of the school year doesn’t always bring relief. Instead, it can bring a complicated mix of exhaustion, worry and even quiet grief. You advocated. You e-mailed. You met with teachers. You tried strategies, adjusted expectations, and showed up again and again for your child. And now, as the year closes, you’re left wondering: Was it enough?

For parents of children with learning differences, this feeling can be especially intense.

These are not just years measured in grades or report cards. They are years measured in effort, often unseen and unacknowledged effort. When your child learns differently, school is rarely a passive experience. It can require constant navigation: translating instructions, managing frustration, rebuilding confidence, and helping your child make sense of a system that doesn’t always make sense to them.

At the same time, parents are often carrying layers that others don't see. You are not just helping with homework; you are advocating in meetings, interpreting assessments, coordinating supports, and holding your child's emotions at home after a long day of holding it together at school. By June, many parents are not just tired. They are depleted.

And yet, this is rarely reflected in the narrative of year-end “success”.

So what do you do when the school year didn’t feel good, for your child or for you?

First, it’s important to acknowledge what the year actually was. Not the version you wish it had been, and not the version others are celebrating. If it was hard. Naming that doesn’t mean your child didn’t grow. In fact, many children with learning differences make extraordinary growth in difficult years, but that growth might look like resilience, persistence, self-advocacy, confidence, or independence rather than neat academic gains. That matters.

Second, resist the urge to immediately “fix” it over the summer. When a child has struggled, there is a natural pull to catch them up as quickly as possible. But just as important as skill-building is recovery. Children who have spent the year feeling behind or under pressure need time to feel capable again, without comparison, without urgency, and without constant correction.

This doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means shifting the goal.

Summer can be a time to rebuild confidence through experiences that feel manageable and meaningful. Cooking together, running errands, building with your hands, playing games, or simply having longer, unhurried conversations — these are not breaks from learning; they are different forms of learning.

For some children, these are the places where confidence and competence grow most naturally. They build executive functioning, language, motor skills, and independence in ways that are often more accessible for children who struggled in school.

For some children, targeted support will still be important, whether that is tutoring, therapy, or structured programmes. Summer doesn’t replace the need for intervention where it is needed. But it can soften the intensity of it. It can create a space where children don’t feel defined by what they find difficult.

Third, take stock, not just of your child, but of the environment around them.

A hard year is not always a reflection of a child’s ability or effort. Sometimes it is a reflection of fit — whether the environment, expectations and supports align with how that child learns best. As you move into the summer, it can be helpful to gently ask: What worked? What didn’t? Where did my child feel seen? Where did they struggle most? These questions are not about assigning blame. They are about gathering clarity for what your child may need next.

And finally, remember this: you get a summer too.

Parents of children with learning differences often move from one challenge to the next without pause. But you are part of this equation. Rest is not a reward; it is a need. Stepping back, even slightly, allows you to return with the perspective and energy that advocacy requires.

The end of the school year doesn’t have to mean wrapping everything up in a tidy narrative of success. Some years are messy. Some years take more than they give. But even in those years, there is movement. If your child kept going, if they learnt something about themselves, if they made it to the end, you did too.

And that is worth recognising, even if no one puts it on a certificate.

• Lindsey Sirju is cofounder and deputy head of school at Bermuda Centre for Creatiuve Learning