The Honeymoon Period Is Over: What Comes After School Starts
The first weeks of school went fine. Better than fine. Then, somewhere along the way, everything changed. The easygoing kid who did homework without complaint now fights bedtime, melts down over math worksheets, and talks back to the teacher who was “the best” a few days ago.
This is a common story every September from foster parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents. The first stretch runs smoothly. Then the wheels come off. Parents end up convinced they did something wrong. They didn’t.
Why the good behavior doesn’t last
Kids who have been moved, adopted, or reshuffled into a blended household have often learned to read a room fast. New routine, new teacher, new stepsibling schedule: their instinct is to behave well until they know where the limits are. Then they start reverting to their old default trauma responses. That’s not manipulation. It’s a kid figuring out whether this new setup is safe.
Researchers have documented a similar pattern in new foster placements. A 2014 study found that foster children showed lower attachment security and more behavior problems than the general population, both predicted by foster parents’ stress and their ability to stay present and supportive. A back-to-school transition is smaller than a new placement, but the same mechanism runs underneath it. A 2023 review found that new placements disrupt existing attachment relationships and increase a child’s vulnerability to emotional and behavioral struggles. A new school year disrupts routine in a smaller but real way, and kids who have already lived through instability often feel that disruption more.
The stress isn’t just behavioral. A 2018 review of children’s cortisol levels found that starting formal schooling raises stress hormones, and it can take three to six months for those levels to return to baseline. Most kids are nowhere near settled by the time the good behavior starts to slip. Their brains are still adjusting, even when the calendar says school has been underway for a while.
They aren’t the only ones feeling exhausted
I don’t have research to back this next part up, but I’ve watched it happen enough times to trust it. The logistics wear parents down as much as the behavior does. We have new pickup times, new homework routines, new forms to sign, and new names to learn, all while managing whatever came home in the backpack that day. By now, the family runs on less patience than it had in the summer, and less patience makes every meltdown harder.
Your circumstances are unique, and what you face will be a bit different than other families. A single foster placement with one child in one school looks different from a blended family juggling two custody schedules and three different school calendars. The exhaustion happens either way. It just looks different.
New teachers, new tests
Kids test new adults. Ask any foster or adoptive parent and they’ll tell you the same thing: the sweet, compliant version of a child in the first days is not always the whole child. I don’t have a study that measures this exact mechanism, but the pattern is consistent enough across parents I’ve talked with that I trust it.
What research does show is that the relationship itself matters. A 2019 study found that school transitions raise the risk of behavioral and emotional struggles, and that the quality of the relationship between a student and teacher acts as a protective factor against that risk. A child testing a new teacher isn’t proof the year is going badly. It’s often the first step toward trusting that teacher enough to let their guard down.
For blended and stepfamilies, this looks a little different
Stepfamilies face their own version of this shift. A child moving between two households has two different school routines to track, two sets of homework rules, and possibly two sets of expectations about who signs the permission slip. A child who behaved well during the early part of a new custody arrangement may start pushing back once the newness wears off and the real adjustment sets in. That pushback usually isn’t about school at all. It’s a test of whether the new arrangement, and the new adults in it, will hold steady.
What helps
- Recognize the pattern. A child who was calm at the start and difficult now isn’t regressing. They’re finally showing you enough of themselves to test what happens next.
- Hold the routine steady. Consistency is what eventually convinces a child the new setup is safe enough to stop testing.
- Don’t rush to fix it. The behavior didn’t appear because something is wrong. It appeared because your child trusts you enough to stop performing.
- Tell the teacher what’s going on. A teacher who understands a child’s history can read testing behavior as adjustment instead of defiance, and respond to it that way.
- Refill your own patience. You can’t hold steady for your kid if you’re running on empty. Ask a friend, a partner, or another foster or adoptive parent to take something off your plate this week.
None of this means the year is off to a bad start. It means your child feels safe enough to show you who they really are, even when that’s inconvenient. Stay steady, keep the routine simple, and give it time. The behavior that feels like a setback now is usually the first sign that the adjustment is working.
Want to go deeper? Our online course, Understanding Trauma in Foster, Adoptive, and Stepchildren, covers why behavior often gets harder before it gets easier, and how to respond without taking it personally.
