This post is part of Reading While Parenting, a monthly feature at A Wonderful Mess, where we delve into the Ws and an H of reading in parenthood—the who, where, what, why, when, and how. Essays cover a range of topic areas, from the details of how to read with a sleeping infant to the best parent-approved bookmarks, to bigger questions about what reading can mean in your life. Reading While Parenting essays come once a month, except when there are “reading clubs” in January and June through August.
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I don’t know about you, but the back-to-school season is my new year. It may be the many, many years of attending school followed by working in a school. And then working in a medical setting with children and adolescents, so still very tethered to the starts and stops of the school year. And eventually, my own kids entered their formal school years.
Fall is when things feel new to me, and there is an energy to re-evaluate and start something or make adjustments. I do not feel this way in the winter when I feel ready to go to bed at 4:30 PM. This energy, along with a shake-up in routines, can be helpful momentum to make a change. In fact, there is a name for this type of momentum, the “fresh start effect”. This is a concept that typically gets its moment in January with the many articles about New Year’s resolutions. And although I remain skeptical of New Year’s resolutions, mainly for our culture’s constant self-improvement narrative, I would suggest that for parents, the fresh start effect feels very present now in this back-to-school season.
“Rooted in behavioral science, the fresh start effect is the psychological boost we experience when temporal landmarks, such as the beginning of a new year, month, or week, help us mentally separate our past selves from our future potential. The fresh start effect is particularly potent at the start of the year and can serve as a catalyst for goal achievement and personal growth.”
-Fresh Starts: The Psychology Behind New Year Motivation by Jodi Wellmann, MAPP on Psychology Today
In How to Read in Parenthood: A Kind of Guide for A Messy Reading Life I made the argument that parents encounter a plethora of fresh starts given the waterfall of temporal landmarks children deliver just through their mere existence. Katy Milkman, author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be*, researched the “fresh start effect” and emphasizes how it can be a helpful tool to embrace life’s disruptions:
“The more I’ve thought about this research, the clearer it’s become to me that the potential to harness fresh starts is underutilized. When we hope to change, we have an opportunity to try reshaping our environment to help us disrupt old routines and ways of thinking. This could be as simple as finding a new coffee shop to work in or a new gym. And we should be looking for opportunities to capitalize on other life changes, too, to reevaluate what matters most to us.”
“Disrupt routines” sounds like my children’s life motto, but in thinking about the season of change we find ourselves in currently, much of our attention tends to focus on the kids, but you are also greatly impacted by all these moving pieces. There are schedule changes and differing needs. And along with figuring out the lunch packing process, homework plans, and carpools, there is an opportunity to think about what your reading life could be this season. And of course, for some, it’s not your reading life, it could be your social life or your movement practices. But for the moment, here we are talking about reading. This may be an opportunity to integrate reading in new (or old) ways into your day by:
* Adding an audiobook to your pick-up and drop-off car time
* Bringing a book along to soccer practice
* Reading a book during your lunch
* Instituting some family reading time in the evenings
* Listening to an audiobook during dinner prep
It can be a great time to try something new with your reading habits.
But what if a fresh start actually stinks
In my house, the kids have returned to school, and here I was with my big stack of books for Fall. Excited to read campus novels, mysteries, and witchy things. And lo and behold, the beginning of the school year hit me hard. So hard that I couldn’t get through 10 pages at night (my main reading time) without my head nodding and my book falling into my lap. Panic ensued. How can I write an essay about fresh starts and embracing reading, and I’m reading LESS?
Well, actually, it’s normal because it’s real life, and it wouldn’t be in the spirit of this whole publication if my reading life resembled a perfectly curated bookstagram scenario. I can’t leave you hanging with a list of ideas, send you off into the world, only to stumble and say, “Well, there goes my ‘fresh start”. Let’s consider some possible snags, too. Fresh starts are about timing for goal setting, but as with any behavioral science phenomenon, there are many other human factors, like general exhaustion from integrating four kiddos back into school. So, so many feelings.
As with any goal, a degree of flexibility can go a long way. It can be helpful to bring an “experimental” lens to your reading efforts. Try the book at soccer practice, but if you find yourself enjoying chatting with the mom next to you, don’t feel bad. Needs, like social connection and reading, do not need to compete with each other. Besides, maybe you can talk about books with her. Try the audiobook during dinner prep, but if your child keeps interrupting every 3 minutes and it’s ruining the experience, it’s okay. Trial it and collect your data.
Your data may tell you that you need to pivot. As a parent, you already have the skill of pivoting. You are doing it all the time. With my exhaustion ruining my night reading, I started reading for 20 minutes during the day at either lunch or before I pick up my daughter. And here is something fun, it helped with my night reading. Because I was reading a little bit during the day when my brain was functioning better-ish? I could get engaged with the story at night much more easily, instead of trying to pick it up from where I literally dropped it the night before.
There are other things to consider with fresh starts, like the fact that they might not work for everyone because behavior change is hard. If it wasn’t hard, there wouldn’t be such a robust self-help section at the bookstore. Psychologist and writer, Megan Anna Neff, highlights here in an article for Psychology Today that for some who are neurodivergent or tend towards perfectionism, being successful with fresh starts may be more difficult due to all-or-nothing thinking, slip and abandon cycles, and overloaded aspirations. Dr. Neff encourages a more flexible, value-based approach to behavior changes.
And Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks*, whose work I greatly appreciate, would tell you that there is no such thing as a fresh start:
“To put it another way: fresh-startism is a form of perfectionism, and as with all forms of perfectionism, the solution is to stop being such a perfectionist – to resign yourself to the fact that things probably won't unfold as flawlessly as you'd hoped.
This much (as a recovering perfectionist) I've understood for years. But I've only more recently grasped the deeper point here, which isn't simply that fresh starts don't work as intended, but that there never are any fresh starts in the first place. Contrary to self-help cliché, the thing we perfectionists need to learn isn't that we're probably going to experience failure. It's that we've already failed, totally and irredeemably.
This is liable to sound incredibly depressing, but since it's actually fantastic news, I hope you'll allow me to elaborate.”
Burkeman goes on to encourage the reader to give up on the fantasy of the fresh start and abandon whatever perfect thing (in our case, being a reader who can read ALL the books) is and face who you are now in the moment, like a tired mother of four who checks out more books from the library than is physically possible to read.
A why can help you turn the page
Whether you believe in the fresh start or not, have those sabotaging perfectionist tendencies, or are just sorting through the many constraints that life is dealing you, having a good, clear why is going to serve you well. What is this, why you ask? It’s the why you read. This is deeper than “I like to read” or “books are good.” Exploring your reasons for reading and connecting them to your personal values will help you stay motivated and provide clarity on what you want your reading life to look like. Writer and reader, Sara Hildreth, of FictionMatters, writes in her essay on the topic, Reading in Public No. 51: How knowing why I read helps me choose better books:
“And this is when I took a step back and instead of asking myself what I like in my books, I asked what I wanted to get out of my reading. In other words, I started focusing more on why I read. This practice has been revolutionary for my reading life.
Thinking about why I read has freed me up to explore stories, genres, and styles I would not have readily defined as to my taste. It has helped me approach books with a more open and curious mind. It has given my reading life variety and meaning. And as an added bonus, it also helps me appreciate more of the books I read.”
And just when you sort it out…
It will change again. The soccer season will end. The holidays will upend the usual routines so delicately established in the previous few months. A new activity will require a different driving arrangement. This is the stuff of parenthood. Here is the big picture perspective, though, just like your why, your ability to be flexible and integrate reading into your ever-changing circumstances can give you years of reading possibilities beyond ticking one book off the TBR. Flexibility is a skill and the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
Reading and listening… about reading
Now that Reading While Parenting is monthly, there will be a few reading related tidbits with each essay.
* I love learning more about the trends around books:
* We might be back to school, but I am dreaming of going on a solo reading retreat someday…I Booked a Solo Reading Retreat & Yes, It Was Everything I hoped It’d Be by Katie McPherson on Scary Mommy
* I am no longer in the season of parenthood where I have any creative control over my kids Halloween costumes, so my kids pick what they want (oh yes I dropped the H word, I am fully in a Fall mindset). These Bookish Baby and Toddler Halloween Costumes for 2025 on Book Riot were too cute.
* This is a place for reading for parents and typically we talk about books for adults, but I found myself drawn to some of the titles on National Book Awards longlist for Young People’s literature on LitHub, because yes, adults can read these books, too.
* I love learning about parenting from children’s literature, and the Babysitter’s Club books are a rich text, enjoy this humorous essay from Andrew Knott on how the series has him questioning his parenting choices.
The comments section is what we make of it. Feel free to answer any or all of the questions below.
* How has your reading life changed during this time of year?
* What vibes do you go for in the fall? Spooky, cozy rom-coms, gory horror, campus novels, mystery...
* Always feel free to share good recent reads or books you are excited to get into.
* Don’t hesitate to share any reading conundrums? These may become a topic for a future post.
*I am an affiliate of bookshop.org, if you purchase through this link I will earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you)
As always—Just a little reminder: The content on A Wonderful Mess posted by Dr. Kathryn Barbash, PsyD, is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical, clinical, legal, or professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Reliance on any information provided is solely at your own risk. Always seek the advice of your licensed mental health professional or other qualified health provider.
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