You’ve seen it happen—your child avoids simple tasks like sending an email, filling out a form, or cleaning their room. To you, these things seem small, but to them, they feel massive, overwhelming, and impossible. Eventually, they just let it go, not because they don’t care, but because it feels like the only way to breathe.
For neurodiverse students, even the smallest tasks can feel disproportionately heavy. The thought of starting a “tiny job” triggers a spiral of overthinking, dread, and self-doubt: What if I do it wrong? What if I forget something? The mental weight becomes unbearable, so they avoid it altogether. Over time, this avoidance reinforces the belief that they can’t handle even simple responsibilities, eroding their confidence and increasing their anxiety.
But avoiding these tasks doesn’t make life easier—it creates a buildup of consequences. Missed deadlines, incomplete assignments, and cluttered spaces lead to more stress, guilt, and frustration. And as a parent, you might feel stuck between wanting to push them forward and not wanting to add to their overwhelm. It’s a cycle that leaves everyone feeling helpless.
This week in sessions, a student shared: “I know it’s ridiculous, but something as simple as sending a two-line email feels impossible. It just sits there in the back of my mind, getting heavier and heavier until I can’t deal with it anymore. So I just don’t.”
They described how this pattern affected their schoolwork, their chores, and even their social life. Avoiding small tasks became their default coping strategy, but the weight of those “tiny jobs” never really went away—it just shifted into a constant sense of dread.
We started by breaking the tasks down into even smaller, manageable steps. For example, instead of “write an email,” we changed it to “open your email app” and “write one sentence.” These micro-steps as well as doing it together, reduced the mental resistance to starting.
Behind the scenes, I worked with their neurodiversity support tutor to create a system that prioritized tasks based on urgency and emotional weight. Together, we also built in rewards for completing even the smallest steps, shifting their focus from the task’s size to their effort and progress gained along the way.
Their parents also adopted a supportive role, encouraging small wins without emphasizing the overall outcome. Over time, these changes helped the student build momentum, turning those once-overwhelming tasks into manageable, bite-sized actions.
If you’ve seen your child struggle with tasks that seem small but feel massive to them, there’s a way to help. At Warrior Brain, our integrated therapy and tutoring approach works together to teach neurodiverse students how to approach responsibilities in a way that feels achievable, while making life less stressful for you as a parent.
