Back-to-School Made Easy: 4 Tips Every Parent Needs

You might be breathing a huge sigh of relief at the thought of your kids going or starting back at school, having a bit more routine and ending the endless school holiday struggles to keep them busy, and also heaving a sigh of relief as you wave them off. But you might also be feeling that little knot in your stomach. Will my child be okay? Will they make friends? Will they cope with the long days again? Early mornings? Oh God, how are we going to do that? And if your child is sensitive with big feelings, you might notice that their feelings are just as mixed as yours—sort of excitement one moment and then tears the next. As a parent, you know it's important to have clear boundaries, but you also want to be caring and compassionate, right? Well, I'm Camilla McGill, and as a seasoned parenting coach and mum of 4, I'm excited to give you the principles tools and inspiration you need to raise amazing kids. Welcome to Raising Kids with Love and Boundaries. So today I'm about to give you 5 practical tips to make the back-to-school transition as smooth and easy as possible. Or maybe your children are back at school already and you want to make sure that term gets off to a good start and to help you feel confident that you're supporting your child emotionally as well as practically. So here's the first tip that I want to give you for today, and I also want to alert you for the question of the week, which I will be covering at the end. The listener asked me, my daughter is so slow in the morning, what can I do? I have to get to work on time. So remember to listen right to the end because I will be covering that question, but I want to start off with point number 1, which is prepare your child emotionally, not just logistically, especially for the drop-off. So I remember one September morning when one of my daughters was in reception, starting in reception. So that's kindergarten for my US listeners. So she got her uniform on, she had her shoes polished, her little school bag ready, her hair tied up, but within 2 minutes of arriving at school, she was clinging onto me shouting, "Don't leave me, Mummy!" And it wasn't just the first day that this happened. But I know that this is really common, and I knew that she was going to be fine once she was inside the school building. But looking back, I realised that although I'd prepared for lots of things like trying on the uniform and the school bag, I hadn't prepared her for her feelings. And kids are really responsive if we help them to know what to expect. So we might say something to them like, going to school is fun, and it also feels strange. You've had a long holiday, or you have long days at school. And you probably worry about things, missing me, making new friends, all the different rules that you have to learn. But when I drop you off, and here's the key, this is the practice part for drop-off. When I drop you off, here's what's going to happen. So we manage their expectation. I'm going to give you a big hug and I'm going to say goodbye, I love you, see you at the end of the day. So we might ask our child what they would like us to say, but basically have a goodbye mantra. And then if somebody else is collecting them that day, you need to warn your child as well. Well, it won't be me at the end of the day, but it'll be so-and-so, or you will be going to after-school club. So all these kind of bits of emotional preparation really help a child settle in quicker. And also one really important thing is do not linger at drop-off. It really makes things so much worse. If needs be, if they're crying and it really upsets you, quick goodbye to them with the goodbye mantra or a little phrase that you're going to say to them, and go and cry around the corner. I promise you, I've done that. But don't let them see you upset. Point number 2 for making the back-to-school transition so much easier than it might be is make the morning routine as easy as you can. You know that feeling when your alarm goes off, particularly if you've had a long holiday and you've had lie-ins and lack of routines? It's horrible, and I promise you our kids feel it too. So if you're listening to this before school has started back, I recommend that a few days before the start of term, wake everybody at school time and have breakfast and get them to get dressed as if they're ready to go out, even if they're not. I also really recommend that you bring bedtime forward by 10 or 15 minutes each day, Kids need much more sleep than they think they do, and they use up a lot of physical and emotional and mental energy at school. So honestly, make sure that they have earlier nights, because if you miss that sleep window, kids will get overtired, and that's so often where we see the poor behavior and things become really frantic. One mum that I work with told me that this really did make a massive change in for their first week back of school because her son arrived at school feeling like he was already in the groove instead of grumpy and groggy. And he also felt emotionally prepared because of the first point that I made. So other tips for the morning: lay out the clothes the night before, have things like bags packed, shoes by the door, breakfast table laid. And actually, really good to get kids involved with this because it gives them a sense of control, and it also helps to manage their expectations for the following day. This one that I'm I tell you is really painful, and I promise you I didn't always achieve it depending on the kind of night that I had the night before or what else was going on. But get yourself ready first. It really helps. If you're enjoying this so far and you'd like some more strategies to help your child settle into the new school year, do grab my free guide. It's written in the show notes below, or see if you can remember this: myparentingsolutions.com/freeguide. School. So as I say, in the show notes below if you want the link. But what I just want to say is I don't expect you to follow every single one of my tips, but even if just one or two of these help, then well, that's made a difference to me because I love helping people. So third point is focus on connection in the mornings. Parents tell me that they feel so guilty about the mornings when they feel like they're constantly barking at their kids and nagging at them to hurry up. I want to suggest that a little emotional fuel really does go a long way. Just 5 minutes of someone uninterrupted time with you can really help manage that morning transition, and it helps set them up for the day. You know, parents will always say to me, but I don't have 5 minutes. But I'd like you to think about how long it takes to deal with the fallout of a meltdown, or how long it takes to deal with a big fight, or how much impact it has on you when you maybe eventually get to work late, or just get to work full of guilt of having shouted and nagged at your child. Again, I'm not meaning to say this is easy, and if you've done that, let go of the guilt, but just think about those 5 minutes of connection. So it could mean sitting with them while they eat breakfast, reading a quick story, having a little cuddle on the sofa. I know this is really hard when we're trying to get out to work on time, feed the baby, put a load of washing in the machine, but I promise that it does go a really long way. And when I did do this, It really paid off. And one client told me that her daughter invented a morning squeeze that they only did before school. It became their special ritual, and it really helped her daughter feel secure and also cooperate. So, because these moments of connection really do help with cooperation. So, I know that you're going to tell me that morning is simply chaos in your house, and your kids don't listen, and shouting seems the only way to get them to do something. The tools that I give you in my podcast aren't the whole toolkit. If you'd like my personal help, just go to myparentingsolutions.com/chat and book a discovery call with me. It's free. But in the meantime, take a tip or two from today and try it out. And here's the fourth and last tip: expect big feelings and behavior changes. One of the biggest surprises for many parents, and if this is you, please know that this is really, really common. The teacher says, They've had a brilliant day at school, so well behaved, really cooperative, very good little girl or boy, and the moment that you get home, your child explodes. Or it might even be before you've even got out the school gate. Maybe you brought the wrong snack, or you opened the front door instead of them. This isn't bad behaviour designed to wind you up or be disrespectful. It's the release of holding it together all day. School, or I call it school, it's also referring to nursery as well, or pre-K or preschool. It's busy, it's noisy, it's full of rules. Some kids soak that up and carry on, and others hold onto it until the safety of home. And then the dam bursts. You might see clinginess, meltdowns, rudeness, backchat, digging their heels in, you know, more or different to how they normally are when they're feeling chilled, calm, and relaxed. It doesn't mean that something's gone wrong. It's a really normal adjustment. When we see our child as having a problem rather than being a problem, it really helps us to respond calmly. You can still hold boundaries while acknowledging their feelings. It might mean by saying, "I'm going to hold the banana because I think you're about to throw it," or, "It looks like you're feeling really frustrated." 'Or I'm not going to be able to help you when you shout at me like that. So when you're a little calmer, you can ask me again.' That is holding a boundary without shaming or criticizing them. And here's actually another practical tip: keep the after-school time low-key. Have snacks ready immediately because they do burn up an awful lot of energy at school. And just really try and keep the after-school activities low, at least for the first couple of weeks of term, because the calmer the school environment after school, the quicker that kids can get home and reset. But look, it is a transition for the whole family. It really can feel difficult at first, and that's okay. You and your child are finding a rhythm, and things do get better. If you've got the kind of child who you may turn up and the teacher doesn't say, 'They've been so great, we've had a good day,' it may be that behaviour spills out in school. Know that it isn't a naughty child, it's child that's struggling, and please do get in touch with me if you'd like some extra support. So I'm going to come on to the listener question in a minute, but I just want to recap what we talked about today. Prepare for emotions and the goodbyes, not just the sort of checklist of all the things that they need for school, but the emotions and how to say goodbye. Number 2, make the morning routine as easy as you can. Number 3, build connection in before they go off to school. And number 4, expect big feelings and behaviour changes. And managing our expectations and managing our own interpretations of these kind of difficult behaviours really helps us respond in a different way. So just that reminder, if you'd like my guide to settling into the new school year, just go to myparentingsolutions.com/school. And now that listener question. My daughter is so slow in the morning. What can I do? I have to get to work on time. So each child is really different. This child may be a child that is actually really slow to warm up in the mornings, and we've got to recognize that leaving the coziness of home in the morning is really hard for many children, but some find it harder than others. Some really are genuinely excited to get out the house, but kids have also— remember this— kids have a totally different agenda to us. We're on a tight schedule. They are trying to finish their game, or they are just in lovely daydreaming reverie, and that's where they are. And the minute we rush, they tend to dig their heels in further, and then that disconnection comes. So one tool I'd really recommend is allowing a little bit more time and also having a visual timetable for your kids to look at, plus all the other things that I've talked about today. So I really hope that today's episode was useful. Please rate the podcast and hit subscribe so that you get alerted to when the next episode comes out. And tell your friends. I'd love you to recommend Raising Kids with Love and Boundaries to all your friends so that they get to benefit from listening to my episodes. And thank you so much for joining me, from me, Camilla McGill.