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Easing Back Into School Routines
by Wenda Reed

Imagine that you have a part-time job in which you get to work from home. You get up when you feel like it; you work in your pajamas for a while; you break up your hours at the computer with forays into the garden or the laundry room or the neighborhood.

Then on a set day, you begin working full time at a place you must travel to. You have to get up at a certain time, probably too early. You have to take everything you need for the workday with you. You have to be completely organized and “on.” Once there, you must adjust to all of the personalities and requirements and standards around you. Oh, and you mustn’t give up any of your previous activities or obligations.

Imagine you’re yanked from the first kind of job to the second all on one day, and expected to shift gears immediately. That’s what it feels like to your kids, moving suddenly from the unstructured days of summer to the structure of the school year. Even though many of them are excited to get back to school, it still requires a lot of adjustments.

They need a little grace to make the transition.

Do everything you can to prepare your children ahead of time. Two weeks before, the first day of school, begin making bedtimes and wake-up times earlier and more consistent. Talk about what the new schedule will look like and about the need to get homework, supplies and lunches ready the evening before. As you shop for school supplies, buy organizational tools like planners and binders with dividers so that children can begin taking responsibility for their own details. Practice making lunch each evening for the next day.

You wouldn’t like being thrown into a workplace you’d never seen before among a few dozen people you’d never met, and it is difficult for most children to do the equivalent. If they’re going to a new school, visit it at least once before school starts, including taking younger kids to play on the playground. Try to meet the teacher and get a list of classmates so your child can make connections before the first day.

As more demands and expectations surround your children, unclutter their lives. Unless your child is following his own ongoing passion for a sport or hobby, early September is not a good time to begin a new extracurricular activity. Let him settle into the school routine first before he faces the tension of music lessons or a soccer team or a scout troop. See how well he adjusts and copes with homework and school pressures before you add other activities. More children suffer from being overextended and overstressed than they do from being under-stimulated or deprived of enrichment.

Above all, don’t shortchange sleep. Parent educator Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, in her excellent book, Sleepless in America (HarperCollins, 2006), points out that many instances of misbehavior are actually caused by lack of sleep, not by attention deficit disorder or defiant personalities. A preschooler getting less than 12 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period is sleep-deprived, as is a school-age child getting less than 10 hours or an adolescent getting less than 9.25 hours.

“Until your child gets more sleep, no punishment, no discipline strategy will stop the challenging behaviors,” Kurcinka writes. “The problem is that children rarely tell you that they are tired. Instead they get wired, which escalates into a frenzy of energy.”

Of course, no one can make a child sleep, but we can set the stage for a restful night. This means having a consistent homework, mealtime and bedtime routine most days, including pleasurable calming things — like stories, backrubs or baths — that fit your child’s temperament. Especially during the school year, it means making a conscious decision to make sleep a priority, even though that may entail reducing evening activities and TV time.

You may feel that your child is missing out if you simplify her life in this way, but actually, she will be more ready to get the most out of her busy school day and to handle all of the new challenges and personalities she’ll encounter.

We know how stressed out and ineffective we can become when we try to be “supermoms.” The same thing happens when we try to create “superkids” and fail to give them the grace and the time they need to make transitions, including the one from the lazy days of summer to the demanding days of school.

Wenda Reed is parenting columnist for Seattle Woman.

©2007 Caliope Publishing Company