Summer days are over and we are back in the swing of things across the country. Schools have reopened, lunches are being prepared, homework is getting done (or not) and stress levels have gone up. I want to get into back to school stress management challenges and opportunities with you, in the hopes I can help!
I was actually really excited to go back to school this year. My summer was busy, busy, busy with art camps and classes galore! My house was full of college kids and it was a great time. But it sure was stressful!
Stress all around us. There’s lots of studies that talk about good stress and bad stress and the different ways that stress impacts your lives. And when I say your life I’m talking about your physical life, your mental life and your emotional life. And any other lives I may have left out point LOL.
Going back to school stress is one of the main concerns of grownups alike. School can be stressful for the students, but going back to school can also be stressful for the parents or caregivers of students. There’s all this nervous energy and a height of excitement involved with the returning of school. And we always were a little bit about how that transition will work out.
Be the Fly on the Wall
The key factor in managing stress as we return to school is to be mindful and present with yourself and your children. Listen and pay attention to what they are saying. I remember driving my son and his friends around in the car and staying completely silent. (Fly on the wall) The act of just listening and being present gives you so much information.
I learned so much about my son and his friends, I learned about what they’re interested in, I learned about teachers that they’re struggling with, I learned about girls they were interested in, or absent movies they were using that may or may not have been too trustworthy. I learned so much by just being a chauffeur and not saying a word.
You are the expert on yourself and your children. You know when they’re off or when they’re hungry.
Homework is not a one person show
Being present to help your kids with their homework is critical. Helping them learn the mastery of time management and study skills are life long lessons they need to grasp. This doesn’t mean you have to help them out the entire year but it does mean that at least initially you don’t want to take a back seat to making sure they’re getting their work accomplished at home.
In terms of stress management, when your children enter certain grades, helping them with their homework may require more attention than in other years. For example the transition from fifth to sixth grade is a significant change in our children’s lives. Most often kids are moving from fifth grade where they have one teacher and they change subjects within that classroom to going to 6th grade where they get a locker for the first time and find themselves moving from class to class during the day.
During this grade is when I noticed the most significant amount of initial stress on a sixth grader. They’re unsure of how to manage their time, they’re unsure of how to properly plan for the number of tasks they have to do when they get home from school. They’re not entirely sure how long certain assignments will take and thus they tend to underscore or downplay the actual amount of homework they have.
They don’t have the ability initially to predict how long it will take them to complete their vocabulary assignment, their math worksheet, and a reading response that’s do the next day. Often they will come home, have a snack, play with their friends, eat dinner, get ready for bed and then realize exactly how much homework they have and how long it’s going to take them. It causes them to work past their bedtime and it causes stress between you and them. And we all know what the next morning is going to look like when everybody goes to bed stressed or upset.
Most schools these days are using some kind of an online school program where you can check grades and attendance with your child. You can deal with stress management in this area by spending each night before or after dinner looking at it together, determining what assignments your child has and when they’re due and helping them get organized for their evening of homework.
Showing your child time management and study skills is the best way for them to learn and grow. It does mean that you have to spend a little extra time helping them get through the initial phase of learning these skills. But if you teach it to them early and you teach it to them effectively you will find that they can then take care of all of these assignments on their own with very little assistance from you.
This does not mean I’m suggesting that you sit down next to them and help him fill out every single question. This means that I’m recommending you pull up their assignments. You help them organize what they’re going to do and in what order, you are available for support if they have questions or can’t figure out an equation, but you’re not doing the work for them. Part of stress management is finding that sweet spot of being helpful and doing too much for them.
Routines, routines routines
Structure and routines are critical for different age groups of our children. Consistency can create a state of calm and relaxation in a child. Coming home from school and knowing exactly how your day is going to go allows a child to relax and settle into what they know and can expect without any surprises. This is another form of stress management.
Many children cope best with this style of scheduling and you will find flourish in it. Children who have erratic schedules often appear anxious or on edge because they never know what’s going to happen next and they can’t prepare for that. The child who knows that when they come home from school they’re going to get a snack and can start doing their homework can mentally prepare for that as they are riding home from school. It sets their tone for the rest of the day. They feel confident and ready to tackle the afternoon ahead.
If you have younger children writing a schedule out or having them create a cute calendar of their daily activities after school can be very helpful. If they’re into positive reinforcement you can also add a space for stickers or stamps whenever they accomplish one of their afternoon tasks. This makes it fun even when you have to do your spelling. LOL
Screen time is not Mean Time
Setting healthy boundaries with your children as to how many minutes a day they’re allowed to be on a screen or device is also critical. In this day and age we are ruled by our devices and something as innocent as 5 minutes on tiktok can turn to 2 hours when you fall down that rabbit hole. The kind of stress management this provides is critical for our kids.
You may be one who likes to set screen free times during the evening. For me, I don’t allow phones at the dinner table. I want my kids to be engaged with me and having conversations and not where everyone is staring at their phones and no one is interfacing. Some families don’t allow their children to take their devices to their room with them overnight.
If they have had trust issues in the past and you’ve caught your child on their devices after hours this is probably a good idea. And it also enables you to keep late-night disturbances from your children. For example, they may be in a group chat where several of the other kids have a later bedtime and the constant pinging or vibrating of your child’s smart device makes it hard for them to ignore. They either engage with the messaging or they are up worrying about what they are missing out on or finally cave and respond.
Downtime is Sacred too
Everybody has a busy day. When I wake up in the morning I like to look at my schedule to determine what my day is going to look like and mentally prepare myself. It’s my form of stress management. I’ll admit. sometimes I’m exhausted just by looking at my schedule. LOL
I definitely look forward to down time and the opportunities that I have to create quiet space for myself. Your children need this as well. You may decide that it’s important to schedule this into their calendar every day or at least discuss with them which days they have extra curricular activities and on which days they can plan nothing so that they can just chill.
Make sure you honor that down time and don’t plan things around it so that everybody knows that they can look forward to some peace and quiet. Unless down time for you is playing Mario Kart on the switch with your kids and then it’s not typically quiet or peaceful. But it sure is fun!
At the end of the day the most important thing that you can do is make sure that you have open communication among your family members. Having a group calendar where everybody has all of their stuff written down, maybe in different colors per person, enables everyone to talk about transportation, timing, meals and evening routines.
Things fall apart when nobody knows what’s going on with each other. And then you and your partner find yourself at home at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night and realize that neither of you have picked up your kid from their friend’s birthday party because you thought the other one was doing it. I’m speaking for a friend of course.
As previously stated you will have to work hard on some of these things in the beginning. But once you get a healthy routine going and everybody understands their responsibilities you will find that the amount of peace and quiet in your home is worth all the effort.