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Back-to-school: 7 Tips for Parents to prepare their kids and students | How to Prepare children and students for Back-to-School Time | 7 Ways for A Successful Transition of Kids from Holidays

Back-to-school transition can be both exciting and a somewhat challenging for both for kids and parents as holidays draw to an end.

Parents need a little planning and organization to get the children ready to head back to school.

How can parents prepare their children and students for an easy back-to-school transition?

1. Create or re-establish your night, sleep, morning and school routine

2. Turn off the TV programs and video games.

3. Have a good plan and being more organised

4. Calm any fears in your kids

5. Get involved in the school’s activities

6. Arrange for a Regular Homework Station

7. Train your kids to be independent

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1. Create or re-establish your night, sleep, morning and school routines:

Schedule a time in the night to ensure all stuffs for the school are ready including homework to help reduce stressful school morning routine. Set up or re-set a regular bedtime and morning time routine to help prepare your child for school.

Begin your usual school sleep routine about a week or so little by little before school starts, adjusting your bedtime each time until you meet your target bedtime. Don’t wait to do this until the night before the school day.

Ensure you stick with the routines. When children can predict what is coming next, they feel comfortable and are much more likely to cooperate.

2. Turn off the TV programs and video games.

For a lot of kids, holiday time is the period for playing endless video games and watching TV programs. Turn off the TV and video games to ease the child into the learning process and encouraging him or her to read or play quietly. This makes the kid realize that six hours of their day is going to spent learning and not playing games and watching TV

3. Have a good plan and being more organised

Having a good plan includes but not limited to:

 – Getting your child checked-up before school starts; getting the requisite vaccinations for the child and ask your paediatrician the best ways your child can stay healthy throughout the school year.

 – Getting school supplies together and ready. Shop for school supplies if need be.

– Being more organised to manage your kid’s school-related materials, study time, etc.

– Making after-school plans: Making arrangements for where your children will go like attending after-school programs or ensuring a relative stays with the children at home in the afternoon once school is out if you will at the workplace at that time.

– Prepare for the unexpected and have emergency back up or emergency plan like making arrangement for a sitter in case the school nurse calls in for medical attention when you are at work.

Through good plan, preparation and organization, you can ensure that your child will have a smooth back-to-school transition to the start of school activities.

4. Calm any fears in your kids

Occasionally, back-to-school transition, transferring to a new school, or entering a new grade can be nail-biting for children. Calm any fears your kids may have by accentuating positive experiences he would likely encounter like hanging out with friends, meeting new classmates, and getting involved in their favourite sports and activities.

5. Get involved in the school’s activities

Parents are expected to get involved with their children’s school’s activities by attending the scheduled school’s orientation with your children and meet their teachers and the staff if is a new school year.

At the start of a new school’s year, many schools usually have orientation day for students and parents to meet the key players in the school or be introduced to new school staff – the teachers, principal, counsellors, and front desk staff – and to become familiar with their children’s classrooms.

Your child will feel more comfortable to interact with the school personnel at will in such case.

For most parents, schools send home a packet with a load of information especially in first week of resumption. Another way of getting involved is by noting the school’s important information regarding their child’s new teacher, activity dates, transportation routines, completing emergency forms.

Make sure you and your child know the routine for before- and after –school ahead of the start date.

6. Arrange for a Regular Homework Station

Make homework part of your children’s daily routine by establishing a regular homework station for studying when they come home.

Sit down together with your child in the designated place and scheduled time where he can do his homework each day, providing him or her with proper guidance. Even if you’re preparing dinner or doing laundry, you should be around to check in on his progress each time since he would have need of your presence in the course of doing the homework, otherwise he will not do the work as required.

7. Train your kids to be independent

 As your children grow and enter new grades, they will need to learn from you how to be independent. Encourage your young children by having them practice doing some things by themselves without anyone assisting them like dressing up and lacing up their shoes and writing their name, doing minor house chores, figuring out quantitative aptitude problems, among others. This is a great way to give them a little bit of responsibility too!