5 Tips for Preparing for the New School Year

Hi Diane, 

I have a preschooler headed to a full-day preschool for the first time this fall and a kindergartener who is returning to school. While the full-day preschool is fantastic, and my kindergarten student eventually loved it, the transition was hard last fall. What can I start doing now to help make my children’s transition from summer to school easier?

Gratefully, "Planning ahead in Pittsburgh"

What a great question, Planning Ahead!

Children,  much like adults,  perform better when they have clear expectations of what is going to happen at school. 

This could be as simple as having a pre-first day visit and meeting the teacher. Many schools offer this for their preschoolers. But beyond that, children can be unsettled by the change in the flow of the day. Many children still have separation anxiety at this age and are often uncomfortable, even if they’ve been to daycare, leaving their parents to go to a new place. This is completely expected, but you can make it easier by starting some of the schedule changes before the school year begins. 

Here are a few tips that are easy and not likely to awkwardly change your home schedule.

1 )Lunchbox Food: Many preschoolers and kindergartners have very specific opinions about food. Many parents have preschoolers who are picky eaters. Sometimes the foods that they eat at home aren’t the types of foods that work well in a lunchbox or are not available in a meal program. 

You can start the process by setting them up with a lunch box that contains the types of foods that your preschooler is likely to be eating for the rest of the school year. If you’re not sure what kinds of foods are going to be acceptable, make a game out of it: Set up a tasting tray, and have the child pretend to be a diner in a fancy restaurant. Or you can pretend that it is a game where you’re trying to find all the things that taste like strawberry- strawberry yogurt, dried strawberries, fresh strawberries etc. Come up with something that lets the child taste a variety of new foods and decide which ones they think they like, so that you can be sure that they’re eating the lunches that you pack for them. 

2 )New Wake-up Times: Start aligning your child’s wake-up schedule with when you will need to wake them for school, and that means adjusting their bedtime as well. This can be a tricky one, and it can take a while. Some children have a very, very rigid circadian rhythm. Also, many families lapse into a sort of summer schedule, staying up later with the long days. This could make it problematic for children to unwind before school day and get enough sleep, and sleepy children don’t want to get up in the morning. You can explain to the child why this new schedule is happening, and then you can talk about how the day will begin and why they need extra time to get up and do all the things they want to do before they go to school.

3) Tightening up the morning schedule. The next spot that can help make transitions between the home and school a little bit easier is to assist the child with their morning schedule. We would all like children to be wearing matching clothes, have a clean body and a brushed set of teeth, as well as having eaten something before they leave the house, and yet those very things can seem to be an impossible struggle when you have a deadline. Ask the child what things they will need to do before you leave the house. See what they have on their list and write it out for them. See if they are missing something vital, like brushing their teeth, and add it to their list. Some parents like to organize the list by time slots. For example, you can write: 6:30 - 6:45 Brush My Teeth. You can invite your preschooler to decorate their list with stickers or by coloring on it. Put the list somewhere where you two can refer back to it. This changes it from being a series of chores that have to be done to a positive parenting mechanism that will help them develop healthy time management habits.

4) Match schedules: Ask your preschool teacher for an approximate classroom schedule, and if your preschool takes a nap at home regularly, try to sync up the nap times and lunchtime to match the school day as much as possible. This will again help support the child’s circadian rhythm, as this may be awkward initially. This is a great time to do some BrainMoves movements like the Bear Cub to help the child settle down and take a pause, even if it’s not normally when they would rest. 

5) Stay Positive: Lastly, stay positive while you’re setting boundaries. Often, school is a more regimented experience than being at home, and many children are initially stressed by the stimuli of meeting all of the new people and being separated from their parents. Understand that some meltdowns may be unavoidable, but again, you can help your preschooler calm down by doing some BrainMoves movements. This is going to be a new and exciting time for your child. 

You can help your child in those situations by staying calm and positive. This is called co-regulating your emotions,  meaning if you are stressed, they’ll get stressed, but if you are calm, they will get calmer. If they’re stressed, work on remaining calm and explaining things in gentle and neutral tones. This is especially important because small children’s anxieties and meltdowns aren’t always logical. Sometimes that meltdown represents the sum total of all of the things that have been stressing the child, and one last detail, like being told they can’t bring their bike to school is the final straw.  

Without shaming or silencing it, just recognize your child's stress; it validates their emotions. Rather than saying something like,  “Be a big girl, Julie. Don't you want to go to a big girl school?” or ”There is nothing to worry about, stop crying!” say:

“Hey Julie, I understand that you want to bring your bike to school so you can ride at recess. There are going to be other fun things that you can do at school and it will be ok to leave the bike at home. You will still have fun. You can ride when you get home.“

Even though Brain Moves is designed for children, this might be a great time to do the StartUp Six yourself and invite the child to join you. This will help them stay calm, focus, see better, listen better, stay organized internally, and strengthen their fine and gross motor skills.

The first day of school is exciting for both children and parents, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. By preparing ahead of time, creating some boundaries and routines that are supportive of success in the school year, you’re more likely to have a happy, focused, well-rested preschooler or kindergartener.