Blog: Back-To-School 2023 Tips

School will be starting up within the next few weeks for most children and teens. It is hard to believe another summer is almost over. However, before school gets started, now is the perfect time to think about what worked well last year with certain routines (i.e., morning, afterschool, evening), what did not, and have a fresh start to get things set up in a great way for the fall.

Here is a simple list of recommendations that you may want to work collaboratively with your child or teen on to set up for the new school year for them and for you. Each child and teen’s needs are different, so you will need to adjust the list and specific tools accordingly.

1. Basic self-care (i.e., sleep, morning and evening routines).
2. Help yourself and your child or teen to re-establish basic self-care routines (i.e., sleep, morning, evening routines) and get used to getting up at the time that they will need to do so for school. Write out step-by-step plans as needed to help with follow through such as:
   1. 6 AM: First alarm goes off.
   2. 6:05 AM: Second alarm from Alarmy app goes off from phone that is in hallway. After turned off, must stay out of bed.
   3. 6:06 AM: Shower. Set timer for ten minutes.
   4. 6:16 AM: Get dressed. Clothing left out the night before.
   5. 6:25 AM: Cook breakfast and pack lunch.
   6. 6:35 AM: Eat breakfast.
   7. 6:45 AM: Pack Chromebook and water bottle.
   8. 6:50 AM: Morning walk.
   9. 7:10 AM: Leave for school.
3. Decide what things are essential in the morning and must or would be ideal to weave into a morning routine. For example:
   1. Time together as a family.
   2. Morning walk/physical activity.
   3. Screen or screen free time.
   4. Chores.
   5. Homework (for some younger elementary school kids who wake up early and have packed after school schedule)
      1. Get your child/teen’s input on what they want to do, the order of it, and try to finalize a routine that matches their interests as feasible while standing firm on certain expectations/rules you hold.
4. Have your child/teen be responsible for certain tasks that they are capable of doing themselves such as packing or helping pack their lunch, filling and packing their water bottle, and charging their Chromebook.
   1. It is important that they have tools such as a checklist, Amazon echo reminders, or other strategies available as part of a concrete plan so they can be successful. Kids may need extra help at first getting into a routine with doing these things and extra oversight especially initially may be necessary as a backup.
5. Take time to plan meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each week. You could make the menu as a family.
6. Develop or use a good way to track everyone’s schedule. For long-term tracking, an electronic calendar that can be shared as a family might work well such as an Apple or Google calendar. For weekly schedules, in addition to anything digital, using a whiteboard calendar or something similar for each child/teen and the parents kept in a central location could be helpful.
7. Help your child/teen set up or organize a good workspace for completing homework. If they have trouble sitting still while working, they could try:
   1. Desk bike/elliptical to pedal slowly while working.
   2. Yoga ball or wobble chair.
   3. Standing desk topper and balance board to rock on.

This list is not exhaustive, but hopefully will be a good starting point in helping you get your family prepared for the new school year.