Getting Kids Ready for Back to School

Depending on whom you ask, the worst part of summer vacation is the end. School supply shopping, last-minute family getaways and kids’ impending loss of freedom all come as September looms large. No matter what grade your children enter this fall, there are ways to prep them for the school year ahead.

If your kids are prepared for school over the summer in any way resembling the way I was, they already have a bunch of the summer workbooks designed to keep kids from losing academic progress over the long summer break. These are a good way to keep kids’ minds engaged and learning over the break, but if they haven’t been working all along, it might be a bit too late to start now.

The first thing to make sure kids are prepped for this school year is to acquire a copy of the kids’ supplies list. Everything on this list is mandatory, but it isn’t a bad idea to go above and beyond on certain things. Extra pencils and erasers are a must, as kids will definitely lose these and inevitably need more.

School supplies shopping is a good time to give kids some creative control over their lives. Even young kids going into first and second grades will always tell you why a certain folder or book cover is superior to the others. Letting them pick out their school supplies may make the pill a bit easier to swallow.

Young kids going to school for the first time won’t know what to expect. Kids entering kindergarten are often scared and reluctant. Use the weeks leading up to the start of school to talk to your kids about what will happen. Being away from parents all day can be hard for children so young, especially if they didn’t attend pre-school.

Older kids might have a different struggle when it comes to returning to school. Throughout the summer, sleep schedules go haywire. Kids might stay up late watching movies and playing videogames unless they have something to do the next day.

A week or two before the new school year is slated to begin, suggest to your kids they work on shifting their sleep schedule back to an early morning wake-up. That first day of school will be much easier if they have been waking up early in preparation, especially if their new grade has a new and earlier start time.