Going Back to School with a Smile
One way to approach the task of helping your child face going back to school with a smile is to learn all you can about your child’s attitude toward going back to school. You can find a window into his or her feelings through simple, informal, casual conversations with him or her and by paying attention to conversations your child may have with friends about going back to school. You can group much of this information together into a list of topics that are key factors that keep a smile from your child’s face when he or she starts thinking about going back to school. Then for each of the factors on this list, work to create strategies that can erase the negative feeling and replace it with a positive feeling about going back to school .
Dealing with the Unknown Children of all ages prefer the known to the unknown. While there may be some exhilaration to be gained from new experiences , for many children there is a natural defensive reaction that suggests that safety and happiness are found in the realm of the known. In every day living many children don’t want to try new foods, wear new clothes or play new games They have found their own comfort zone and there is a built in reluctance to leave the world of the known and the comfortable.
This same kind of defensive feeling kicks in for children as the time for going back to school approaches. Many children have spent the weeks of summer in the comfortable routine established at home or in the neighborhood. With friends and family, many maintain unwritten schedules of playing, eating, watching television, playing games on the computer and sleeping. . These schedules are not threatening and not taxing. Going back to school looms ahead as an event that for your child will destroy his or her happy and rather carefree lifestyle. Going back to school introduces a world full of the unknown – unknown teachers , classmates, classrooms, principals, subjects, lunches, playgrounds, bathrooms. The child’s immediate future may seem to your child to be filled with land mines, with one explosive unknown ready to go off after another. In many cases the frowns that accompany discussions about going back to school are connected directly to a reluctance to deal with the unknown.
Parents who recognize that their children are made uncomfortable by the thought of going back to school and its many unknowns can help them to go back to school with a smile by turning the unknown into the known. You can take many of the question marks out of going back to school by taking your child on a tour of the school and its immediate environs. As the time approaches for going back to school work in opportunities to meet the teacher if possible, meet the principal and secure the chance to walk around the school building inside and out so that your child gets to see potential trouble spots like the bathroom, gym, cafeteria and playground. Just seeing these areas allows children a chance to ask questions that may take the worry out of the days of anticipating going back to school .
For first time students, tours are often provided, but often a repeat visit on your own gives the parent and child an opportunity to relax a little more and share a stress reducing conversation. It is important to make your visit to your child’s classroom and school appear to be routine or perhaps seem like a trip more for you than for your child. Telling your child that you are going to visit the school so that he or she won’t be afraid can give your child the wrong signal and can make them feel like failures before the first day of school ever arrives. So try to just let the visit happen.
Being Alone Some children don’t like going back to school because they fear that they will be alone or left out. Perhaps the friends they have spent the summer with are going to different schools , are in different grades or have been assigned to different class rooms. To relieve this kind of stress and get a smile when you talk about going back to school, you may want to arrange some end of summer get together for your child with kids who ARE likely to be at his school or in his class. Try lunch out, a movie, even a sleepover, whatever helps your child remember old school relationships and help him or her to transition back to school year friends.
This may also be an instance for you as the parent to play a little bit of detective. Do your best to find out who will be waiting out at the same bus stop with your child. A short conversation with the school office may help to reveal what other children have been assigned to your child’s classroom and who might appear in the same lunch hour. If you child’s school is reluctant to share that kind of information then look to conversations in your own neighborhood, at the supermarket or after church to provide information that you can use to defuse your child’s concerns about being alone at school. Again its important to share whatever you do discover in a low key, casual way.
Finding the Work Too Difficult Your child may be less than pleased with the prospects of going back to school because last year school work was too challenging. During the summer, children relax, they don’t feel constantly under duress to perform. Parents and teachers are not making constant demands nor do they find themselves being graded or having their efforts being constantly scrutinized or compared to the accomplishments of others. It’s hard to be pleased about re-entering a situation in which they feel incompetent and intellectually inept most of the day.
One way to reduce this particular anxiety is to look back at your child’s report cards from the second half of last year. Determine what kinds of learning were of special concern for your child. Then plan ways to informally review some related material as a bridge to a more comfortable connection with the material this year. This can be accomplished by creating or purchasing inexpensive review aids or games. Try to work with materials that make the point and help give your child some new found confidence but that don’t really look like school. In general the less academic and the more experiential your activities are, the better and of course your enthusiasm and praise for all accomplishments are very important.
Ending a Great Summer When summer has gradually become sort of boring, even children who aren’t super students will be looking forward to going back to school just for a change. But the reverse is also true. If kids are experiencing their best summer ever by their standards , not yours, bringing it all to an end just isn’t easy. That’s when it becomes very important for parents to understand how their child has passed the summer and to know who or what they will really miss.
This may be one of the easiest difficulties to deal with as you try to prepare your child for going back to school with a smile. Certainly your child will love to talk about the good things that have gone on during the summer. Together you can make a scrapbook or a photo album of the great times and good friends that made this summer so special. You can put together a list of the top ten things that your child did. There are lots of ways to summon up positive memories. As the parent you can pick up the ball and talk with your child about ways to keep those happy times alive: continuing to develop a sport during the off season, making plans for keeping in touch with summer friends that go to different schools, putting a date on the family calendar for revisiting a special summer vacation spot together or with friends. The point to make is that the good times can continue they just need to make room for awhile for school.
Recalling Bad Memories For some children the closer it gets to going back to school the easier it is for them to recall the worst days or events of the last school year. Of the one hundred and fifty plus days they may have spent at school all that will come to mind is the day they dropped their tray in the cafeteria and everyone laughed, or the day they were the first one out of the class spelling bee or the day the teacher made them stay after school because they were day dreaming. For some children these bad memories can produce a very negative attitude about school in general. When fall rolls around the old demons rise to the surface and the child desperately wants to avoid talking about and actually going back to school.
Parents can work to reverse that feeling in two ways. First you can spend some time over the course of a few weeks subtly reminding your child of various fun things that happened last year at school: the time they finished first in the field day race, the time they met a great new friend, the time they happened to offer some information in class that surprised even the teacher. If you can get your children to recall a few of the good, funny or meaningful things that came along you can help them to keep from being overwhelmed by the not so great things that happened too.
But don’t take the positive too far either. Kids are smart and they remember, some days last year at school might have really been tough. As a reasonable parent you can agree to that but then you can help your child remember some of the not so great things that happened during the summer. The point of this isn’t to make the child feel bad but more to help him or her to see that the good and bad things that happen in our lives often don’t depend on where we are or what we are doing. Going back to school will have some bumps in the road but so did summer vacation, so you can look forward to school as you look forward to any other phase in your life, with common sense. You know there will be some days that will test you but also some days that will leave you content, happy ,even excited, about going back to school, this year with a smile.
