Back to School Strategies for Families

It’s hard to believe that school will be starting up soon for most kids and teens. The back-to-school season can be exciting and challenging, but a smooth transition helps families adjust well and thrive with the new school year. Here are some practical back to school strategies to help your kids and teens (as well as you) prepare.

1. Help your child make a plan and get any remaining summer assignments completed. Divide up reading, math worksheets, etc. into parts and collaboratively plan out specific days and times that your child can work on completing designated parts to complete the whole task before school begins.

2. Establish and re-establish routines. Help your child to get back to a school day routine for bedtime and getting up if they have gotten into a different one over the summer. Gradually getting to bed and waking up earlier can ease the trouble with transitioning to a school routine. Make a plan for the morning routine, breakfast time, what roles kids will have in packing themselves up for school and write these out together. Having a written checklist can be useful, especially for the first few days of school. Others may benefit from this long-term.

3. Organize your spaces. Help your child do a good cleaning of their room and organize things that need to be better maintained. Designate or re-establish a place for doing homework and make sure desks and homework areas are free from clutter as much as possible. Help your child learn to plan out longer-term assignments by breaking them down into parts and scheduling times to work on them around any after-school activities.

4. Foster independence. Gradually increase your child and teen’s responsibilities each year in an age-appropriate manner to give them more autonomy. Within reason, don’t do things for them normally that they are fully capable of doing easily themselves (i.e., putting shoes by door, filling water bottle). Help them develop problem-solving and decision-making skills. When issues arise, talk through the problem, and guide them in identifying ways that they can make the situation better. Rather than giving them suggestions from the start, let them share first what they think they can do and think for themselves with it.

5. Stay positive and supportive. Show interest in your child’s schoolwork and activities, but don’t grill them on what assignments they have. Get them talking by asking about specific projects or activities at school. Frequent conversations will give you more information to make following up each day easier by knowing what is going on. Offer praise and encouragement for their efforts, but limit concrete rewards for things that they should be doing anyway (especially when they don’t need external motivation to do it).

Each child and teen are different, and thus the needs for each one will vary to some degree. The back to school strategies presented here can be adjusted based on your own child’s individual needs. Best of luck to your family for a wonderful, enjoyable, and successful academic year!

Allison Green
Boston Tutoring Services