Making the Back-to-School Transition Easier

Every mom I have spoken with in the last week or two has expressed that they are "not ready" for summer to end. Neither am I!

Gone will be the "lazy" days of summer -- staying up late, sleeping in, easier schedules, warm weather and pool time with friends.

When school starts, it feels like the crazy starts. Driving kids to school, driving to activities, helping in the classroom, helping with homework, and just entirely too much to do. 

Since we all seem to be having trouble accepting reality, I thought I'd share a few tips for how to ease the back-to-school transition. 

1. Always. Be. Positive. If your children complain about going back to school, try to express understanding, but then point out something positive about being back at school, like seeing their friends again.

2. Try to get the bed time routine moving closer to a school bed time about one or two weeks before school starts to ease the adjustment.

3. Find some way to make early mornings more enjoyable for your family. For example, I like to put on some jazz music in the kitchen during breakfast to help keep the energy calm and soothing. Maybe your family needs some dance music or reggae music? Music is a natural anti-depressant.

4. Try to get outside and enjoy the weather after school each day. Simply being outside for a while will elevate everyone's endorphins and make them feel happier.

5. Try to spend some time snuggling with each child as you put them to bed -- some experts say this is the most valuable time of the day to spend with your kids. They tend to open up more and share about their day when things are calm at night.

Most importantly, keep in mind everyone in the family is going through this transition -- so allow for some extra grace when someone is crabby or out of sorts.

Making Homework Time More Peaceful

This year the kids both have a sizable amount of homework -- Tyler's takes about an hour, and Alyssa's takes about half an hour.

For these first few weeks of school, we've been doing homework together -- both kids at the same time, but I was starting to notice that they each needed enough of me that there was not enough of me to go around.

It was starting to cause frustration for all of us, because we all just wanted this homework thing to be done so we could get to playing!

I came to my senses yesterday and presented this challenge and my feelings about it to the kids for their help in solving it.

We threw out some solutions, including 1) them being more patient with me and each other and we still do it together or 2) we have one child do their homework at a time.

They decided they would like to split it up so each child gets their own time with mom on homework.

For any of you who have read The 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman, both of my kids speak the love language of quality time, so, this choice was not a surprise.

Tyler piped up and said he would prefer to go first since it stresses him out to let his homework linger. Alyssa said it didn't matter if she went first or second. Wow! That was easy! Yippee!

So, today was our first day of splitting it up, and it went much better than previous days! So much more peaceful. Whew. I am not sure if this is exactly how we will continue, but at least for now while we are still adjusting to the new school year, this may help alleviate some after school stress for all of us.

So, here it is ... about 4:00, both kids are done with homework and playing independently and I have time to write this blog! Feels good!

I'm not sure how other moms handle this situation, but hopefully our solution is helpful information for some of you. Happy Thursday!