Any tranisition for any adult or child can be hard. When this tranistion occurs after a fun filled summer it can make this transition even harder. With school just around the corner, Jen and Hilary are here to talk to some of the stress that comes with this time of years as well as some tips to help.
Listen Here:
Can't Listen? Read the Transcription Here:
Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hilary and Jen.
Hilary: Welcome to the Parents Place Podcast! We have a shall I say fun? It may not be fun for some, depending on the person, but depending on the child, we've got a great topic to discuss with you today, so. As summer is coming to a close, and we're all starting to think of like kind of the winding up of all the activities and everyone has back to school on their mind, which I know for some brings a lot of excitement for some it brings a lot of stress and anxiety and fear. And for some of us, we're just like, no, I'm not ready for this, like, not ready for all the things associated with back to school so.
Jen: I think that's you.
Hilary: You know how I feel about my summers.
Jen: You go all summer, so you I'm sure you're really upset when it does start to come to school time.
Hilary: At our house, it's a mixed bag of emotions because I love, I love my summers. We have like my routine and my schedule tends to be really flexible during the summer. But by the time summer comes to an end, usually that is the thing that I feel like I'm missing, and I'm excited to get back to is like a more regular routine. Kids going to bed at a like a semi normal time, us not picking up Little Caesars or McDonald's every night. Like usually it's not. No, I mean, I'm going to be honest it's not necessarily the school I'm excited to go back to. But it's the let's make my life look a little bit more semi normal than what it has been.
Jen: Gotcha.
Hilary: That's usually what I'm most ready for is like we as much as we love our freedom, we need to, yeah, have a consistent routine. And so that's usually where I'm at. And how were you as a kid, went back to school time came, were you like the excited one? Were you the scared one?
Jen: I think I was the excited one. I think we were like back in the day we would find out who our teacher was. They would post papers up on the cafeteria window because I grew up in Arizona, so we don't have inside school. All of our doors open to outside. So yeah, I think that was the most exciting time was to find out who our teacher was.
Hilary: Yeah. And then it feels real, right? Like once you get that figured out, then it's like it's go time.
Jen: Yeah. And the back to school clothing. We always went to, I don't even know if they're around anymore, but Mervyns. Mervyns was the place for the Bair family to go and get their back-to-school clothes.
Hilary: I don't know if Mervyn's is around. I would assume not in Utah cause I don't think I've seen a Mervyns for a hot minute, but maybe. I'm still around in other places. It's true that back to school shopping always does help soften the blow. Knowing that you get to at least come to school with a few new things, so that's true. Well, I feel like nowadays it's I mean, you know, before I feel like they would start to pull out the back to school stuff maybe at. The beginning of August. But now I swear the second the end of, I mean, like you start seeing stuff at like mid-June? And it causes me a great deal of grief when I start to see those back to school supplies way too early, cause I'm like, no, we got another solid month. You let me enjoy this one.
Jen: It's kind of like Christmas coming in October.
Hilary: Yes, yeah, yeah. I'm used to like to me, I'm like, June and July are my solid core summer months and August you still got a little bit of time. But at least where we are up in Utah, we usually start mid-August or towards the end of August, but to me August is like, OK, like let's yeah, now we're getting in the mode. But when I start to see those supplies come around the 4th of July, I'm like you do not have your moment to shine yet your time will come, but not yet.
Jen: Not yet.
Hilary: Always makes me a little mad. And I have a big transition here this year as you know so my baby, my baby's going to school and he's going to all day school where we're at. They have they
Jen: No, no, no, no, no, wait, your youngest?
Hilary: My youngest is going to all day kindergarten. Isn’t that not wild?
Jen: Yeah. Is it your oldest going into middle school then?
Hilary: He's in middle school right now, so everyone else is, I was going to say everyone else doesn't have, like, the major leap from a new school, but my littlest is going to be in school.
Jen: OK. When did he turn 5?
Hilary: He at the end, of well, mid-May. So, he's a little guy. He's like the tiniest, skinniest little petite creature on the planet. And so, he's going to be in kindergarten. But he looks like he's a solid 3-year-old.
Jen: You're really into midlife now, aren't you?
Hilary: It makes me, I know! For many parents out there, this is an exciting time, right? Like the last one to leave. Now, you get all this freedom as a parent, and I get it. I get the there's the happiness component. But there's a little heartache in there too. So, I got embraced. I got embraced both of it will be OK.
Jen: How does he feel about going into kindergarten?
Hilary: You know what? Out of all of my kids, I would say he's probably the most excited. I don't know if I would necessarily say that he's the most ready, academically speaking, just because he is on the younger scale for like for his year.
Jen: Oh cool.
Hilary: But he's probably the happiest child that I have had ready to make that transition. So, and you know my kids, they tend to be like my constant shadow. And I basically have to shove them into the school and say I'll see you later.
Jen: That's because you're such a great mom and you love them so much, they want to be around you.
Hilary: I don't know if that it. I've said that to my husband before. I'm like, I'm not that cool. Why do they like me so much? I swear I'm not that much fun. I maybe need to give them more chores and they'll realize that school is a more enticing place than being with me.
Jen: But to your credit, your children will never, and I've told you this before, wonder if you love them. And I bet you that is part of the reason why they are your little shadows because they know you love them.
Hilary: Yeah, well, I'll accept the compliment. Thank you. Well, so speaking of that topic, we know a lot of parents are out there and they are preparing both themselves and their children for this back to school transition. Like we mentioned, this comes with a bucket of emotions, so we know that there are those kids out there that are so excited for that first day, they've just been counting down the minutes. We have those kids that maybe have a combination of excitement and nerves, and then we have some kids that potentially have some full blown anxiety and stress. And I think each of those scenarios, I mean, it's normal to a degree, right? I think I remember as a kid thinking, you know, like I'm, I'm excited, but I'm nervous. But it's going to be fun. But it's also going to be done. I mean, I mean, I think it's natural to feel the combination of everything but yeah. And for parents too, right? I mean it's we feel a little bit of that as well too. And I think depending on how our kids are feeling, they that those same emotions might trickle down to us to an extent. But I think that there's definitely some things that we can do as parents, caregivers to hopefully ease some of that stress and that anxiety and maybe even help to increase a little bit of that excitement. That that these little ones can potentially have on that day. So, we've got a few different articles for you guys that we're taking our information from and as usual, we'll put both of these articles on the show notes, but there's a lot of content in here, so I mean we won't go over all of it, but Jen for you is there anything that stood out to you that that you liked that it shared in these articles.
Jen: Well, I think the where is the one that I liked the most. It was for little ones going into the kindergarten and since you said your son was going into kindergarten, I think these are pretty good tips of, you know, take them to the school, take them inside the office, you know, take them around the school and walk inside of the school. So that they kind of know how to get from their classroom to the cafeteria and things like that. And schools are, at least here in Utah, I'm pretty sure they're open and so. Just taking them in those times where there's no other kids, it doesn't cause anymore stress, but they can just kind of walk around and see what everything's all about so I like that.
Hilary: And I yeah, I mean, like you said, I think that schools welcome that. I mean, if they know that there is a child, then they can potentially alleviate some of that stress by having their doors open so kids can roam to a degree. Like, that's great. I remember with my oldest when he went to middle school this year. So this past fall. And he's a little bit meticulous. And so, he did he once he got his schedule, he wandered the hallways and he even timed himself. He's like OK, I'm gonna get this, you know, imagining that that this was a real school day with a bell schedule. So, he's, like, started at his locker and then he timed how long it would take to open up his locker and walk to the next class. And then he timed himself and made sure he could get from his class to this. Just to help ease some of that fear, and I think it was good, because then he walked in on that first day of school knowing exactly where to go, feeling competent, that he had the time that he needed it was really, really nice for him. So yes, I think if you don't know whether your school has accessibility where you can get in early, give them a call and explain your concerns because I think most of your school stuff is already there. Your building may or may not be open, but I think if you called and explain they would be more than.
Jen: Welcome to open those doors and they'll let you wander. And if no one answers, just go to the store. More than likely, there's a custodian that's finishing up cleaning.
Hilary: Exactly. They're in school mode preparation, so I'm sure that somebody will be there and I'm sure that they would be more than willing to help you with whatever you need to do. That was a super good suggestion. I talked a lot one of the things that I really liked in here is it talked a lot about having these conversations with our kids about how they're feeling and one of the things that it discussed in here is that. You know, I think sometimes. When we say certain things to our kids and we do so clearly we don't mean to cause stress, but sometimes depending on what we say to our kids. It might actually feed into that anxiousness and it gave the example of, you know, a child taking a new math class and us saying, hey, you know are you stressed out about having Mr. so and so for math? You know, and your child may not have been stressed out before. But after you say that they might be thinking themselves, I don't know should I be? Is everybody else stressed out about this class? Because maybe I need to be a little bit stressed out too. So rather than putting that emotion on them. Just saying to them, hey, you know, talk to me about how you're feeling about these classes or leaving it more open-ended. I gave the example of say. Thing you know, do you know what you're going to be learning in math this year? And so, you have this very open conversation, and your child might say I have no idea and that's kind of scary. And if that's the case, then you can explore that and say, yeah, that might be a little bit scary to not know. But I liked that suggestion of not necessarily saying. Are you stressed about this? Are you worried? Are you scared because some kids may have not even thought about that? As being a potential option, but nobody is.
Jen: And now we may have just created a whole bag of beans we didn't want.
Hilary: Exactly. But if they do express those emotions completely, be open and willing to validate those, you know, I can see that you might be anxious about that. I bet that there's a lot of other kids that are feeling that same way, and I think that's really normal going back to school and then talking to those kids about. What can we? Do when we do start to feel those anxious feelings. Here's what I've heard other kids do to maybe help alleviate some of that stress. So just being open to having that talk.
Jen: Yeah, I think along that well, you said you brought up math. My big downfall is when people say, ohh math, I automatically go into, Oh my gosh, I hate that class. That was the worst thing I ever had to learn in life. And then it said again, it's setting them up for ohh, maybe I'm not supposed to like math. Maybe math is really hard and I won't want to try and so I've tried super hard with kids when they're like because I used I when I see them most of the time in classes that I teach or whatnot, I'll say so. What's your favorite school or what's your favorite topic? Things like that. And some of them will say math. And I try so hard and I'm doing OK about saying that is awesome that you love math.
Hilary: Yeah, I've had a few older cousins and family members. But I mean, I think I think teens and young adults do this. You know, we vent our frustrations, we lament with one another and so we've been in different social situations where I've had nieces and nephews that have been like. Middle school sucks. You know this. You don't want that teacher, they're awful. And here's my new middle schooler. Just kind of like taking it all in as a sponge. And I want to be like, no, we are not going to, you know, let's let these kids develop their own opinions and feelings about these situations in their life. And who knows, they may decide that they as well don't necessarily like that teacher. But I think it's important that, yes, if we do have some very strong opinions about certain teachers about certain schools about certain subjects that we leave those very strong opinions to ourselves so that we can let our kids decide on that on their own. I was just talking to a group of friends and we were discussing how important to us as parents too, hold our opinions back when it came to their teachers. Because we know that sometimes teachers do them. Teachers are not perfect. They're pretty close to being perfect, in my opinion, because they're amazing, but they're not perfect. And so sometimes their child may have a teacher that we don't necessarily agree with or appreciate, or maybe we just have different personalities. On how things should be running. But it's not helpful to sit and complain, in my opinion, to our child about that teacher, because what you know what good does that do in that particular scenario? So, I think that there's definitely a difference in validating like, yeah, that's frustrating to be in that teachers classroom when you don't feel like they're explaining the content very well. I can see how that would be really hard versus all that teachers awful. Yeah, they definitely don't know what they're doing, I mean. You got to find that balance of this would help you, yeah.
Jen: That was Mrs. Mitchell. That was Mrs. Mitchell in our class. In our family. No one wanted Mrs. Mitchell. I was terrified. I'm so grateful I got Mrs. Burton instead.
Hilary: You know, one of my kids and I'll be vague with this, but one of my kids had a teacher and I, I'll be honest, I wasn't an incredibly large fan of this person. And I didn't say anything all year to my child, and it was when he was a little bit older, we were having a conversation about his past teachers and I happened to mention this teacher and how she terrified me and my son said are you serious? I loved her. And you know it was, it was really affirming to me that although I had a very strong opinion about her, he had such a great experience in that classroom with that particular teacher. And I don't think he would have. If he would have known how I had felt about it.
Jen: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Hilary: Yeah, it's kind. He just laughed. He's like, that's funny Mom, she was amazing. And I'm like, well, I'm glad you thought. I'm not going to say anymore about it, but I'm glad thought that. So, I noticed in here you know one of the things that talked about which obviously is we all think about when we think about this back to school mode, it just kind of like you said, reintroducing these routines and starting to create some more consistency in what our lives are going to look like. But I liked the advice that it gave on one of the articles where it talked about and I've we've just started doing this with my kids, but they love. I'm sitting down with them on the weekend, so whether that be Saturday or Sunday for us, we do it on Sunday during the day and we sit them down and we just kind of go through here's what the week is going to look like for you. And just so that they're aware it helps to maybe alleviate some of that stress. And so, we'll go over, you know, you have dance class on this day. You have piano on this day. And then we open it up to them because there may be things that we may not know. So, do you guys have any tests or big projects that are coming up that maybe you might need some help with things we can do to support you? But just kind of letting them understand, here's what you can anticipate for these next few days coming up for my kids. They love that they love what they love, knowing what is ahead and yeah, I think.
Jen: It's good. Yeah, predictability is essential with kids. Because they know what what's coming. So that's awesome.
Hilary: Yeah, and it helps too, because when we sit down and go over the schedule, we can also go over. Oh well, like we have a free weekend coming up. What's something fun that we can do to celebrate the first week of school officially being over? You know so, then you can always insert. Well, let's schedule a play date on this day. Let's schedule a family activity. Or you know what birthday is coming up. So that might mean we need to start talking about a party and what we wanna plan. And so, it always makes for like a fun opportunity to look ahead and to make plans that are kids coming forward too. So that's good. Another thing going along with that though, I loved when it talked about. Because part of this process making sure that you've got some unscheduled time too. And we've discussed this about, you know, having kids that are overbooked and over scheduled and because of that, they're starting to develop some stress and some anxiety. But I love the fact that like it strategically says you're gonna have to schedule unscheduled time because it may not come up on its own.
Jen: Right.
Hilary: But I think that's a good thing.
Jen: But I like that. I like that as well just unscheduled time. And maybe using that unscheduled time together as a family. So that they know that this is a safe place, we can have fun here. We can talk about what's going on, things like that. But yeah, putting everything down and just having something scheduled time.
Hilary: Well, and it's funny because in the article. It talks about like not only for your kids, but for yourself, so developing, you know, taking time to practice self-care, which clearly we've talked about in this podcast, but, you know, exercising, reading, taking a walk and then for kids just letting them play. And I think about my own kids. My girls love kind of those unstructured play with their friends. And so, you know, they've got to they have pretty, pretty busy schedule during the week with their extracurricular activities, but on the days where they know they have nothing, they're so excited to go, I can finally go across the street to so and so's house and get to play together and they love that. But I know for my oldest his unstructured time looks like. I want to be alone. I don't necessarily want to hang out with my friends at that time, because for him, I like for him to receive that self-care and to debrief that looks like, let me sit in my room and do a puzzle or a Lego, or even just kind of veg out in front of the couch. I think that that's important too when we think about unscheduled time with our kids for each of our kids. That's going to look different on how they want to spend that time. And so, knowing them well enough to know, here's what this is gonna look like for you.
Jen: Yeah. Lizzie, 16, she'll be 17 soon. And she'll just say I'm peopled out. I need to be away from people. So, it is sometimes I just need nothing.
Hilary: Love that. It's true. But it's true though, because I think there are some of us that being in a social environment, it energizes us and for other people being in a constant social environment, it completely drains us. And so there may be those people that are like, that's what I need is I need people and I need talking and I need socialization, socialization. For others, they're like, no, no. That causes me more grief than anything else. And so yeah. I think there's a lot of us that fill people down. At times. I like that phrase. I think we should initiate that phrase. That's awesome.
Jen: All right. Is there anything else that you want to talk about Hil?.
Hilary: You know I. It talked a little bit in this article about. When these problems continue to persist, and that's tricky because I think you know we can do everything we can to excite and encourage. We can create the routines. We can set up proper bedtimes and let our kids, you know, meet teachers and develop friendships. But we know that there are some parents that are in that boat where the anxiety doesn't seem to be decreasing. And that's really hard. I mean, I look at my own kids and usually that that anxious feeling lasts for the first few days and then they're great. And just those first few days are exhausting. So, you know, to put myself in the shoes of these parents that are dealing with this for weeks and weeks and maybe even months on end. That's really hard. And so, you know, it suggested in here just to be aware. First of all, be aware. And maybe watch for signs and whether that be stomach aches or headaches, ongoing patterns so that you do know that it's a reoccurring problem and then maybe trying to evaluate why that might why that problem might be happening, whether there's a bully, whether it's a separation anxiety, maybe a potential learning disorder in the classroom that we don't know about. But really what they suggested is that if it does become a persistent problem, that really we probably should get some help from a mental health professional.
Jen: Yeah. The one that just popped into my mind is if they can't see the board. I don't know why that popped in my mind, but you know, if they don't have glasses and are needing glasses and they're in the back of the room. That can be a really stressful time for them that they don't want to be there because they can't see what's going on. Umm yeah, I just lots of things.
Hilary: Yeah, just that I think that's probably the first like that vital step. That first step is just having those conversations of saying talk to me about how school's going, because our child may not come home and say, mom. I can't see the board and it's giving me a headache and it's making my stomach hurt and that's why I don't like going to school every day. Most kids probably don't have that vocabulary, aren't necessarily eloquent enough to explain that, so it might require that we do a little bit of priming to an extent and so and you know anytime that I have worked with kids who have had some nerves or anxiety. I think teachers are will jump over hurdles to help if needs be, and sometimes it's as simple as sending a text at the end of the day and saying, hey, you know, Cora came to school a little bit nervous today. How did she do today and having those teachers respond and say, you know, I notice the nervousness at the beginning, but honestly. Once we got to work, she did great and so don't be afraid to have that open and honest conversation with those teachers too, because you guys are on the same team. You both want this child to be happy in that classroom. And I think teachers will do everything they possibly can to help too.
Jen: Hey, it reminds me of like if there's hard things going on at home. If there was a divorce that recently happened or a death or major medical, whatever the case may be, letting your teachers know that so that they can be there and be empathetic with them and kind of. Know where they're at. Because they do want to know. I mean, they don't want to have to get frustrated with kids either. And so the more we can share, the better off it's going to be.
Hilary: Yeah, there's some great advice in these two articles, so I would just encourage you listeners out there to sit down and read through these and discuss some of them with your kids as they prepare for this new transition and. As it mentioned, if you do have some ongoing problems, know that there are people in that school system as well as outside of that school system that are. There that can help if that is a situation that you're dealing with.
Jen: Yeah. Well, I want to thank everybody for listening today. I hope that this is a little bit helpful as school starts to creep up and wants to open the doors and take the children in and hopefully this can decrease some of your stress and some of their stress. We hope that you have a good week, and we want to remind you to be kind and patient with yourself and we will see you next week.
Thank you for listening to the Parents Place podcast. If you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly - The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org if you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes, we'd love to see you there.
Articles:
Contact us:
-Email us questions or topic ideas: parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org
-Record questions here: https://anchor.fm/theparentsplace
-Parent's Place FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/196037267839869/
Comments