With the school year coming back into full swing, families everywhere have been diving into the back-to-school rush. It’s an exciting but chaotic time that many kids - and caregivers - can feel anxious about.

We know how important it is to start off on the right foot, which is why Manatee hosted two back-to-school webinars called “Strategies for Back-to-School Success,” all about navigating this busy season and setting kids up for success and hosted by our very own Tara Krieger (Parent Coach Manager) and Baaba Onyejiji, LMFT (Sr. Manager of Clinical Care).

Tara and Baaba discussed three key areas to address when preparing families for the upcoming school year: family values, routines, and parent-child connection, answering questions from our attendees along the way about back-to-school anxiety, struggling with routines, and more. They provided strategies and insights on how tackling and prioritizing these key areas can ease the back-to-school transition.

Whether you're a back-to-school pro or you’re sending a kid to school for the first time, and even if you’re in week 2 or 5 of the school year, these takeaways will help make this school year smooth and stress-free.

Watch the recording here.

Take a moment of mindfulness

We began our webinar with a few minutes of a grounding exercise led by Baaba, which highlights the importance of taking care of yourself with a moment of mindfulness.

Follow along with the exercise here at the 2:44 mark.

During the webinar, we also asked attendees about what challenges they face when enacting learnings from therapy or coaching - and something that caregivers often express is the difficulty in remembering those learnings in the moment, especially when you’re in a rush and your kid refuses to get dressed or cooperate. Baaba answered:

“Just [taking] 30 seconds to yourself to ground your body before it gets into fight or flight can help you learn how to navigate some of these challenges, but also remember how to use some of the skills that you have learned. In my experience, a lot of clients say that they can remember, but the implementation is what's difficult. And sometimes your brain can't access that information if you're flooded with anxiety or anger or fear or any sort of emotion that's coming up. So it's really, really important just to take some time for yourself.”

Key Area #1: Family Values

Family values are the principles and beliefs that guide your family. Aligning on your values as a family creates a shared sense of purpose that helps guide family decisions, rules, boundaries, and conflict resolution.

For kids, knowing and understanding these family values helps them develop patience, problem-solving skills, and allows them to understand rules, boundaries, and acceptable behaviors. During the webinar, we provide examples on how to take those family values and use them in real situations, like when rules and consequences need to be communicated.

“Family values provide a clear framework for what is acceptable behavior. And so then the children can understand what is expected of them and what they can expect out of the situation… So when faced with choices, like at school, children can refer back to the family values to help them make those decisions.”

We also provide a handout that can help families discuss and decide on their family values.

Key Area #2: Routines

Routines provide consistency and predictability in a child’s world, which are the foundations of trust in a family. Having a well-structured routine alleviates stress, teaches responsibilities, and builds self-efficacy skills.

Tara goes into detail about structuring routines for important times in a kid’s daily life during the school year: bedtime, the morning, and homework time, but also reminds caregivers that establishing routines is going to be an ongoing and gradual process:

“Establishing that consistent routine is a gradual process… There will be an adjustment period, and it might not look pleasant. The children might have more tantrums or more outbursts because they're trying to figure out how you're now communicating with them differently. So I start gradually adjusting the routine, whether it's sleep or wake up time to align to that school routine… Again, it's the beginning of the school year, so they're still getting used to whatever routine you're going to set with them.”

When building a routine, Tara suggested following these steps:

Building routines is going to look different for different aged kids, so we have handouts for younger children and older children both available here.

Many caregivers struggle especially with following through on routines, especially in the mornings if their child isn’t a morning person. In addressing these uncertainties, Tara brought up again the importance of tying these situations back to family values and the established routine. Baaba also emphasized the importance of the emotional safety doing so creates:

“Routines and consistency equals safety within the relationship and within the family… being mindful of what routine you're setting and making sure that that's something that you can consistently be a part of and enforce and it really ties in beautifully to emotional safety. That's something that is really really important and will continue to grow… Also just acknowledge that sometimes there are ruptures, and that's okay. That you are able to move forward, move past those ruptures and recreate that safety that is necessary to implement those routines and also tap into those family values. ”

Key Area #3: Parent-Child Connection

Keeping a healthy connection between parent and child is challenging, especially when parents often feel that there simply isn’t enough time in the day. To this, Tara emphasized that how you spend time with your child can be more important than the amount. Focused, uninterrupted quality time (3-5 minutes) helps build connection, especially during moments of transitions during the day, like when getting ready in the morning, after getting out of school, and when they’re going to bed.

And, again, the consistency and predictability of these intentional moments will help cultivate that connection more than multitasking while completing other tasks.

At these times, using open-ended but engaging questions also helps deepen the connection, rather than a vague “How was school?” Try asking something like “What was your favorite part of music class today?” This also supports open communication and builds that emotional safety children need to express themselves.

Key Takeaways

Values are a foundation for setting rules, boundaries, and behaviors within the family unit.
Routines alleviate stress and anxiety by providing consistency and predictability.
Consistent daily connection supports open communication and helps children feel they have a place to express themselves.

When do you need more support?

Tara and Baaba also noted that there may be times when the strategies discussed may fall through, and discussed how to recognize when additional support is needed: