This post references a news article that discusses back to school stress and some tips on how parents can identify what their children are feeling. It also touchs upon the usefulness of social networks for staying in communication with teachers and other parents in the school community.
Does your school age child have the back to school blues? Or maybe they’re excited about new teachers, classmates and activities. Either way, the transition back to school can certainly contribute to stress in a family’s day to day routine.
CBC news recently published an article on back to school stress where they discussed how to identify when your child is feeling overwhelmed, as well as provided several tips on minimizing stress. One of the points mentioned in the article was about how young children will often not express how they are feeling emotionally/mentally but rather will complain of stomach aches, tiredness and other physical symptoms. Children may very well be feeling tired, perhaps due to increased stress or demands in their routine, but it can also just be their way of saying “I’m feeling really stressed from my busy schedule”.
How can we help identify what our children are feeling about school? While some parents can barely get a word in while their child divulges every detail of who said what and who did what at school today, the other side of the spectrum includes parents who struggle with how to get their child to actually talk about their day at school. Whatever the case: it is still helpful to actually know what is going on at school so you can reference specific things in school conversations with your child.
Model the use of expressive language. It is ok to speak in front of your children about your own struggles or stressors from time to time. Use expressive words to describe how you are feeling so that they can acquire these tools for themselves. Help them link the physical symptoms of feeling sick or worn out with words like: sensitive, overwhelmed, irritable or anxious. Explaining scenarios that put these feelings into context is important.
Stay in the loop. Knowing your child’s class schedule and having a basic understanding of the daily routine can provide you with pointers for starting open-ended conversations. I.e. “You had gym class today, tell me about that…” Social networks can be an invaluable tool for ongoing communication and transparency between school and parents. Even when teachers are busy, it can help to have a forum for speaking with other parents in the class. It’s also useful to have an online version of class/school schedules to refer to at your leisure. It’s always easy to use social networks appropriately which is why Hubbli was created (sorry for the shameless promo) as social network for school communication.
It’s important that parents don’t rely entirely on their children to be the liaisons between school and home. Do what you can to keep in communication with teachers and school administration, while of course respecting the time needed on their part to manage all of the students. There are so many online methods of information sharing that we no longer need to rely entirely on phone calls and school drop-ins to get the information we need.
Hang in there! The transition is already well under way. As everyone in the family readjusts to being back at school, everything will fall into place and it will be like they never left…until next summer that is.