In just a few weeks, the school bells will be ringing all over the world, signaling that it’s back to school time for children. While the summer months may have flown by, you can be certain that the majority of children are hoping that these last few weeks crawl at the pace of a turtle. Preparing for the first day of school can be a time of emotions for both parents and children. If you need a bit of help in how to address back to school jitters with your daughters, here are some suggestions that can help!
How to Address Back to School Jitters with Your Daughters
- Remind them that school is only a portion of their day. In your daughter’s mind, it may seem like all they do once school is wake up and go to school and spend their days there. And while that is true to an extent, in all reality it’s just a part of their day. Breaking down their “every day” can really help to ease some of those jitters. Remind them that you’ll start each day having breakfast as a family, followed then by a few hours of school. It’s also helpful to talk about the evening plans as well to give your daughter’s a focus at the end of their day. Even though they may be spending the majority of their days at school, it doesn’t mean that there can’t be other fun events and activities to do before or after.
- Tell them how proud you are of them. Every time you tell your daughters how proud you are of them believe that they remember. It’s not that you don’t tell them often, it just means that it means a lot to them to know. For children, school is their “work”. Getting up, going to “work” every single day, doing their best and earning good grades and then coming home to rest is very similar to what adults do as well. Going to school isn’t easy, so make certain to tell your daughters how amazing they truly are.
- Talk about all the things that they loved last year at school. A great way to help them get over the nervousness of going back to school is to remind them of everything that they loved the year earlier. Do they have a favorite teacher, a class, or even a lunch food item that they’ve craved all summer? Remind them of those items so you can all talk about them and remember them together. You’ll be amazed at how those frowns can turn upside down when they start to remember everything that they love about school.
- Let them plan their first-day outfit and lunch. No matter their age, children love to feel as though they are helping in making decisions. Why not let them decide what they want to wear on their first day back to school? They’ll be happy and confident as they walk into those doors! And when it comes to their lunch for the first day? Let your daughter’s plan it! If they want popcorn, give ’em popcorn. Pizza? Sure! Whatever they want (within reason), let them pack it and take it. They’ll be so excited to eat that lunch that they may forget all about those back to school jitters!
- Print out their school supplies list and take them shopping with you. Let them be the one to pick out their school supplies, so if you have more than one child, you may want to make more copies of the school supply list. And to avoid arguments or fight, let them take separate carts. They will have so much fun doing this with you. If however, you do not have the time to go shopping together, you can have them with you when you want to place the order online and have them select their choices.
- Another good way to get them super excited about going back to school is to get them new uniforms and school wears. My daughters have outgrown most of their clothes and shoes. So we have to get a lot of clothes for school this year because their school does not wear uniforms. And as usual, we will be doing the shopping together so they can choose what they like and be confident with what they have chosen. I plan to make this as fun and as memorable as I can.
- Since they will be going to a new class with new teachers and possibly friends, this is a good time to talk to them about the changes they will experience as opposed to last year and how God can make such changes awesome and a blessing only if they can pray ahead and trust God to send them the best people. My daughters and I did this last year and trust me they had the best teachers. It was such a huge blessing my eldest daughter teared up real bad on the last day of school because she will miss her teacher so much and my second daughter won’t stop talking about her teacher up till today. We are sure praying and hoping for the best this year as well and I hope you do too.
- One of the scariest thing in school for our kids is the bullying menace. Now will be a good time to remind them about this and share tactics on how to deal with bullies. check our post on Back to school or Bullying? and Tips for the new school year.
The start of the school year doesn’t have to be a scary time for your daughters. While their nerves may start to show, let them know that this year is going to be a great year by trying a few of the suggestions above. You may find that with a little encouragement and conversation, they’ll be ready to go back to school with ease! Our prayer as our kids go back to school is that God will continue to watch over them, keep them safe and help them to excel in all that they do in Jesus name.
Parenting is not easy and will never be, but you are doing a fantastic job mom and dad.
