It’s that time of year, so I’m back with an encore episode sharing my top 5 back to school tips. In this episode, you’ll find strategies (and a few reality checks) for a smooth transition into the new school year. 

You’ll Learn:

• 5 challenges that often arise as school starts - and how to handle them
• Thoughts to help you (and your kids) through the back-to-school transition
• What your #1 job is as a mom in these first weeks of the school year
• An exercise to help you prepare your mindset

The transition back to school from summer break is definitely a transition. There are special challenges that come up, and I want you to be prepared for the shenanigans that might happen with your kids in the coming weeks. 

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I share these not because I want you to be filled with worry and dread, but because I want you to go into this school year feeling confident, ready and hopeful. And I want you to be able to feel calm when this stuff is happening. 

My Top 5 Back To School Tips

1. Understand that your kid may not like their teacher. Especially in the beginning and with younger kids, they might feel shy or not want to talk to their teacher. It doesn’t mean anything about your kid or what their year will be like. Quality relationships take time to build, and it’s ok if your kid doesn’t warm up to their teacher right away.
2. Your kids are going to be exhausted the first week of school. Going back to school is really tiring for kids. They’re sitting still, having a lot of sensory input, learning new rules or routines and meeting new people. Keep the afternoons open and be flexible. I love to stay away from screens for the first hour and use this time for connection, outdoor time, or just a rest.
3. Sibling conflict might shoot through the roof during this back to school transition. Try to create special time with your kids by spending 10 minutes or so one-on-one with each kid doing whatever they’re doing. Your kid really needs time to connect with you when they come home, and it is the antidote to sibling conflict and annoying behavior.
4. Social stuff is going to come up. It happens at almost every age. Friendships shift over the summer, and navigating friendships might be hard for your kid. Give it some time and trust that your child is going to find their people, their friend group, and it's going to be okay. Be comfortable with your child's discomfort. When you believe that they’re going to be okay, it’s easier for them to believe it, too.
5. Expect misbehavior to escalate over the next two weeks. Your child is going through a lot and using all their good coping strategies at school all day. When they come home, they can finally relax. And more Big Feeling Cycles (aka tantrums or meltdowns) are likely to happen. 

Remember that your kid is using their behavior to communicate or cope with their big feelings. Take a moment to reset your own nervous system and get curious about what’s going on for them. If you can stay calm and practice compassion, your child will be able to move through these feelings more quickly. 

Helpful Back To School Thoughts

Feeling calm and confident starts with your thoughts. Here are some of my favorites to use during the first couple weeks of school (as well as other transition periods).

• This is a transition. You can also add… and transitions are temporary. 
• It will take time to figure out our rhythm and routine. These first couple weeks are a time of curiosity and exploration. What feels difficult? Where’s the friction? What’s working well?
• I have plenty of time. As you’re figuring out your routines, it might take longer to get out the door in the morning. Dropoff and pickup lines might be long and slow. Give yourself time and permission to figure it out.
• I don’t have to be perfect today. If you’re stressed because you’re trying to reach an unreasonable “perfect mom” standard, you’ll put pressure on your kids and they will feel it - which leads to acting out and big feelings. 
• My kids are 100% going to master the back to school routine. There’s no timeline here. It will take as long as it takes, but they will get there.

Take a few moments to write out a list of thoughts that you want to be thinking during the first week of school. Feel free to borrow mine or come up with your own. 

I also want to leave you with the idea that your job is to deliver the calmest, most emotionally regulated kid you can to school in the morning. I call this a gentle handoff. 

In order to do this, you need to be calm yourself and have realistic expectations for the morning. Your stress is contagious. But so is your positive thinking and calm.

You are the leader in your home, in both mindset and operations. Your family WILL figure this out. 

Free Resources:

• Episode 30: Make Mornings Easier
• Easy Mornings With Kids: The Ultimate Morning Routine Roadmap

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn: 

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to become a calm mama. I'm your host, Darlyn Childress.

I'm a life and parenting coach, and I wanted to

give you some back to school tips. And I thought about recording a brand new

episode. When I look back in the archives and I realized that I've

done 2 episodes on back to school strategies and

tips, and the one that I had titled back to

school shit show just made me tickle, and

I relistened to it today. And I was like, you know what? This is so

good. I just wanna share it with you and give you

my top 5 back to school reality

checks and some strategies to help you make the transition really

smooth. And it's funny because I was just relistening to it,

and I really felt helped by it

myself, because my kids are going back to school as well. They're going back to

college. One's leaving for the first time, and one's returning. And I was

like, oh, okay. I need to remind myself. I'm in a transition, transition, and it

might be hard for them. And that's okay. And I need to have a positive

mindset and all the things you're gonna learn in this episode, I

found to be really helpful for myself. And I was like, oh, I'm

gonna also do the tip that I give you,

the activity of writing out some positive thoughts

that you're going to hold while you're in the transition. I was like, I'm gonna

do that too. So I just wanted to, let you

know that this is a really helpful episode, and I'm really glad to

offer it to you. Even though it's an archive, it's still so

great as you head back to school in the next week or

2. Alright. Here it is.

I think you're gonna love today's episode because I am talking about

something that's probably on your mind. And I'm calling this episode

the back to school shit show because I guess I wanna

normalize that the transition back to school

from summer break is not usually

seamless. It is definitely a transition,

and I just want you to be prepared for

the shenanigans that might happen with your kids and

also help you have the right mindset going into

the next couple of weeks so that you don't lose

your mind. Right? I want you to have a good mindset, right, so

you don't lose your mind. I'm gonna get right into some of the nitty gritty

in the early part of this episode because I know that

sometimes, you know, you're moms and you might get

distracted and not get to finish an episode. So I wanna give

you the 5 things that you need to know right as

school starts. The first one is that I want

you to understand that your kid, they might not like their

teacher, especially if you have younger kids, like

kinder, 1, 2, preschool, even 3rd,

4th, elementary school, you kind of want them to

like their teacher when you have an elementary school kid. You may have a child

who doesn't warm up to the teacher. I just want you to know that that's

okay. That doesn't mean anything about your kid being, oh, they're so

shy, or they're they're not a very warm

kid, or, oh, this is gonna be such a hard year because they don't like

their teacher. I just want you to know that your

kids, they might be shy with their teacher, and they might not wanna

talk to them. And that's just normal, so I don't want you

to make your kid's behavior a problem. I don't want you to be like, go

hug your teacher. You know, you'll see all their kids hugging the teacher and being

super sweet, and you might feel self conscious. You might think your kids,

like, be social. And I just want you to know that

quality relationships take time to build, and that

your kid might not warm up to their teacher right away, and that is

not a problem. So that's the first thing I wanted you to know.

The second is that I really think this is probably

the most important thing I'm gonna say is that your

kids are going to be exhausted the 1st week of

school. This is just true. It is

important that you keep the afternoons open.

You might be tempted to plan, like, a big play

date or big back to school picnic in the

park and things like that. And you can plan those things,

but I want you to be a little flexible and know that your kids might

just not be up for it. Going back to school is very

tiring for them. They have to sit still, and maybe they have teenagers.

They to sit in a desk. They have to listen to their teacher. They have,

like, a lot of input, you know, sensory input going on. I want

you to be ready for that exhaustion.

Really, my recommendation is that you

keep that first hour after pickup

screen free. There might be a temptation

to have your kids go on a screen to, like,

decompress or come down, but moving to a screen

shortly after getting home, it will make it a little bit hard for your

child's, like, activated stress response to reset itself and

catch up. So instead of just kind of letting them disconnect on the

screen or video game or watching YouTube or watching TV or

something, I want you to think about how can I use this time

to connect with them, like playing a game or hanging outside, or

doing some of the things that you've been doing all summer, just doing those in

the afternoon? And doing you know, allowing for some

of that reset time. Knowing that that first week of

school, your kids are probably gonna be pretty exhausted. The third

thing that I would like to caution you about as kids go back

to school is that sibling conflict might shoot through

the roof during this back to school transition.

The way to move through, like, decrease

sibling squabbles is by creating special

time. Your kids are going to need individual one on one

time with you. Most days right after school or, you

know, shortly after pickup, I call that period of time right after

pickup eyeballs, because that's the time where your kid kind of really

needs to connect with you. So if you have 2 that you pick up at

the same time, that's fine, or 3 or 4, however many you

have. You can get everybody situated at home, get them playing

a game, get them reading a book, get them playing outside, and then you can

kind of pull each child in and just say, hey, I wanna hang out with

you and spend 10 minutes, 5 minutes, you know,

whatever you can spare with each kid. That can just

look like playing what they wanna play. They're kinda playing Legos, or they're

playing dolls, or they're playing house, or or they're jumping on the trampoline,

or, you know, they're I don't know. Whatever your kids do. Going

and doing that thing with them, alongside of them Doesn't

have to be talking. You can actually just be in their presence

and maybe wait for the stories to come, or maybe they're not gonna

need to say anything to you. Just having that special time

with just you is going to be huge. It will really help

you have fewer sibling conflicts. Okay? I know that's what you

want is to have less fighting with your children and

less annoying behavior with your kids. So doing this special

time is like an antidote. Is that the word,

antidote to sibling conflict? K. Number

4, social stuff is going to come

up. This is going to happen. It

happens at almost every age. You got

preschoolers who are struggling with friendships. You've got

middle schoolers who are not sure how they navigate, how they fit in. You've

got high schoolers who now people have boyfriends and girlfriends

and they friends and all of that. Right? So the social stuff is gonna

be there. Friendships shift over the summer. Kids mature. Some

kids get really into 1 video game over the summer, and then they come back,

and that's all they wanna talk about. Your kid didn't play Roblox all summer, or

they didn't play Fortnite, and you don't you don't have anything to talk about.

Navigating friendships, it might be hard for your

kid. They might not know who to play with at recess. They might

not feel comfortable at drop off. It's might

be difficult, that social stuff, and I want you to be okay

with this. I don't want you to think that your child

is, like, antisocial or on the bad path to, like,

being with all the bad kids or whatever. Not that I don't really think there

are any bad kids. You might, but I don't. So if you're

thinking that, just realize that all of this friendship

stuff, it just comes up in the beginning of the year. And

allowing some time and trust that your child's gonna navigate,

they're gonna find their people, they're gonna find their friend group, and it's

going to be okay. So the more comfortable you are

with your child's discomfort, the easier it will be

for your child to move through their big feelings.

Because they're like, am I okay? Am I gonna be okay?

Nobody likes me. And then you they look at you, and they

really wanna feel like they're getting this feedback of, like, no. No.

No, honey. You're gonna be fine. But if they're looking at you

and you're thinking, oh, I don't know. Are you gonna be okay?

They might adopt that thought. I'm not okay. I'm not gonna be okay.

More comfortable you are, even when your child is struggling,

the easier it is for your child. That's kinda cool.

Number 5. I'm sorry to share this one.

Expect misbehavior to escalate

over the next 2 weeks. Once school starts, whenever if you're

in it right now, mamas, you're in the back to school shit show right

now. That's fine. You're seeing it currently. The

misbehavior is escalating. If you're just starting school,

get ready because it's coming. You're going to have

more big feeling cycles. Remember, a big feeling cycle is sort of what

I call, like well, how I label a temper temper tantrum.

The feeling cycle is an intense emotional reaction

to a circumstance, and your child has their big

feelings, and they come out through complaining, and crying, and

negotiating, and anger, and whatever the big feelings are,

and how they show up. Right? So you're gonna have more of

those. We wanna think about big feeling cycles intensity,

duration, and frequency. So hopefully, if you've been practicing

your calm mama skills, you know, the last few months, then you're

going to be able to help your child move through these fast.

So they won't last as long. So you're gonna have decreased duration.

Hopefully, they're not as intense because you've been practicing compassion in the middle of these

feeling cycles. But what is going to happen is they're

they're gonna increase in frequency. You might be like, what the heck is

going on? How come they're so, like, this is just a it's a shit

show. Remember that this is just happening. Right? You're gonna have

more resistance. You're gonna have, more feelings.

Your child's just going through a lot. They're coping with a lot. They're

having to use all their good coping strategies at school all

day, and then they come home, and they have that bra off

feeling. Right? Like, that relaxed feeling. And they're

like, now I'm just gonna let it

all out. And so your kid's behavior

is a strategy that they are using to communicate

or cope with their big feelings. When they're, you know, in those

big feeling cycles, pause, take that pause break, take care of yourself,

reset your own emotional and nervous system, and then

get curious. So that these are these five

things that I want you to be looking out for. I'll

repeat them. Just that your kids, they might not like their teacher.

That's okay. Your kids might be really exhausted the 1st week of

school. That's okay. Sibling conflict may

happen. Special time is the antidote. Number 4,

social stuff is gonna come up. Friend stuff, things like that.

And then you're gonna have a lot more misbehavior and big feeling cycles.

I share all this because I love the ideal day and

thinking a positive parenting vision and all of those things when we are kind of

anticipating good things, but I also know that

some circumstances are just difficult. I don't want

you to go into this school year feeling

worried or dread because of what I've just said. I actually

want you to feel confident. I want you to feel ready. I want you

to be able to feel calm when this stuff is happening and

hopeful. I'm gonna give you a few thoughts

that I think will help you in

this transition. These are the thoughts that are going to help you

feel confident, calm, ready, and hopeful. So one of my

favorite thoughts when I am in a transition, when the kids go

back to school or the first couple days of summer or the first day or

2 winter break, whatever it is, I like to think

this is a transition. It is a really helpful

thought for me and that's why I'm offering it to you because I

then can add the second thought which is transitions are

temporary. That's the whole purpose of the word transition. I'm in

between two stages. I was on summer break, and now

we're moving to school schedule and school rhythm,

and this period of time is a transition. So those thoughts are gonna

really serve you. Another thought, it will take time to

figure out our rhythm and routine. So looking at these

2 weeks, the 1st 2 weeks of school as, like, kind of exploration,

like, curiosity. Wow. Where are the things that

are difficult? Where's the friction in our rhythm? Where's the friction in

our routine? What's not working? What is working? Giving

yourself permission to think, I'm gonna

figure this out, and it's gonna take some time. And then offering

to yourself, I have plenty of time. You mamas, you don't have

to get it right. That first week of school,

you're gonna get to school. There's gonna be a carpool line mess up. It's

gonna be really long. You know? You're gonna try to get to pick up, and

there's not gonna be any parking because no one has worked out their carpool yet.

You know? Moms and dads are dropping off, and moms and moms and all the

people are there at school. People are staying

longer at drop off. Like, it's going to be difficult,

and so you don't have to have it all worked out just perfectly.

The school also knows that this is a transition. They've done it

many, many times, right, many years. So you

can you can figure it out. You can give yourself time and permission.

One of my thoughts, and I'm gonna talk about this now, is

that your job, my job as a mom, and your job that I'm a teach

you, is to create a gentle handoff each morning and

at each pickup. I'm gonna teach you this concept of a gentle handoff in a

minute, but I want you to really think about this thought that that is your

job. Your job is to create a gentle handoff each morning. What do

I mean by gentle handoff? When you drop your kids off at

school, I want you to think, how can I

deliver the calmest, most

emotionally regulated human being as possible? What

is it gonna take for me to deliver that

kid to that school gate? What it actually means is that

you are going to need to be really calm yourself and not

be completely obsessed with being on time,

of looking a certain way, of having the perfect lunchbox, and, like, having

all of the right school supplies and, you know, the

the shoes being tied and ready and everybody all the things all lined

up. If you are stressed and you're trying

to reach some kind of mother's standard that you created in

your head and you're putting that pressure on your kids,

they are gonna feel it. They're gonna act out more because that's just what they

do. That's how they respond to pressure as it creates more feelings and then more

big feeling cycles. And you're gonna end up dropping off a kid

who just got yelled at, who was shamed, who was

threatened, you know, is stressed. Your stress is gonna it's

contagious, but so is your positive thinking.

And so that's why these thoughts of this is a transition. It's

gonna take time. I can figure this out. I don't have to be perfect today.

Those thoughts are gonna help you create that gentle handoff. Another

thought I wanna offer to you is that this one is so great.

It's my kids are 100% going

to master the back to school routine. Just decide right

now that you as a family are gonna figure this out. If you figure it

out on day 2, excellent. If you'd figure it on day 100,

fine. You're gonna keep at it until you have a school routine

where you have peace and calm at drop off. That is the

goal. If you have kinder and 1st graders or whatever,

preschool and kinder, little ones, then you have a

lot of years to figure out how to master the back to school routine.

That's an amazing gift. Right? You have lots and lots and lots of time. You

might not get it this school year. Who cares? Fine. You're late. Who

cares? Realizing that you have a lot of time to master

this routine is going to free you from the pressure.

And then, also, if you're thinking, I will master it, we

will figure this out, You're gonna have a lot of confidence.

So these are the thoughts that I love for you for as you go back

to school. Thoughts are contagious. Feelings are

contagious. You are the leader in your home, and that

means you set the standards, both for operations, like how it goes,

and the mindset. So first comes the mindset, and

then comes the operations. I actually really want you to

do this exercise. I want you to sit, pause this, or, like,

come back to it. Come back and say, okay. What I wanna do is I

wanna write a list of thoughts that I want to be thinking during the 1st

week of school. Or if you're already in school, just be like,

okay. Next week, what are my gonna be my thoughts?

Particularly in the mornings, and you can borrow the ones I listed. Go back.

Listen to them again. Write down how do you want to be thinking

because these thoughts are going to create emotion in you,

and from your feelings, you're gonna show up differently. When

you're feeling calm, you're gonna show up differently as a parent. When you're

feeling committed to your rhythm and routine, you're gonna have a lot more

confident. So I really want you to do that exercise, because the

thoughts you have are contagious, and the feelings are contagious. So your

children are gonna follow along with your lead. If you're thinking,

my kid is a mess. This is a disaster. You're

going to approach situations from that mindset, and you're

probably gonna feel stressed. From that stress place, you're not gonna be

able to calmly teach your kids the rhythm and

the routine for you, especially in the mornings. I'll do a whole episode

on mornings. Really, all about, like, this whole first week,

if you are just thinking, like, this is a transition. We're gonna figure it out,

there's no problem here, plenty of time, you're going to feel much

better than thinking, I'm a mess, My kid's a mess. This is a

disaster. We're so far behind. Other moms figured it all out. Other moms are

better than me. Other moms know what to do. I'm telling you, I work with

amazing moms. The moms who look like they have it all

together, they come to coaching and they still feel

like I'm not doing good enough. So all the moms are just walking around,

kind of feeling like, ah, and so you can have a lot of compassion for

them. You can have self compassion, and you actually don't need to buy

into some sort of perfect standard of motherhood

or being a parent or anything. We're all doing the best we can,

especially in the back to school shit show. That's just

you're just in the middle of it, and it's not a problem, and it's

temporary. These are the thoughts I wanted to give to you as you head back

into school and you start this school year off. Yeah. I'm

sure that you have all sorts of feelings, and so, hopefully, this

episode has helped you think a little bit more

ready. Like, ready for it and also

just compassionate for you and for your kids,

and, you can just love yourself through it. That's what I wanna leave you with.

Have a great week, and good luck, and I'll be thanking

all of you as you start this next school year.

Alright, everybody. Talk to you next time.