The truth is, meltdowns, mood swings, sibling squabbles, and up-and-down social feelings are all completely normal during the first week of school. Back to school is a transition, and it isn’t always a smooth one.

The week starts out pretty great. Your kid is excited, they have a good first day, and then within a few days they start falling apart over a granola bar or refusing to get in the car or suddenly saying they hate their teacher.

And you're thinking, “Wait, what happened? Weren't we doing okay? What has changed?”

Nothing has gone wrong. This is just what the first week of school looks like.

You’ll Learn:

• 5 things to expect during the first week of school
• 2 tools to help you get through back-to-school mornings and meltdowns
• Why I don’t want you to deliver consequences in the morning
• How to get through the back-to-school transition without losing your mind

I'm walking you through what to expect, the top five challenges families face during back-to-school, and two tools that will help you get through the mornings and the meltdowns.

Read the full show notes here.

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Related Episodes:

• Episode 2.12: The CALM Break | Stop Yelling With This 4-Step Parenting Tool
• Episode 190: Make Mornings Better with the Gentle Handoff
• Episode 191: Eyeballs: A Simple Parenting Tool for Instant Connection

Free Resource:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Toolkit!

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 Toolkit 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

Hey, welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host, I'm Darlynn Childress, and I'm a life and parenting coach. And today we're going to talk about the first week of school. So here's how the

first week of school typically goes. Your kid starts out pretty great, like they're excited, they have a good day, and then within a few days they start falling apart over a granola bar

or refusing to get in the car or suddenly hate— they say stuff like, oh, I hate my teacher. And they said teacher was so nice on Monday or Wednesday or whenever you started. And you're

thinking, wait, what happened? Weren't we doing okay? Like, what was going on before and what has changed? And here's what I want you to know. Nothing has gone wrong.

This is just what the first week of school actually looks like. So this is my back-to-school episode and it's all about managing the first full week of school. Some of you might know it as the

back-to-school shit show episode. And I stand by that name Because the first week or week and a half of school is rarely smooth. But I don't want you to hear shit

show and think something's wrong. I want you to hear it and think, oh, this is what Darlene said the first week and a half were gonna look like. This is what it kinda looks

like basically for every family. So today I'm walking you through what to expect and plus 2 tools that will help you get through the mornings and the meltdowns. So So

you can meet this week with confidence instead of confusion. Okay, so let me get into the 5 things that you might expect to see this week. And when

I say this week, what I mean is that some of you start on a Wednesday, right? Or like a half day on a Wednesday or a half day on a Thursday. So this might happen to you

on Friday, or it could happen to you middle of the next full week. Or you could get this meltdown and like this, all of this behavior that I'm gonna talk

about at the end of the first full week. But just kind of within those first 10 days of school, you probably are going to have a meltdown of some kind and I wanna

help you expect that and know what is going on with that. Okay, here are the 5 things that you can expect to see somewhere between the first or second week of school. And the first one

is that your kid might not warm up to their teacher right away. They might not like their teacher, especially with younger kids, or they might have liked their teacher teacher the first couple days and then they don't like their teacher

anymore. And this is completely normal for a kid to be a little bit shy, a little quiet, or lukewarm about meeting a new teacher for the first couple of

weeks. So it doesn't mean anything is wrong. It doesn't mean they have a bad teacher. It's not a preview of a bad year. I want you to understand that these relationships that your

kids have with their teacher, those are going to take time to build. Just like you would meet a new person and you're not quite sure, like, do you like them? Do you get along with them? What is it

working for you or not? You're kind of waiting to see what's this like. And I also want to remind you that teachers come on at the beginning of the year sometimes really warm and then they get

stronger, or they come on really strong and then they soften up because they also have approach to the first week of school. So I wouldn't gauge the first week of school to

determine whether or not it's Really, it's not indicative of what the whole school year will be like. The second thing I want you to look out for is that your

kid is going to be exhausted. This is maybe the most important thing I want you to realize is that even for a kid who loves school, likes sitting still, is

okay with following instructions, they know how to manage those social dynamics and they can take in all that information, that sensory input, It's still

tiring for them. So, if you have a kid who has any sort of neurodivergence or struggles in school, it's really going to be obvious to you that they're working hard

during this first week or 2 of school trying to figure out, what's going on here? What can I expect? Am I going to get in trouble? They might test some boundaries.

Even if you have a kid who doesn't do that, just expect them to be really tired. So that means that I want you to keep the after-school hours pretty light, like hold off on that

big playdate or the elaborate first week of school outing. Don't rush into doing things like that, big back-to-school park playdates and things like that that kind of get drummed up.

If you feel like your kid can handle it, go for it, head over to the park or someone's pool party or whatever people plan those first week or two of school. But I want you to

realize that you can also read your kid. If they seem really overwhelmed and kind of out of bounds, Or they just are really tired, I wouldn't make it mean anything about like

their social skills or like, are they gonna make friends or put any pressure on any of those early events? Because really you wanna give your child the opportunity to get

caught up with the new school year. So try to keep that first hour after pickup screen-free if you can, not because screens are bad,

but because moving Straight to a screen after school makes it harder for their activated stress response to actually reset. So, this

first hour after school, it's a good window to keep things for like low-key connection, right? Playing outside, hanging out, playing a game, playing

cards, cooking something fun in the kitchen, no big agenda. The third thing I want you to look out for is that sibling conflict. If you have more than one child, the sibling conflict may

spike. When kids are depleted from a full day at school, they often come home and like let it all out, and siblings are an easy

target. So the antidote to that is special time, a few one-on-one minutes with each kid after pickup, doing whatever they want to do, no

talking required. That individual connection with the child does more to reduce sibling conflict than any amount of getting in

refereeing or getting in the middle of their conflicts or anything like that. Just kind of giving them those one-on-one, the eyeball time that I'm going to talk about in a few minutes, giving them that

time is going to be really important. The 4th thing I want you to know about is that social stuff is going to come up. Friendships shift over the summer and kids

aren't sure where they fit in in a new class at recess and who to sit with and how the friend group has changed. Even little ones can sense this, kindergarten, even preschoolers.

So this shows up at every age from preschool through high school. So your job isn't to solve those social problems. It's to be steady while they

figure it out. So the more comfortable you are with your child's social discomfort, the more comfortable they'll be with it too. So don't get worried

if they have friend issues or things come up or they have conflicts that are new. It's okay. You want to be confident that they're going to find their friends, they're going to figure it out. Your kid is going to

read your confidence as a signal for whether they're going to be okay. We want to communicate to your kids, yeah, yeah, you're going to figure out your friend group, you're going to— it's new, don't worry about it. Now the last

thing, you're not going to love this one, but I want you to expect misbehavior to escalate over the next couple of weeks. Now this doesn't mean because you like let them eat too much sugar over the

summer or you let them have too much screen time. It might, it might be. indicative that they're just kind of like their nervous system isn't quite ready for all that stimulation of school. And

remember, misbehavior is a form of communication. Misbehavior is a way to cope with dysregulated emotions. And so, your kid is going to be at

capacity using all their coping capacity at school and they come home and just like the sibling thing, they just let it all go. So, think of these

misbehaviors after school as big feeling cycles, right? Expect some intensity, expect them more frequently, expect them to last a bit, a little bit longer

because of their increase in the load that they're bearing when they go to school. So this is the time to work on your calm mama skills, right? Practicing that calm mama break,

that calm break, doing the work that you need to do to keep your nervous system regulated. It's going to be important because your child's behavior is going to escalate a bit

Over the next 10 days as they start school. Now, if you haven't started school yet, you can go back to last week's episode, enjoy the last week of school. You do not need to rush it. But if you have

already started and you're seeing this misbehavior escalate, don't try to feel like, oh my God, my kid's outta control. Like I need to make all these rules. Like we're gonna talk about rules next week, but

I want you just to recognize that they're in a big feeling cycle, right? They're working through their emotions. Yeah. So it's expected. It's not a regression.

So let me give you a couple of tips to help you have less of this chaos during this first week or 2 of school. And the

first is gentle handoff. So I want to talk about, this is something that we do in the morning because mornings deserve their own strategy. And I'm going to do a whole episode in a couple of weeks about

morning routine. But the first thing I want you to think about when it comes to mornings is the transition that your child experiences between You, your home, your car, your

safe space that you've created, everything that you represent, right? Fun and safety and ease. The transition into the

classroom is— means that that's the end of that stuff, right? It's unknown. They have to work hard. They have to manage their nervous system without a co-regulated adult there. Like, that's

a lot of pressure on them and an expectation, which is fine. They can handle it. Yeah. But what we wanna do is give them the best leg up we can when we drop them off.

So I call this the gentle handoff. And here's the idea. Your job each morning isn't to have the perfect lunchbox packed or to be exactly on time. Your

job is to deliver the most emotionally regulated person that you can at that school gate. And this matters

because your child borrows your nervous system In order to regulate their own nervous system. So in the mornings, if you're frantic, if you're rushed, if you're barking

commands, your kid picks up on all that anxious energy and they might carry that with them into the classroom, which is not what we want, right? We want to keep our

mornings pretty calm. Even in— even if there's a little bit of tiredness and things like that, I just want you to get them out the door without

yelling. So that they can take in your nervous system, your calm nervous system, and bring that into the school day. So if the morning starts

going sideways, there's spilled cereal, there's a missing shoe, someone forgets to tell you about this paper they need to bring back— like the first week of school, there's always like random stuff you need to

bring to school— the goal isn't that you fix everything before you walk out the door. The goal is Just how can I be— choose peace

over perfection? How can I choose harmony over stress? So that might mean putting your own stress on pause until after drop-off. It might mean saving the

emails, the hard conversations, the to-do list, the anxiety. Just figure it out later. Even if you forget something, even if you're running late, just kind of be like, it's okay.

We're gonna get there. Your only job is to get everyone out the door. in a calm-ish state. And this looks different for every family, right? Maybe you prep lunches the

night before, or maybe you're someone who does better making decisions in the morning. There's no right formula, but the point is to build a routine, which I'm gonna teach you in a couple weeks,

just to help you manage your mornings in a way that feels regulated. But in the beginning of the school year, you're not sure what your new routines are gonna be. You don't know what's gonna

work. You might try some things and realize it's a disaster. You might be attempting a new routine that you haven't taught your kids and it's not going well, and you're gonna probably get upset by that and

have a big— you guys knew how to do this last year. What's going on? We did this every single day last year. Well, they might've forgotten. It's okay. So try not to get stressed out that

your routines aren't working or that you don't have the rhythm down yet. Just get them to campus, even if they're late. Try not to yell and just deliver the most

emotionally regulated human you can. And that's that gentle handoff. The other tip I love is eyeballs. I've taught this on the podcast before, and it's a really small

practice that I would love for you to add this week into your routine. And it's basically, you make, you pick a moment

where you actually look your child in the eye and you say good morning or hello, or I missed you or something like that. So in the morning when they wake

up or before you drop them off or at some moment in the morning, I want you to take a second to look them in the eye and say, hi, how are you doing?

Or, hi, I love you. You're going to have a good day. I'll see you. I'll see you when I pick you up. Or if they just wake up, you say, good morning. I missed you. I hope you slept well. How are you doing?

When you pick them up, oh, I'm glad. I was thinking about you while you were at school. I can't wait to hear all about it. But actually making that eye contact with them and looking

at them. One thing that is happening in this generation right now is that kids are not getting enough eyeball time. They're

not getting their parents to look at them because guess what? Parents are looking at their phones and it is creating neurological changes because

kids are wired to learn and grow and emotionally regulate through eye contact. So having a moment where you decide you're gonna do eyeballs, it's really, really good

because your kids— need a time where they get your full attention. It doesn't have to be like 30 minutes. I'm just saying like a second, like a

couple of seconds that you look them in the eye and you say like, hello, I love you. It sounds small, but that moment of being truly seen tells your kid, I'm

safe, I'm cared for, someone is thinking about me. And this matters at drop-off and it matters when you pick them up as well. So drop-off time,

reunion time, I want you to be able to make that eye contact. So after a full day of holding it together at school, your kid needs that beat of connection

with you before anything else happens. Not, did you remember your water bottle? Or how was your day? Or did you guys take any tests? Or did you play outside? Don't ask a bunch of questions

first. Just kind of gentle eye contact and say hello. And even if you have a teenager who, doesn't wanna talk to you, that's fine. You just look at

them and just say, hi, it's nice to have you back in my car. And if you are watching on YouTube, you can see that I'm smiling, right? I'm actually

engaged in these eyeball conversations. I'm looking at your, your, you're looking at your kid and you're like, hi, making that eye contact. So I don't wanna keep saying

it, but it is very, very important. Okay. One other thing I wanted to talk about is delaying discipline or delaying consequences. So one piece of this,

like gentle handoff, right? We have eyeballs, we have emotional regulation, is that to remember that mornings are not the time for discipline or hard conversations.

If something isn't working in your morning, like you have a lot of dawdling, you have resistance, you have an argument, this isn't the time to lecture or correct or

rehash it in the car on the way to school. This isn't how you want to send your kid into their day. You don't want them to feel like mommy's mad at them

or daddy's mad at them. We want them to go into the school day feeling loved and safe and cared for. So you can hold a boundary

without a lecture. So you can say to them, wow, like this morning hasn't gone smoothly, but we're going to talk about it. but not right now because

right now it's time to get shoes on. So you can connect first and just kind of narrate what happened and then let them know that it's, it's

something you're going to work on as a family. You're going to figure it out. You're going to set better limits and you're going to work on it together. So I wouldn't want you to get right into consequences this first week of school

for morning behavior, unless it's like someone's hitting somebody or throwing something. Of course, then we want to do restitution or an act of correction. But I want you to not

get into super threatened mode this first week or first 10 days of school, really ever, but recognizing you guys are in a transition and it's

not gonna go perfectly and that's okay. And allow for that bit of a shit show, whether it's with behavior or the routine or any of that, that allow

for that to happen and, and be okay with it and recognize we're in a transition. So if for whatever reason you do have a morning where you're like, get

up, you know, and you get upset, don't worry, it happens. Just a simple repair of saying, oh, I got frustrated this morning. That wasn't about you. I'm

sorry. We're gonna try again tomorrow. So you don't have to lecture or overexplain or shame. You just take some ownership of your own dysregulation and you move on.

Okay. I have a few more thoughts that will help you. more than any strategy, and that is a mindset around the transition. So I'd love for you to

be able to think about this transition time of this is a routine. So one of the best thoughts that you can carry into this next 10 days is

this is a transition. We are in a transition and transitions are temporary. If you are thinking that

thought that this is a transition, then you will not feel so stressed or overwhelmed or discouraged when things don't go well. Because this is

not a preview of the whole year. This is just a phase between summer and getting back into your routines. So being able to think thoughts, this is a transition, this is temporary,

it's gonna take time to find our rhythm, that will help you stay calm. So give it 2 or 3 weeks before you judge how it's going. And then remind yourself,

I've taught them how to do this before and I can teach them how to do it again. If this is your kid's first year going to preschool or kinder, any type of schooling,

of course you're going to— it's going to take a few weeks for them to figure it out. But if this is your kid that first, second, third grade, just trust they're going to master this routine. They figured this

out last year. We all figured this out as a family. We can figure it out again. So doing that mindset work is so helpful because you don't have to feel so overwhelmed all the

time and frustrated with your children. You're able to think, yes, okay, this is good information about this week. This is helpful.

I'm looking forward to figuring out how to solve these routines in my family. This is temporary and I can figure it out. So giving yourself a little pep talk, a little mindset work

will help you. I hope this podcast episode has also helped you be able to be thinking about that this is a transition. This is normal. There's nothing's gone wrong here. My

kids aren't a disaster. I'm not a terrible mother. You don't have to be thinking those negative thoughts about yourself or your kids, especially in those first 2 weeks. This is just time

of transition and information, and you need to be calm so you can look at what's going on and figure out how you can support your family and what routines you actually need to improve.

So before I wrap this episode up, I do want to talk about something really explicitly, and it's about struggle.

Because the thing is that when your kids go back to school, especially if they have a teacher that you don't like, or a friend group has changed, or their friends aren't in the

same classes that they are, or they are a little delayed academically and they're struggling a little bit, I want you to remember that

struggle is valuable, that struggle is not a sign that something's wrong. Discomfort is not a problem that you have to solve.

I think it's really easy as moms and dads to look at our kids' like situation and worry for them and get scared for them

and want to fix it and like manipulate things so that they get in the right classroom and they get with the right friend group and they get the right, uh, I don't know, like academic

assignments or whatever it is that you want for your child. I want you to be careful to not bulldoze your way through or helicopter your way

into their lives so much through your parenting because what happens is then you are rescuing your children from struggle. You're rescuing your children from

failure. You're rescuing your children from the thing that they need in order to become the person that they're meant to be. We have to kind of

be uncomfortable in order to grow our skill in managing our emotions and managing setbacks and managing hard times. I

want your kids to be strong and to be resilient, but that means they have to go through hard things in order to develop that emotional muscle. That gives them

the strength to become a strong person, a person who can handle conflict and overwhelm and disappointment and all of those

things. If your child is in the wrong environment and it is going to be detrimental to them, of course I want you to intervene. But I want you to be less quick

to think that something is a problem and more quick to be curious of like, what could go good about this? Instead of wondering

what could go wrong here, ask yourself, how could this be benefiting my child? And when they are struggling, I don't want you to be dismissive of that. I want you to

use the connection tool, narrate their circumstance, name that feeling, validate that feeling, and then use regulation and coaching strategies to give them the confidence and the tools

and the skills they need to handle that negative circumstance. If we keep manipulating the external circumstance and changing it to make kids more comfortable, they

miss the opportunity to get stronger. So we validate their emotion, we help them regulate that emotion, we problem solve through coaching,

but we try not to rescue. That's what I think parents are pushing against, rightly so, that we may be over- validated and confused

validation of emotion with trying to change emotion. We don't need to make everything comfortable. We can let our kids struggle. So just remember

that your kid having a hard feeling doesn't mean you need to fix it or rescue from it or make it go away. Boredom, disappointment, social

awkwardness, a rough transition— these are all uncomfortable And they're exactly where resilience and emotional regulation actually get built. Not from you smoothing it

over, from your kids sitting in it and with nearby calm coaching and having you help them, they get to the other side of it.

So this week when your kid says, I hate my teacher, or they're melting down over something, or they say school is the worst, you don't have to fix that feeling. You name it. Yeah, that sounds hard. And

then let it be true. Yeah. Without rescuing them from it. Your job is to actually trust your children are capable of getting through something hard and giving them

your confidence and your support while they overcome that hard thing. So here's a recap for this week. Expect some teacher shyness. Expect

exhaustion. Expect sibling friction. Expect social wobbles. Expect misbehavior to tick up. None of that means anything has gone wrong. It means your

kid is human and that transitions take time. So for your mornings, focus on that gentle handoff, delivering a regulated kid, not a perfect lunchbox.

Add eyeballs at drop-off and pickup and save discipline for after school. And if you're losing it, reach for that calm break. Catch yourself, move your

body, move your mind, move your mind by thinking thoughts that that this is a transition and we can get through it and I can teach my kids how to get to school on time and how to

manage after-school expectations. So, give yourself this next couple of weeks to be in the transition. Listen to the next few episodes of the podcast because I'm going to help guide you

through the mornings and the routines and building back up your routines and the things that you need to make your school

life successful and flow easily with peace and calm. So you know what to expect for this next week, and you've got some tools to help you create that

smoother transition, recognizing you're in a transition. And I wish you the best of luck, and I will talk to you next week.