Many of you as parents will be very happy to see the end of the school holidays. As lovely as it is spending time with your children, six weeks of holidays can seem a long time. However, a return to school can bring with it a number of challenges.

Some children are happy to return to school and look forwards with excitement to seeing their friends, getting to know their new class teacher, and getting involved in school life. However, for some children the start of the school year can be filled with worries about adjusting to new routines or separating from you. For some children particularly for those who are neurodiverse school can be an exhausting place.

Here are a few tips to helping with the adjustment

1. If you have a child who has additional challenges or finds separating from you difficult try and develop a good working relationship with their class teacher or someone else in the school, like the diverse learning coordinator or assistant principal. If you can work together with the school in supporting your child, this will make a big positive impact on your child’s experiences and also make it easier to formulate a plan to help them if problems arise.
2. School can be very tiring if you are just starting Kindergarten or have additional learning needs or find it hard being around other children all day. Building in some afterschool down time can be a very important part of coping. Although many children love technology, I recommend some time when your child can recalibrate themselves by going to the playground, running around in the park, spending time on a quiet activity or having a shower. This can help get out the stress of the day.
3. If your child tends to get tired from the day, avoid scheduling in too many after school activities. Many parents feel anxious about their children not keeping up or wanting to give them as many opportunities as possible. So, start small, perhaps with one activity, and build up slowly if you feel they are coping and benefiting.
4. Make learning fun. Homework can become a battle ground if you have a child who struggles with learning. Reading together can be a great way of building a relationship with your child and also encouraging their learning. If your child finds learning to read or reading difficult you can still read to them, get audio books, or find picture books around a topic they like. Your school or local librarian should be able to help you with suggestions. You may also think of different ways they can learn such as reading a cookbook then helping you cook dinner. They can practice their reading, possibly some maths and you will have a meal on the table by the end of it!
5. Be clear about the rules around technology. Time on the iPad and playing Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnight….. can all become battle grounds. All these games are very addictive, and most children find it hard to not get engrossed in them. How hard can it be for you not to check your phone or look at just one more reel…? Then when you say it’s time to come off the iPad many kids find this very difficult to do. For some children this can trigger meltdowns and cause a lot of stress for the family. So be clear about the limits. It can be helpful to create scheduled screen time or use access to the iPad as a reward for after everything else like homework or chores has been done. Set timers, so children know how much time is left, and give them warnings (e.g. a 5 minute countdown) as their time comes to an end. Current recommendations are no more than 1 hour on non-educational screen time for school-aged children. Remember there is an option for no tech time on a school night. Radical thought!
6. Be realistic in terms of what you expect from your child in terms of being organised. Some children are excellent at getting their lunch box out of their bag, remembering their home readers, putting on their uniform in the morning and brushing their teeth when asked to. They have the same hat all doing all these ordinary things difficult. There are different ways to make this less stressful for you and your child. Using visual charts with the morning and evening routine can be helpful in reminding them of what comes next, and gently teaches them independence. You can even get them to mark off what they have done and praise them for it. Or get them try and remember just one task, for example giving you their lunchbox when they return from school or brushing their teeth as soon as they wake up. It is important though to be realistic as to how much they can do without your help rather than aiming for lots of things which never work out. Praise the small steps. You can even link access to iPad to this.
7. Calm mornings start the night before: It can be very hard to attend to your child in the morning rush and sometimes we expect them to keep up with us. This makes us stressed and in turn the children feel stressed. Be organised yourself. The night before, make sure your child’s uniform is ready, have their bag and lunch prepared. In the mornings, get up and ready before your child wakes up and then you will be able to spend time with your child without the stress of the morning rush. If your child takes a while to wind up in the morning, you may even consider waking them up a little early so they can take their time.

These are just a few ideas which I hope will help.

Dr Janina Szyndler and Michelle Tanious