3 Things You Must Do Now To Get Your Child Ready For School
Posted: May 17, 2019
By Master Christopher Rappold
Can you believe it? We are already talking about the school year? Didn’t we just start summer? Well, like every year, the time comes faster than expected, but that doesn’t mean it has to be bad. As all the retail stores start running their enticing back to school commercials, as parents we should be planning our children’s smooth return back to school. Smooth for them and, yes,… smooth for us.
So what are those three things we should do with a month to go that will make this transition the best it can be?
Number #1: Start to slowly bring down their bedtime to match what it would be during the school year. Doing this slowly is important so they almost don’t even notice. Take how late they stay up and depending on the gap of time reduce it by 15 to 30 minutes per week. If you do this Sunday through Thursday it should be fine. Keep Friday and Saturday open as they would be during the school year. To make this easier to tolerate make sure they are getting vigorous exercise during the day so that by the time bedtime rolls around they are good and tired.
Number #2: Slowly replace TV with reading. For those children and teens who increase the amount of time watching TV or Netflix, start to limit that time and replace it with summer required readings or other instructional or pleasurable readings. This serves two purposes: first it helps to calm children and teens down, especially when you replace TV watching before bed with reading. Secondly it helps to stimulate their brain in a way that is congruent with the demands school will be putting on them.
Number #3: Start to better their eating habits, stepping away from the summer-fun, casual eating they may have been doing this season. Eating barbeque-type foods, extra desserts and enjoying them at all hours of the day and night comes with a feeling of relax and ease, it is not good long term. Start to slowly change what is being eaten to more fruits and vegetables and cut back to desserts being an occasional treat not a mandatory food group at every meal. Also, have a cut-off time each night that food and snacks are no longer eaten past. Eating before bed will absolutely harm a restful sleep. A good rule of thumb is not eating anything past 7:00 p.m. Believe me, your body will thank you.
The saying is “peaceful evolution vs. bloody revolution.” The school year can start off bad when it feels like it is a shock to the family’s system. By being a step ahead in the planning and making the necessary adjustments, getting back into the swing of the school year will happen with ease. Enjoy the remainder of your summer fun!
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