Back to School! Ideas on How to Start Well

Dr. Clara Molina, Women Ministry Team Director for the HBN

As all the public and private school districts around the country welcome students, parents start to brace themselves for a year full of activities, meetings, and negotiating their schedules.

This is the time of the year when parents evaluate and prioritize their family, church, school, friends, individual, and work activities. It is a time for parents to decide who and what is going to take most of the family's time, while keeping in mind how to balance their lives, keep their children safe, grow as a whole, and be happy.

The following are some ideas about how to keep the school year focused and productive:

Family:

• Pray for and with your children every day.

• Read the Bible with your children at least 3 times per week if not every day around the same time every day, when possible

• If your child is a Latch Key student (these are children who go home alone from school and carry their keys with them, usually on a chain), please hide a key somewhere immediately outside the house in case they lose their keys

• Make sure not to leave your children with people or family members your child does not want to stay with after school

• Make sure to let your children know what your non-negotiable activities are.

• Establish a routine before bedtime, making sure your child gets a good night's sleep

• Remember that boundaries are expected, needed, and many times received well by kids

• Make sure to take them to church during the week

Get a large monthly calendar to organize the school year:

• Place your children's birthdays on the calendar making it easy to identify

• Highlight Sundays with a sticker, coloring the box, or anything that can help your children see Sunday as a special day, set apart for God on your calendar

• Add to your calendar major church activities (family baptisms, weddings, etc.)

• Prioritize and place family and major occasions on your calendar

• Set vacation times on your calendar to give children something to look forward to

  and know that family time is important and takes priority

• Place their school programs and activities on the calendar and make sure a parent, family member, grandparent, or a close friend goes to their activities

Friends:

• Invite your children's friends to your house so that you get to know them.

• Make sure that if you approve sleepovers, you know well the family you are leaving your children with overnight. You cannot undo what happens to them

  when you are not around

At School make sure that your child has:

• Your and their updated personal information in the school's database

• The names of those who cannot pick up your child at school

• Prescribed medications needed to be taken while at the school, at the nurse's office (such as asthma inhalers)

• Lunch money, packed a lunch, or fill out free lunch forms.

• Someone responsible for picking him/her up at school

• The supplies he or she needs (if you cannot provide them, a lot of churches

  have a back-to-School Supply Day, or you can let the school counselor know of the

  need)

• School forms completed and also knows the school's rules and routines (parent's handbook)

• All the information he or she needs for after-school activities, (what, where, and

  when) and how they are getting home

For a child that goes to school for the first time, everything is new; try to relieve

his/her anxiety by taking him or her to school the first day.