As state and national COVID-19 guidelines change, more and more schools are going back to in-person learning. While exciting, this can also be a stressful time for students who have gotten so used to staying home for the last year. To help make the transition back as easy as possible, here are five tips and tricks to get your child ready to go back to school.
- Remember – the pandemic is not over yet. The numbers of cases and hospitalizations are going way down in most states, but this does not mean that we can abandon all COVID safety recommendations. Make sure your child understands that they still need to follow instructions given by the school, and encourage them to wear a mask at all times when they are at school.
- Get your child some cute and comfortable masks. One of the biggest complaints about masks has been that they are uncomfortable and difficult to breathe in. It may take time to find some that your child is comfortable wearing for many hours a day, but EcoGuard disposable surgical masks are often easy to breathe in and some of the safest masks out there. In addition, try to make sure that the masks are in colors or patterns that your child likes – this will make them more content to wear them and less likely to remove it given any opportunity to do so.
- Plan lunches and snacks. Because we’ve been learning online for so long, it can be easy to forget that in in-person schools, students often have very limited time to eat. Whereas they may snack all throughout the day at home, at school they may only have a 30-60 minute time frame to fuel themselves for the rest of the school day. Plan lunches for or with your kids to make sure that they are getting the nutrients that they need in a form that is easy to eat during these shorter time frames.
- Get back into a routine. With the asynchronous schedules that many schools have adopted throughout the pandemic, students have been able to essentially create their own schedules, which includes choosing the time they wake up and when to do schoolwork. This is not the case for in-person classes, so it is important to get your child used to having a more rigid schedule again. This may involve waking up progressively earlier over the course of a week or so, scheduling specific times for studying every day, or even recreating their school’s schedule in your own home. This will make it much easier to adjust to the rigid structure of school schedules after such a long time away.
- Get in contact with friends before going back. Undoubtedly, one of the hardest parts about going back to school will be the social aspect. Going from seeing no one but family to being surrounded by tens or hundreds of peers can be overwhelming, so have your child reach out to a few friends that they know they can spend time with once they get back to school. This will prevent some of the apprehension and nervousness that they will not fit in or find someone to hang out with in school, and will make it easier for them to go back.
With these five tips, going back to school will become the exciting event that it should be, rather than a nerve-racking, anxiety-provoking switch. Good luck!