Today it was official, we took down the pool so it has to be the last day of summer. Okay, maybe the last day of summer is officially on September 21st and the last day of summer vacation isn’t until Monday but you can definitely feel the days winding down into a new schedule.

Already my local paper is announcing skill clinics for hockey season, the kids have most of their school items ready and hanging in their closets (see Back to School: Pinching those Pennies) and I am feeling a bit lost in the end of season confusion.

It seems to have been a common thread between many parents and this topic was actually discussed only a few days ago on a writing group that I am apart of; the Writing Mothers. When the question was first asked, how are you feeling about the end of summer, I was pretty positive about it. “Oh summer’s over, no problem, I prefer fall anyways.”

Today, though; as the pool drained out (we have one of those temporary blow-up ones), I was suddenly hit by the thought, “Summer is over. Not only that but my kids are going to school in a few days. Both of them!”

I know many parents are celebrating the coming school year, I know I was looking forward to it a little bit since both of my kids have spent the last 3 weeks driving each other crazy. (I’m not exactly sure why one will want alone time while still being in the center of traffic, I swear it is only so he can scream, “Leave me alone. I want to spend time by myself!” Huh? In a crowded room?) Anyway, getting a little off topic but the main feeling was that in a few days, they won’t be driving each other crazy.

Then I realized that, wait a minute, I’ll be minus two children at home and suddenly I was left wondering if I would be okay by myself all day. I won’t have to say 20 million times a day, “Stop bothering your brother, can’t you see he wants to be alone. Stop teasing your brother, he can’t do as much as you can since he’s only 3.” And on, and on and on.

Suddenly, I am not going to be the main caregiver for both of my kids. They will shuffle off to school and I will count the minutes down until they come home; trying with all my might to get some work done. Then they will shuffle into the house and answer my question on what they did at school with a “nothing” (or as my 7 year old will say “played, learned, came home.”)

Now I am wondering where the summer went and wishing that I had spent a few more minutes with both of the kids. It wasn’t that we didn’t do a lot or spend a lot of time with each other but I know that with the summer over, the fall schedule will begin and we’ll be rushing again for school, hockey practice, karate lessons and all the other commitments that we have. To say that I am feeling a little melancholy about the end of summer is an accurate statement but hopefully, once we are back to our school year schedule, I’ll find many things to enjoy as a family.

What about you? How are you feeling about the last days of summer?

Sirena Van Schaik

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I found it aggravating. Why was my son not eating? I packed it with a few goodies like fruit roll ups, cookies and other unhealthy little treats to go along with the healthy snacks but those were being left by the wayside as well. I tried everything from lecturing to blackmailing, “well if you eat your lunch, I’ll buy those really sweet donuts that you like,” to guilt trips “you know, there are kids that are starving in our own country.”

Nothing worked, obviously, and my stress level rocketed. How could he go an entire day without eating? How could his teacher go through the day without forcing…er…encouraging him to eat something, anything?

The answer to those questions were simple. For the first time in his life, he had complete control over what he ate. If he chose to eat his sandwich, then he ate it. If he was too busy talking to friends (almost always) he didn’t. No amount of lecturing or conniving on my part was going to change this. It was a hard fact to grasp but after a while, I learned to just ignore the half eaten lunches and found other ways to ensure that his daily intake was acceptable.

Here are a few tips that I thought I would share:

Give options:

Getting a child to eat can be pretty time consuming for any parent. There are a few likes, a lot of dislikes and a small amount of maybes in a menu. The key to getting your child eating while he is at school is to pack a large lunch. My usual lunch consists of two choices for morning snack, two for afternoon and then lunch which has the meal, a fruit or vegetable to choose from and one dessert. Usually, he could find a few things that he wanted and most of the other food could be used on another day. It is important to avoid loading up on foods that will spoil after one day or you will start to have a pretty heavy lunch budget.

Variety:

Ahh, the spice of life. As adults, we hate having the same thing for lunch everyday so why would it be different for children. Yes, sandwiches are a staple of the school lunchbox but you can offer things like wraps, bagels, soups, salads and just about anything. Try to mix it up and take advantage of hot lunch days since this can provide a break from the usual brown bag lunches that are regular throughout the school year.

Don’t Panic:

If your child isn’t eating lunches, don’t panic. This was something that I had to work on since I worried about every little detail. After a few months, however; my panicking days were over and I (and my son) was a lot happier. Remember this general rule about kids “they will eat when they are hungry.” If you are worried about vitamin intakes, pick up a high quality multivitamin for kids.

Offer a After School Snack:

One thing I noticed was my son was famished after school and couldn’t wait an hour and a half until dinner time. Since he wasn’t eating his lunches, I would offer him an afternoon snack. Eventually, I wised up and allowed him to take a snack (one that didn’t have a shelf life of one afternoon in a lunch pail) from his school lunch. He could snack on something I had packed for him and he could hold off until dinner without chasing down the cat to eat him. It was a win-win for everyone (especially for our 11 year old cat ;o)).

Make Breakfast the Large Meal:

Flip your day and make sure your child has a large meal in the morning. This way he will have the energy that he needs to get through the day and if he doesn’t eat, that breakfast should tied him over until the 3:30 munchies hit. Some mornings he’ll eat less but a good breakfast isn’t just a catch phrase for cereals but a way of life.

Following these few tips should make getting over the Lunch Box Blues much easier and you will find one less thing to stress about in the school year.

Sirena Van Schaik

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Tanja Cilia joins us again for another post on going back to school.

Thank you Tanja for joining us today.

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The First Day Of School. A phrase that must be written like that, because it is such an important milestone for the child -and for the parents too.

School is the place where a child may spend more of his waking time than he does in his home, not counting sleep. It is the place where he will make and break friendships; where he will mould his character further – and decide upon his future.

School is the place where parents have little or no influence over the daily interaction of a child with his peers and superiors. They may try to tell him what to do and what to say – but when push comes to shove, he must face the music alone. Talk about performance anxiety!

Education and learning are stressful enough as it is – and combined with a cocktail of new emotion, rituals and situations, the trauma and strain felt by the child, who may not be prepared for them, increases. All too often, the promised fun and games take second place. What the child sees in Orientation Day is a nice, smiling teacher – not one who is worn to a frazzle by spilled water-colors and miniature wars over toys.

To top it all, the parents’ attitudes, and feelings of anxiety, guilt or fear may be subliminally transferred to the child, who assumes that being uprooted from his home environment into the alien one is somehow “his fault” for not being “good”.

Children must never be compared with others; they absorb skills at their own rate, using their innate learning styles. It is wrong to expect a child to conform to a set of milestones, at such a tender aged. Moreover, different children bring different skills, at different levels, to the same class. Some children barely know how to put their shoes on the right feet – others can tie their laces into a perfect bow. Some may not even know numbers exist, whereas others can count to 100.

Psychotherapist David Grillo explains it in this manner:

One of the best things about staring a child off with playschool or kindergarten or pres-school is that they are not thrown in at the deep end. The fact that they don’t have to take notebooks and stuff eases them gently into the world of learning.

For some kids, especially those who fall under the youngest age bracket, the first few days can be traumatic. It is the first time that they separate for a ‘long’ period from the parents. Separation anxiety is normal, and is also a part of growing up. But supporting them and ensuring that the parents, or someone with whom they identify, are home when they come back will help. It is also a good idea for both parents and not one to accompany the child to the door the first time.

These days, most teachers or kindergarten assistants are very well trained. And that makes a lot of difference.

Preparing a child for school psychologically goes hand-in-glove with the mundane preparations of uniforms (if applicable). Getting this must be a ‘special event’, with an emphasis on ‘school clothes for children who are no longer babies.’

If possible, take him with you too when you purchase his painting tabard, his lunch box, napkins and enough socks to have a clean pair each day. This is not the moment to worry that your child is gifted and will be “kept back” by the hoi polloi. That comes later.

• Some children like to be alone with the person who is taking them to school, for the journey there. Others would prefer to be with a peer. See what works best for your child and take it from there. If the child has to take the school van, because of distances or time constraints, make sure to prepare him for this.
• Never cajole a child into behaving like a “big boy” (i.e. ‘no tears’) because the “others” will laugh at him. This puts him on the defensive. Say, instead, that you are proud of him for actually being a good boy, even if he is bawling his eyes out.
• Gradually change the child’s routine so that a week before school begins, he will be getting up and going to bed at approximately the times he will be doing when school commences. This gets him used to the routine.
• Tell the child inasmuch as he is able to comprehend, that it is normal to have butterflies when starting a new school moving to a new house, or starting an new job. The idea is to get he butterflies flying in formation.
• Getting to school should not be rush-scuttle-dash-sprint. The child can set his own alarm clock and fold his clothes neatly over the back of the chair, and make sure any stationery needed is in his bag, on the eve of each school day.
• If you have to refer to your own childhood experiences, make sure the child cannot read anything negative in your attitude or tone of voice.
• If the child’s school requires a packed lunch, allow the child to select what he wants to eat, and perhaps to help prepare it.

Angele Licari, psychologist, has this to say about the above:

Firstly check if you, as a parent, are psychologically prepared for your child to be leaving home to start school. I would sooner begin with preparing the parents, and not the child about the loss and attachment issues affecting both.

If you have any anxieties of your own, these can be non-verbally be transmitted to the child and become his own. If your own move to school as a child was tarnished with any negative connections, then you might assume the child would be passing through the same experiences, thus finding it hard to let go in a healthy way. Come to terms with your own un-finished past.

Every so often, check how your child interacts with other children. Check if he is clingy, jealous, rough, intimidated, insecure, or perhaps too confident, and how s/he behaves towards others in general. Consider whether the source for negative behaviors is sibling rivalry; or having a younger sibling who is allowed to stay home whilst s/he is being sent to school. Address these matters before they escalate and compound the child’s stress.

Go through the daily routine with your child so that he can visualize what school means, while at home. You can help him understand that how he leaves home, (transport etc), what things he might be doing throughout the day at school, (games, reading, playing, etc), that he would be brought back home or picked up. This is especially important. It will help him feel he can cope with new things as a matter of course.

Discuss openly how you feel; ask your child how s/he feels about the whole thing. You can say that you will miss him but that you are happy that he will now be learning new things and enjoying the company of his friends. You can ask whether he has any thoughts about the whole experience.

In a matter-of-fact way, without any drama, remind the child that if there is anything with which he cannot cope, the teacher is replacing the parent or carers during school time, until he come back to ‘home sweet home’.

Some schools allow parents to stay in the building for an hour or two during the first weeks of school, just in case anything untoward happens. Ironically, this sometimes makes the parents feel more bereft than ever; it’s as if they are extraneous – because since the child has not thrown a wobbly, it must mean that he has “forgotten all about them”.

by Tanja Cilia

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So starting us off with a very interesting post is Tanja Cilia. You can read her wonderful bio here. Thank you Tanja for joining us today.

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“Are we very nearly almost there yet?” is the question that emanates from the back-seat of a car the minute we set off on a journey with the kids.

Tweaked somewhat, it becomes a mother’s plaintive cry about whether the long summer holidays are anywhere near over yet.

It is a moot point whether or not she asks this because she knows she’s going to miss the kids – or because she wants them out of her hair.

There is a poem called The Lesson, by Roger McGough, in which a teacher murders his pupils in order to “teach them a lesson” about behaviour and obedience. This poem is supposed to be funny – and contains such stanzas as;

Then sword in hand he hacked his way
between the chattering rows
“First come, first severed” he declared
“fingers, feet or toes”

and

He threw the sword at a latecomer
it struck with deadly aim
then pulling out a shotgun
he continued with his game…

To a child who has never been to a school, this prospect is not the stuff of nightmares.
He is in awe that that dreary, depressing, desolate place his older friends disappear into when the holidays are over.

And now it’s his turn. And the Fear of the Unknown raises its ugly head.

He does not know what to expect -although he may have heard his siblings grumble about their inordinate amounts of homework, followed by the fateful words “I hate school!”

Moreover, he may have heard you heave a sigh of relief the minute the school doors closed upon his sibling(s) and anyone else on your school run – so to him, this translates into the sentiment that “School is a juvenile prison where kids are kept while adults have peace and quiet, watch television or perhaps go shopping, and meet friends for coffee…”

There are, however, some things that may be done in order to counteract this outlook – beginning from the Boy Scout Movement’s “Be Prepared”. This includes, but is not limited to, role-play, where the child acts the teacher, and you are the pupil.

The Ten-Point Plan starts here:

1. Be Prepared. Before you utter one word against a teacher, a teaching method, a school, a textbook, or thea homework, of an older child, twist your head around as far as it will go, in both directions. Look under the beds and inside the cupboards. If there are no children in the room, give vent. If there is a toddler within earshot, hold your horses. But be lavish with praise about anything that is school-related.
2. Read with the child. It does not matter what you read – the name of a vehicle; the label on a bottle of water; the motto on a t-shirt; the street signs or posters for a play or a film; the headlines of a newspaper. The child will associate the squiggly signs with sounds, and may even begin to recognise some of them, especially if they “belong” to his name. For more information on reading, please read our Encouraging Reading series
3. Sing. Even if you cannot carry a tune in a bucket, you have you sing. This encourages the child to do likewise – and consequently builds her vocabulary and auditory capabilities.
4. Talk. Even when you can’t stand the combined chatter of a radio, a television set or two, and the dog’s irrational yelping, you have to talk to the child, and give him the confidence to reply. Do not accept monosyllabic answers.
5. Make it clear to the child that he lives within a community; this prepares him to share things with his peers, and also teaches him that the world does not revolve around him. Make sure he knows how to sit at one place for a period of time, since structured learning requires this.
6. Go for walks in your immediate neighbourhood, and ask him to lead you back home. Show him the homes of friends, and talk about them (nicely!) This, too, builds language and inter-personal skills.
7. Count. Apples in the crate, people in a queue, eggs in the basket, colours in the box, fingers and toes, ants on the garden wall – this is a fun introduction to numeracy.
8. Be messy. Playing with water, sand, or paints teaches dexterity and eye-to-hand co-ordination. It also gives a rudimentary sense of volume, length, and area.
9. Be creative. Talk about other uses for ordinary things (you can make a necklace out of pasta or cereal hoops), and encourage the child to use his imagination to create projects with as little help from you as possible. If a child knows how to use a paint brush, it will help him use a pencil and a fork better, later.
10. Make sure the child knows how to interact with peers as well as with the adults he’s so far used to, in his immediate circle. Being sociable is very different from being cheeky. A shy child may be teased or shunned in class, reinforcing the feeling that school is an unpleasant, lonely place to be.

Then, once the toddler is safely ensconced in class, you may guilelessly, gleefully and guiltlessly…watch television, go shopping, or stop by at your friend’s for coffee… or simply relish your new-found peace and quiet…. unless you have a baby in the house!

by Tanja Cilia

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