UPrep’s counselors have more than 40 years of combined experience in student support services. They understand that back-to-school time can be exciting and scary. Below, they offer suggestions on how you can help your student successfully navigate the beginning of a new school year.
- Re-establish a Schedule: Summer break offers students longer daylight hours, no homework, and more free time, which can mean that mealtimes, bedtimes, and routines all shifted from June through August.
- Develop Goals for the Year: Counselor Lindsay Metcalfe thinks that it can be nice to start the school year with a few goals, but making those goals student-driven is the best way for them to be achieved.
- Offer Reminders about Resourcefulness and Resilience: Caregivers can help their student see their own resourcefulness and draw on it by reminding them how they have navigated previous challenges. They can ask their student if there’s something that they were proud of in terms of how they handled a challenge or a conflict so the student will have that reminder at their fingertips.
- Normalize Anxiety about the Transition: Many students may feel nervous at the beginning of a new school year. Adults can help normalize this by vocalizing that there are going to be moments when they feel great and comfortable and others when they feel challenged and uncomfortable, and all these feelings are ok.
- Make a Plan Conversations Around Important Topics: Back-to-school time is a good time for parents and guardians to have refresher chats with their student about sensitive or important topics, including drug and alcohol use, sex education, and mental health literacy.
