How to Prepare Your Child for School in the Fall

The first day of school is approaching quickly. Getting children back into the school routine can be a challenge for many families. Principal Ryan Hinton, of East Catholic High School has been through the start-up of 10 school years at the Manchester, CT high school. “The transition from summer to the start of the school year is a time to reengage your child in the academic dialog and get them ready to take on the challenges of another school year,” he says. While many schools in Connecticut start the last week in August, East Catholic High School’s first day of school is September 5.

Principal Hinton offers these suggestions to parents who want to help their children get off to the right start of the school year:

• Use the back-to-school shopping ritual to set the stage for engagement throughout the school year – The annual school shopping trip can be an important way to start the transition from summer to fall and the rest of the school year. Hinton urges parents not to put this off and to use it to engage with their children before the semester begins. “This ritual is really a way to get involved with your student’s participation in the upcoming academic year in a positive way,” he says. “It can set the stage for parents to regularly check- in with their children during the academic year. While you shop for all the back-to-school needs, ask them what they are looking forward to and what they expect the upcoming year to be like. Continue these check-ins throughout the school year by asking them on Friday afternoons, for example, what the best part of their week was. We tend to do this for younger kids, but we forget about high school students. They need it. There’s a lot of pressures placed on high schoolers. They are measuring themselves against other students. They worry about grades. They are thinking about college. They layer on other activities like athletics, performing arts and clubs. Those pressures tend to build up, so a check-in from parents can help students keep them in perspective.”
• Get into the wake-up routine before the first day of school– Hinton urges parents to help their children transition from the summer wake-up process to the fall one gradually. “Don’t say, ‘Okay, today’s the day you start waking up early. I’m going to get you up at 5:30 a.m.’ Move into it gradually,” he advices. “Start getting them into the wake-up routine by scheduling appointments, like their annual check-up with the pediatrician, in the morning so they have to get up. If you have a student who goes to the gym, challenge them to go in the morning and join them before you go to work. This is important because even if they had a summer job, chances they had variable hours and no regular wake-up routine.”
• Encourage them to dial back the summer job - If a student has had a summer job, now is a good time to suggest they dial back their hours or change them to what they’ll be during the academic year. “They may have worked at that job every single day during the summer, but that’s not what their fall will look like,” he says. “You might even suggest they discontinue the job a couple of weeks before they start school. Kids who have summer jobs get so used to that life that it’s harder to transition to an academic schedule. We certainly want our students to be prepared for the workplace but many time their summer jobs are different than those they aspire to. Those jobs often don’t tax their brains. The nature of the work almost puts them on cruise control. They get up at the last minute, throw on their uniforms and head to work. They spend their days reacting to things. But in school, they need to be ready to do more – to consume and process information. That’s a different mindset.”
• Cut back on the grazing – Hinton points out that many kids spend their summer days grazing instead of eating three set meals. During the school year, they should be eating three meals a day, instead of their summertime day-long snacking routine. “Once school starts, students really can’t graze all day like they do in the summer,” he says. “In school there are allocated lunchtimes. We also find that parents can set the tone for the day by engaging with their students at the first meal of the day, breakfast, before they go to work and their child goes off to school.”
• Prepare them for the following academic year next spring – “The best way to have a good transition in the fall is to start that process when school ends in the spring,” he says. “Students who do well at the beginning of the semester have often stayed engaged with the academic mindset throughout the summer,” says Hinton. “Maybe they’ve gone to Algebra 2 Bootcamp or Band or Theater Camps. These activities may not be strictly academically focused, but they do keep the students engaged in something school-related. They keep students within the high school realm so they are ready to move forward when school gets started again. We see success if they start the year before.”

“Parents can do a lot to set the stage for a successful academic year by engaging with their students in a positive way before, during and after school begins,” he concludes. “Now is the time to make that happen.”