Ideas For My Pocket: a Support Group for Families: Get Me Ready, So I’ll Be Steady!

Mom and Dad, It’s time to start collecting my crayons, pencils, and backpacks! Along with the new socks and underwear, please take time to get me ready for school in other important ways as well. I’m nervous about a new teacher and new kids I don’t know. Will my new teacher like me? Will the kids laugh or make fun, tease or bully?

Ideas Families Have Tried:

1. Use Back to School Shopping to help me shop wise!

I can hardly wait to buy some new crayons and pencils and backpack!! And brand new clothes! Help me choose well, OK?

Lisa let her kids earn and manage some back-to-school money. She helped them look for good prices and good deals to make it go farther: “If you save on this purchase, you’ll have more money for the backpack you want!” Since they were on a budget, they shopped the thrift store for some items, and department stores for others, talking over which items would be better from where. Lisa loved it when her kids started to care more how they looked, and she used this time to teach them neatness and how to take care of the new clothes they bought!

2. Coax me back to an earlier bedtime:

Summer has been fun and I love staying up late! But now, I am going to need extra energy and brain power for a new school year. Gradually, will you enforce an earlier bedtime for me, even if I complain? Be strict about it, despite my grumblings, OK? I have been growing a lot this summer, and I need those 10 hours of sleep, just earlier, so I can be ready for a school schedule. Maybe if you read to me while I try to fall asleep earlier, or let me take a book to read in bed, it won’t be so bad.

Sybil’s kids had their share of extra screen time during the summer. She learned that this began to “zombie-fy” her kids. So she started to scale down electronics in the weeks before school started. They needed those brains to be sharp for learning with the new school year!

3. Set up my Daily Routine:

About now, while my enthusiasm for the new school-year is greater, it is a good time to set up a daily routine. Have be begin with practice to be ready. We’ll need to fit in my new chores and my practicing, when and where I’ll do my homework (now that I’m older I’ll probably have more of that!), and of course, daily scriptures and prayer. And Mom, please don’t stress if it takes a while to get used to it.

Daphne found that her children were forgetting their lunch or their instrument as they hurried out the door to go to school. She came up with an “8:00 Check,” a jingle that she posted near the door for her children to check before they left out that door for school:

Go to the bathroom

4. Help me be Secure with New Situations.
I’m nervous about the unknown. Will you give me tools to be ready for them? Tell me Stories and Scenarios so I can think through what's ahead.

When my young twin boys were about to go to school for the first time, I was apprehensive for them. They were so unacquainted with the ways of the world, and what they might face. I decided to use Bedtime Stories, to help them internalize what they might face and some ideas of what to do if it happened.

One night, I told them a story about “Roger” and how another boy kept asking him if he could copy his paper. The teacher had told them no cheating. What should Roger do? Well, at first he tried giving the boy his paper. After all, he wanted to be his friend. But that didn’t feel right at all. He felt so bad being sneaky--it felt like telling a lie! In fact, he couldn’t sleep that night with his conscience bothering him so bad. So finally, he told the teacher what he had done, and that he wouldn’t do it again. She was glad he had talked to her about it. She told the class again that they must do their own work and quietly moved that boy’s desk away from Roger’s. If someone should ask him to cheat again, he now knew what he would say: “You can do it! I’ll help you with the first problem on your paper.”

Another night, I told them about "Sally" and "Molly": A new girl had come up to Sally and gossiped about a boy who dressed funny and had greasy hair. Sally laughed and pointed at him with her. Later, at lunch she saw him eating alone looking so sad, and she felt bad for what she had done. The new girl came up to Molly and whispered the same thing. But Molly knew that this is not how Jesus would want her to talk about others. She told her, “I have noticed that he is a really great artist. Have you seen his drawings?” Later, when she saw this boy sitting alone so sad at lunch, she had the courage to go talk to him. She told him what a good “drawer” he was and that she’d love to see some of his pictures some time. Molly felt so good inside about being like Jesus and loving everyone.

I told a story about being offered candy from someone or being told to get into a car with a stranger. We did one about cutting in line and about being pushed or bullied. I learned that as my kids got older, they no longer listened as well to made up stories, but they did appreciate still the true stories. I told them about my childhood or Mark’s, or about others I knew and what they had learned the hard way, or how they handled a situation courageously. I always emphasized the consequences afterward, especially how the person felt. These stories helped my kids to think through situations ahead of time, and how they would handle them.

We coined a phrase to help in a sticky situation when someone tells a bad joke or talks about inappropriate things. “Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?” This tells everyone that you don’t like those things, without putting anyone down. It helps others to stand up for what’s right, too.

Charlotte told her kids about anything they might face at school, but she overdid it. In fact, after hearing about all the dangerous things that could happen, they were scared to go to school! She learned to prepare them, but to tone it down a bit, and tell happy stories too! School must still be a happy place where there are good people to get to know and love.

Take time to talk to me, one on one, about my worries and insecurities. Reassure me that I can do it with your and Heavenly Father’s help. Maybe take me to a different place than usual to talk, like the porch swing, the park swing, the car, or Jamba Juice! I will feel important to you, if you take the time.

Mandi taught her kids, “You can always tell me anything. Especially if someone ever tells you not to tell your parents—that is when you FOR SURE tell us!!! We will protect you and help you through a tough situation, but you need to talk it over with us so we can, OK?”

When I was a teenager, my Dad set up a Special Chair. It was located in his office—he showed it to us kids—ready for if we ever needed it. "Whenever you need to talk to me about something at any time," he said, "Come to my chair, and I will stop and talk it over with you." It was a great comfort to me to know that I would have that chair and my Dad’s undivided attention when I needed it. And, the time came that I did need it! At one point in high school, a close acquaintance that I had befriended told me that she was going to get a sex change operation. It was bewildering to me, to say the least! What should I call her/him? What about after this life? My Dad did indeed stop his work, after a brief delay, and sit beside me on the Chair. He helped me figure it out. He helped me know how to react, how to respond, how to love the person while not agreeing with the act. He taught me more about free agency. How grateful I was for this relationship-building security in my teenage life.

(Next week: more on Interviews with kids.)

6. Plan to be in My Classroom with me if you possibly can.

I love it when you are there helping my teacher. You can see my desk and my work on the bulletin board. You can see my friends and those that sit by me, so when I talk about them you’ll know who they are. You can especially come to know my teacher better and how she interacts with me. Does she build me up? Or does she scold me a lot and lower my self-esteem?

I love it when you come to my turf, Mom or Dad! Thanks for caring enough to come, even once or twice. School is huge in my life, so I love it when it’s important to you.

7. Send me out the door with our very own Family Catch Phrase--something that reminds me who I am and to Choose the Right all day.

Tobi and Ty sent their children out the door with, “Remember who you are!” Kemra and Rich chose, “Return with Honor!” to impress their kids to do what’s right that day. Darci and Troy had coined their family slogan: “Stand Tall, Choose Right, and Remember you’re an Anderson!”