What parents should and shouldn’t say before the kids go back to school, according to one expert

Students arrive for their first day back to school at an elementary school in Montreal, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

There’s more to back-to-school preparation than new pencils and backpacks, according to one parenting expert.

“Transitions are best supported with more time, more space and more rhythm,” Vivian Meraki said Aug. 20 in an interview with CTV Your Morning.

Meraki, who specializes in family trauma and healing, said there’s a number of ways parents can help their child prepare for the upcoming school year, but there’s also several generally accepted practices that they should avoid.

‘I feel overwhelmed’

Meraki said one of her strategies is to do dry runs of different school activities, which can include walking the route ahead of time, or eating from your lunchbox before the first day.

Rushing into back-to-school season can be a lot for a child, Meraki warned, and being overwhelmed can lead to all sorts of aches and pains. Tantrums and anxieties are “absolutely signals” that your child may have a difficult time in dealing with the transition.

“Sometimes the overload is the nervous system acting out and they can show up in different ways,” she said. “Not just panic or overwhelm, but sometimes shutdowns, meltdowns, irritability, even stomach aches or refusal to go to school.

Meraki said the important thing is to recognize those signals, because it’s the child’s way of saying “there’s something going on and I feel overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do with it.”

‘I’m here with you’

Meraki said that it’s important to take “your foot off the gas” with after school scheduling. Children’s lives are often out of their hands, being told where to go and when, even more so during the school year.

She suggested that giving children time to come home and unwind can be important, as having “a safe place and a soft place to land” is pivotal to help them regulate their emotions.

“Create space for them to explore that with you, for you to say, ‘It’s okay’ and ‘I’m here with you.’”

‘You got this’

To prepare their child for school, parents might say “Ok, time to be brave,” but Meraki thinks that’s an innocent, but serious mistake.

“It’s always with good intentions that we say ‘be brave.’ It sounds really encouraging. But in reality, what it can actually signal is, ‘It’s not ok feeling what your feeling right now, I want you to show me this other thing.’”

An alternative speech to “be brave,” Meraki said, is “I understand this is hard, I can see that you’re nervous or you’re afraid and I’m right here, you got this.”

Some strategies for calming a child down or encouraging them for school is what Meraki calls an “anchor hug,” which involves getting down to a kid’s level and asking if they want a hug.

“What this does is it helps to trigger the parasympathetic nerve system to help to deescalate and calm them down,” she said.

Another strategy that Meraki highlighted is having the child press their hands against the adults, which she said gives the child the chance to expend energy and be strong in a safe place.

“This is a somatic practice that helps to bring more regulation and a feeling of safety and stability,” Meraki said.