A dear friend and former colleague told me on my return to work from a long trip many years ago, “reentry is the hardest part of any mission.” While I don’t know what NASA’s official stance is, no doubt they’d agree the reentry is fierce and fiery, and also the only way back. (Photo by NASA)
I’m taking a pause from some of my more open-ended reflection to offer to thoughts specific to sending children back to school. It’s been a long three months of impromptu homeschooling aka more screen time than we ever thought possible, but finally many of the daycares and preschools in the Bay Area are starting to reopen, and parents are wondering what to expect as they prepare to send their children back to school. So here are a few things to consider as you start to plan for reentry. Or check out the next post for some more specific child behaviors/activities.
Set yourself and your child up for success by starting to talk about what it will mean to go back to school/daycare. Begin today - even if you don’t have a set re-entry date, keep talking about the plan to go back to school in the abstract, “when you go back to school, you’ll get to tell your friends all about how you learned to ride your scooter” or “what do you think you’ll do first when you go back to school?” You don’t have to mention school every day, but keep including it so it doesn’t come as a surprise when it really is time to return.
Talk about the specifics. Once you do have a set start date, start sharing more specifics with your child. Many schools are providing parents and kids with a short video or “social story” about new precautions and regulations. If your school has not supplied one, consider creating your own for your child. I’ve included some language around school in the final page of my story, We’re STILL Being Careful. Make sure to change the details to align with the health and safety protocols your child’s school is implementing.
As far as telling them about the actual first day, for older children 3-5 years old, you’ll want to give them about a week or two of notice. You may consider a fun countdown activity or think of a little surprise for the last day before going back to school - could be as simple as a picture of you and your child together that they can take to school with them (great way to prepare for any separation anxiety, too!). For younger children - under 2 or 3 years old, you don’t need to give them quite as much of a heads up, and they won’t know how to make sense of seven days. Ramp up the actual logistical conversations with younger children two or three days before they’re set to go back to school.
Give kids a chance to ask questions and feel feelings. No matter how you are feeling about sending your kids back to school (excited, overwhelmed, anxious, thrilled -- see #4), make sure your feelings are not crowding out those of your children. Some kids may be able to answer the question “how are you feeling about going back to school?” and some may need you to offer some language first, “what are you looking forward to about going back?” or “what part will be hardest?” Whatever they answer (and it may seem totally out of context - e.g. “I need my striped socks.”), think about the feeling that is underlying that answer and respond to that: “Oh you’re really wanting to wear your striped socks on your first day back. You are thinking a lot about how to make sure you feel just right because it’s been a long time since you were at school and you might be a little nervous. Let’s make sure your socks are clean so you can wear them on your first day back.”
Reflect on your own feelings. Kids are experts in picking up on the feelings of the important grownups in their lives. As thrilled as you may feel at the prospect of being able to get things done without a child in your lap or hanging on your leg, or at knowing your child is having an enriching experience with friends and professional early childhood educators, you may also be a little nervous about the risks or any number of other feelings. With confirmed COVID cases on the rise in many parts of the country, and still so many unknowns around the impacts on children and transmission to and from children, there is of course some risk associated with your child being back at school. It may be a very necessary risk, and based on what we do know, it is likely a low risk, but depending on your own circumstances, that may be more or less comfortable. If you tell your child, “yes, of course it’s safe to go back to school!” and then follow it up with “but don’t touch your friends, and stay away from that kid with the runny nose, and make sure you wash your hands twice as often as the teacher tells you” your child is probably going to pick up on that worry. Practice confidently saying, “yes, it’s safe to go back to school. Your teachers and all the parents are working hard to make sure you and all the children will be safe.” On the flip side, saying “aren’t you so excited to go back to school? It’s going to be so fun! You’ll have the best time. It’ll be so much better than when you were so bored home with me for the past few months” may also ring hollow for kids who might pick up on your ambivalence. Best to stick with what they’re feeling, whatever it is, and only after that start to offer ways to respond to those feelings or share your own feelings, thoughtfully.
4a. You may be surprised to realize you have enjoyed parts of being home with your children more than you realized. The overwhelm of the unexpected ways you’re needing to care for your child or children may be intense enough right now that the moments of fun don’t alleviate that feeling significantly. Once your child is back at school, though, you might start to notice that there were a lot of little things that you got to witness or experience that now you simply don’t have as much opportunity to see. Even more, if your child is going to a full day program, the times you have with your child once they’re back at school will be focused on more mundane “task-oriented” work, getting dressed, bathing, eating, brushing teeth. While there’s certainly fun to be had around each of these, they may be more rushed, and less enjoyable. Allow yourself to mourn the loss of the little moments and find times that you don’t have to rush to be more playful or plan special treats that you can enjoy together.
Remember: things are continuing to change. One of the hardest parts about the pandemic (and about life in general) has been the not knowing. As we get deeper into this pandemic, we have a little more info, but there’s still so much that we don’t know, and there’s a lot that could change again. When talking to your kids about changes, avoid rigid language like “rules” around things we know are not so constant. Yes, the rules right now might require temperature checks and masks and social distance, and shifting our language to be more flexible as in “what we are doing right now” or “what we are not doing right now” allows us to leave open the possibilities for changes that will happen sooner or later. Plus, kids going back to school are going to talk to their friends, some of whom will be doing things a little differently at home. We want to leave space to acknowledge that some families are making different choices. If we talk about it as “breaking the rules” we’re setting ourselves up for a really complicated conversation when friends are making different choices, when things inevitably change again, or when we need to “break the rules” ourselves.
Even for kids who have been to the exact same school before, this is still a big transition for your whole family. For kids who started school last fall, they’ve spent half as much time out of school as they did in school. And for the littlest ones, the past three months represent a huge percentage of their lives! Three months to a three-year-old is like three years to a 36-year-old! It’s like that time three years ago when I used to go running regularly… For most children, it will take time for them to readjust to being back at school, to the new home routine, to being away from you. So when it gets challenging, keep in mind, the process of adjusting and responding to all the feelings that come up through transitions is something we all benefit from practicing (see #5). And if it gets really challenging, I’m here to help: contact me to schedule a time to connect.