With another school year around the corner, it’s time to dust off the cobwebs collecting on the backpacks and lunch boxes tossed in some closet last June and recognize that those “back to school” sales we see just about everywhere are not for “other people” any more but our own kids!

As you collect the necessary back to school supplies from your local stores, you can help your kids considerably by sliding into the back to school features the summer temporarily snatched away.

For the last 2 months, we’ve been in the anti-school year schedule:

• Sleep: Sleep tends to be more free in the summer with later bed times, wake up times and no set schedule.
• Nutrition: Fruits and veggies may be more abundant but people also indulge on more ice cream and treats at barbeques they don’t often eat at other times of year.
• Exercise: Many kids are either not in camp, in “indoor” camps or in sports camps that focus on just one sport and not overall fitness, so kids are actually less active in the summer than in the past.
• Activities and Hobbies: Most kids put on hold the activities they pursue rigorously over the school year – music, art, even some sports.
• Reading: Many schools have reading expectations for the summer so most kids do read each summer.
• Technology: For most kids, especially tweens and teens, they’ve had much more use of technology over the summer than in the school year and likely without the oversight that you’d normally have over the school year.

If you make small tweaks now, by the time school starts in the next few weeks, are kids will feel as if they have the upper hand on the new school year before it even begins. Here are the high points to consider:

• Sleep: You can change your kids’ biological clocks from summer to school  by moving them to an earlier bedtime and having them wake up with an alarm for 3-5 days before the first day of school.
• Nutrition: In addition to needing three meals a day, kids eat healthier when they help make meals. Try that out this month and then continue it in the school year.
• Exercise: Growing kids need daily exercise, even if they play team sports. And, kids who play sports need a break once in a while or they risk overuse injuries.
• Activities and Hobbies: The best rule of thumb is to slide into the school year and see what the work load is like before adding too many new activities, especially if activities are already in place from last year. And, to remind your child it isn’t the end of the world to try something new and drop it if they don’t like the activity or it’s too much for their schedule.
• Technology: Whatever your usual technology plan is for the school year, now is the time to regroup on that and revisit expectations that make sense once homework kicks in.

If you enjoy today while being realistic about tomorrow, tomorrow can be enjoyed much more, even if it is the first day of school!

Are you an “opt in” teen parent or an “opt out” teen parent? And, does it matter? I think it does!

My daughter recently participated in Relay For Life with some friends in her freshman high school class and I was stunned to discover that the parents were harder to rally than the teens. Read on.

Relay is an amazing event. Organized nationally by the American Cancer Society, this one event teaches teems the true value of teamwork, community service, and volunteerism.

The American Cancer Society always makes it easy to participate in these events between their printed materials, website and meetings.  However, because the teams are teens, lead by teens, there does need to be adult involvement to pull this off and to keep the event safe. In addition to implying that parents be involved behind the scene, there’s a strict chaperone requirement for the entire 12 hour overnight.

Parent involvement started a month before the event by requiring a signed permission slip. That part occurred easily. Multiple phone calls, emails and Facebook posts began around the same time outlining deadlines, needed supplies and the chaperone requirements.  It took my husband getting involved a week before to pull that together. Parents, in general, were resistant to commit.

Our team pulled it off in the end. A few other teams were not so lucky and were prohibited from participating because not a single parent would step up to chaperone. And, on a few teams, teens intending to participate failed to show up with their supplies because their parents wouldn’t let them participate at the 11^th hour without warning.  We heard through the grape vine that social plans were the typical reason.

Weekends are crazy for everyone and I’m not suggesting we all volunteer for every event our kids consider doing. However, not all events are made equal. We should be applauding the mature and altruistic interests of our kids and bending over backwards to help them fulfill their goals. Those are the events we need to be involved with. Those are the events we should be pausing our lives for in order to bear witness to our kids’ lives. Those are the events, in fact, we should put a priority on for our teens because they teach our teens important skills that will help shape their future lives.

So, don’t blindly “opt out” of volunteer events involving your teen until you are sure you won’t be kicked in the face later on by doing so. Social time is something we can always carve out more of but time to support our teen and the causes important to them is time limited with graduation day being the end point.

Wouldn’t you rather be part of the action and witness first hand your teen doing the amazing things your teen is trying to do than end up sitting in the parents’ section on graduation day wishing you had?

Q)
Dear Dr. Gwenn:

My daughter is 3 ½ years old. I just spent the last year raising her alone while my husband was in Korea. Since we are a military family, our lives change every so often when it has to. Lately our daughter takes up to 3 hours to go to sleep, we have left her by herself and we have to take her back into her room at least 6 times. We’ve tried reading stories in her bed and staying in her room until she falls asleep. On occasion, she has lain in our bed for hours before falling asleep.

During the evening struggles, she often throws fits and kicks and screams. I need help!!! This is affecting my marriage and now I have become one of those mothers that I didn’t want to become with a spoiled child. Please help!!!

Thank you,
Rebecca

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Attending conferences and events, I’m always amazed by the new parenting devices and  gadgets that appear on the market. What’s timeless, however, are the questions parents have about the health of their young families.

Here’s a sampling of those common parents of new babies or of young children typically ask:

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There’s nothing in the world like child’s play. During child’s play, carefree is the number one rule and everything is guided by imagination and impulse. Nothing is impossible in child’s play because nothing in the world seems out of reach!

As life’s issues pile up, we slowly start to forget how to be that carefree and have fun as we did as kids.  I’ll let you in on a little secret: you can still have fun like a child and be an adult. In fact, it’s a necessity to be a healthy adult, and a great parent. All it takes is recognizing the inner child within you again.

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