Back to School
By now, you have hopefully survived the first week of school and have begun to get into a good fall routine. After numerous trips for school supplies, uniforms, and books, and meetings with new teachers, you and your kids can now relax a bit and settle into your new schedule.
For our family, it is always the chance for a new start, a blank slate and we spend a lot of time talking to our eldest 2 daughters about what to expect in this new school grade, how to make the most of their education, how to make friends (and keep them!), first impressions with new teachers, and outlining our expectations of them so that we can all have a great year! It’s of even greater significance for our family to go through this exercise since mom and dad are the teachers too (we home school two of our children 2 days a week as part of the University Model School model school they attend).
One of the biggest challenges we personally face is in getting our 6th grader to take ownership of her school work. We want her to take pride in completing her assignments to the best of her ability and turning them in on time. Our school has a low tolerance for work turned in past the deadline and really wants to help teach kids early on the importance of meeting deadlines so that later on into adulthood, when it’s an important presentation for work, the sense of responsibility and self management has already been long established. For some great homework tips for parents, check out: http://www.newsforparents.org/expert_motivate_kids_homework.html.
Our live-in nanny/home educator, Katie, is a tremendous asset in assisting with our childrens’ learning and development. She made a trip to Teacher Heaven to update our home classroom with colorful bulletin boards and teaching tools, ordered all of our new books and uniforms, and helped get our dedicated space and “students” ready for a new school year! We recently decided that we would set aside time each week for a “book club” where she and I will read relevant books on raising children and discuss ways that we can implement some of the things we are both learning when working with the kids together so we are always on the same page and present a united front! Our first choice is “The Magic of Love & Logic” and I am already very excited about some of the great takeaways from this first read.
At Mom’s Best Friend, we want to support you during this sometimes stressful transition with all the tools and resources you and your family need! Let us know if we can help in any way.