Getting Ready for “Back to School” Season With Your Neurodivergent Child
I know it feels like summer just started and I’m guessing that you are either feeling like you can’t wait for school to start again or it feels like you haven’t done any of the stuff that you were hoping to do and it just feels like it went too fast. But we are more than half way through and with kids who like routine and consistency, starting to get prepared now can help the transition go as smoothly as possible. Don’t get me wrong back to school may still be a hard couple of weeks but a little preparation can make things go quite a bit easier.
Here are some ways to start transitioning your neurodivergent child to “back to school” now to make it as easy as possible:
1. Start talking about back-to-school with your neurodivergent child now
Whether your neurodivergent kid is excited about going back to school or dreading it, talking to them about the fact that the transition is going to happen soon will be really helpful for everyone. If your child has anxiety about going back to school it might help to talk with them about what the days will be like and maybe even how the two of you will work together to make things easier this year than they were last year. It can also be helpful to talk about what will be different this year and what will be the same. For some kids, it is helpful to use a calendar so that they can see how long it will be until school starts again.
2. As time gets closer, do some run-throughs
Try to learn as much as you can about your child’s schedule and what is planned for them this coming year, as early as possible. Start by just talking about what school will be like. Let them think about that for a while and ask any questions that they may have.
Go to the school and talk about where you will drop them off and pick them up. Show them where their classroom will be and if it is a new school go to the cafeteria, playground and library. Let them play on the playground and talk about the friends they made the year before that will be there again.
Talk about what some of the differences this year will bring and what higher expectation will be expected of them. If you know about the bigger projects and what the field trips will be, talk about those as well.
3. Start to move closer to the schedule that you and your neurodivergent child will need.
One of the hardest parts about the transition back to school is the actual schedule change. Everyone in the house is used to staying up late and sleeping in. This makes for really grumpy children and miserable families. So start as early as possible slowly moving the schedule back to the school schedule. For example, if right now everyone is staying up until 9:30 but the kids need to go to bed 7 for the school year start moving bed time earlier by about 5 minutes every couple of days and then if this doesn’t just automatically move their wake up time do the same in the morning.
One of the important things to remember is that it is still summer and some days it is going to be harder to get the kids to bed early than others. All you can do is try so don’t be hard on yourself if a couple nights time gets out hand and you get the kids to bed even later than normal. Just keep trying every little bit will help when school starts. Don’t forget that there are other routines that get off a bit during summer. So remember to slowly working on the routines around meal times and getting ready for the day as well as any other that you can think of.
4. Talk about what went well the year before for your special needs child and what didn’t.
Another thing that might help is to talk about the year before with your child and family. Figure out what went well and what everyone would like to see more of in the coming year and where the struggles were. When it comes to the struggles it is important to try to talk about how your child’s strengths might help to overcome or circumvent whatever the struggles were.
With some kids, it can be really important to problem solve the struggles together so that they feel like they have some say in what happens to them and they feel like things are not just happening to them. Some kids if you talk to them about what happened might be able to give you some insight into what was hard for them and might come up with a really creative way to work with the issue. For some kids, it might just help for you to acknowledge that something didn’t work well the year before and you know that something needs to be adjusted.
5. Do what you can to enjoy your summer with your child.
Lastly, remember that you only have so many summers with your child while they are young, and do your best to enjoy the summer with them. It could be really helpful for you and your child to talk to them about what they would like to do before school starts and what they would like to do more with you. That way when school starts they aren’t upset that school started before they got to do something special they had not communicated with you that they wanted to do.
6. Involve your neurodivergent child in the preparation process.
Have them help you get ready. Let them pick out some of their back-to-school clothes and get their input on what their backpack and lunch box will look like. Even take them with you to fulfill the materials list so that they can help you find things. Often this can help your child too excited about and look forward to the first day of school.
If the transition to back to school is harder than you think especially with a neurodivergent child remember that transitions are hard. Give yourself credit for what you did do to help get everyone ready for back to school and just take note of what you would like to do next year. Be easy on yourself and remember that you are only human. It’s important to also try enjoy the summer and the time you have with your child. You can only do what you can and the end of summer will be here before you know it.
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