10 Tips for Creating a Positive Transition Back to School

With just over a week left of summer holidays, fall is quickly approaching and that means it is time to get back into a school routine. For some kids, the transition back to school can be challenging and stressful with many unknowns. From a new classroom and teacher, or perhaps even a new school, it can be a lot to experience.

To minimize back-to-school stress, our speech language pathologists and occupational therapist have put together these 10 tips to help ease your child back into the classroom and have a positive experience.

1. Practice morning and evening routines

   
   

   Start practicing your morning and evening routine now. Use a visual schedule to show them each step of the routine. This can build independence and reduce stress when they know what they need to do next. A visual schedule can also be helpful for children with difficulties understanding and following directions or using language. Use the visual schedule to help children follow simple or more complex directions, and later to teach sequential and temporal concepts such as first/then and before/after by giving instructions such as first brush your teeth, then pack your lunch or before you brush your teeth, eat your breakfast.  

   
   

   

   
   

   If your schedule is different than the one provided, feel free to create your own by taking pictures of your child doing the actions at each step of the routine. Visit Occupational Therapy Helping Children for tips on creating your own visual schedule.

To help with bigger transitions, such as leaving the house or going to bed you can use a visual timer to show your child how much time they have left before they transition to the next activity. We love visual timers and use them regularly in our clinic!

2. Try on and wash new clothes

   
   

   Try on and wash new clothes several times before your child wears them. This will make clothes more comfortable. To eliminate unnecessary meltdowns and discomfort, make sure your child feels comfortable wearing new clothes before the first day of school. It is also important to have your child practice zipping and unzipping coats, tying and untying shoes, and buttoning and unbuttoning clothing for success and independence.

3. Pack familiar food

   
   

   Pack food that is familiar to your child. Avoid new flavors and textures as this can sometimes bring about negative feelings and will leave your child upset and hungry. Save food experimenting for evenings and weekends when your child is in a comfortable and save environment.

4. Pack a chewy snack

   
   

   Include something chewy in your child’s lunch. This can be especially helpful if your child becomes dysregulated easily. Chewing something like fruit to go, fruit leather, carrots, pepperettes or gummy bears can be calming and delicious.

5. Minimize number of snack containers

   
   

   Use Bento boxes or similar containers to minimize the number of containers your child is required to open and close during nutritional breaks. Bento boxes are often easier to open. Allow your child to practice opening and closing food containers, snack packages and water bottles to increase confidence and independence. Remove snacks from their packages and place in an easy to open container.

6. Discuss the best part of summer

   
   

   Talk to your child about their most memorable part of summer vacation. During the first week of school, teachers often ask students to share either verbally or in writing their most memorable summer activity. To make this task easier for your child, have them pick some of their favorite pictures of the event or activity. If your child has difficulty expressing themselves, either due to social anxiety, shyness or an expressive language delay, it helps to have pictures to go along with what they want to describe. Pictures can also help your child organize their thoughts for when they put their ideas on paper.

7. Practice making new friends

   
   

   Organize play dates with another child similar in age to help practice and build confidence making new friends. Before the play date, practice greeting and introducing yourself, taking turns during play that involves building something together (Lego, train tracks, blocks, forts), making comments, asking for help and making requests during a simple craft activity. Model simple and age-appropriate language for your child to use with their play mate and avoid longer question forms such as Can I have a turn? or Can I play with the blue train? These types of language models can sometimes be difficult for children to repeat and use on their own. Instead try It’s my turn, It’s your turn, I want the blue train, or I like...

   
   

   Plan the activities ahead of time and choose toys and games that are familiar to your child. Constructive play activities are a great choice for play dates so children can practice taking turns and working together to build something.   

   
   

   Crafts can also be a great activity to do with your child and their play mate. To encourage communication and practice asking for the item they need to make their craft, provide only one glue stick, one of each colour marker or crayon, and one pair of scissors. This also fosters sharing and taking turns.

   
   

   During snack time, model appropriate comments and questions that can be used to make small talk. For example, make comments about what you like or don’t like. Use simple language such as I like..., My favorite..., What is your favorite snack? If your child is non-verbal, make sure to pre-program some commonly used age-appropriate phrases such as Ew gross, Yummy, I like..., and My favorite snack is....

The Child Mind Institute provides great tips on helping your child make friends.

8. Create a back-to-school scavenger hunt

   
   

   Create a back-to-school scavenger hunt as a fun way to get ready for the first week of school. It's a great way to help your child become familiar with specific objects, images or words related to school themes. You can create a list of common school items and have your child find them. Practice speaking about what they have found and describing how the item is used. Scavenger hunts are a great way to keep your child engaged while working on language skills such as vocabulary, following directions, categorizing and word retrieval. This activity can be done with younger and older kids and is fun for the whole family!

9. Teach and practice self-advocacy skills

   
   

   Teach and practice self-advocacy skills with your child. This can be as simple as teaching them when to say stop to a friend or peer and asking for help from a nearby teacher. If your child has difficulty with speech and language and can be difficult to understand, practice using appropriate gestures such as a hand in front of their body to signal stop.

10. Meet the teacher as soon as possible

    
    

    Finally, if you have any concerns about your child’s overall well-being, speech, language and literacy skills, fine motor skills, or sensory processing skills, it is important to set up a meeting with your child’s teacher as soon as possible.

    
    

    Arrive at your meeting with your concerns written down and if your child is not already involved with a speech language pathologist, psychologist or occupational therapist, request that their teacher refer them to the school board or local children’s treatment centre. You can also reach out to our team at Aspire Speech and we would be happy to answer any questions or schedule an assessment with one of our therapists.

We wish you all the best for a fun and successful new school year!