Local school districts are in the process of announcing highly anticipated plans for the fall. No matter what those look like, parents can make their own plans to ease the transition back to class.
We know school administrators, teachers, and staff have worked tirelessly in an effort to start the academic year the safest way possible for everyone. Whether students go back to school in person, remotely, or a combination of the two, one thing is for sure – this school year will look and feel extremely different than anything our children have ever experienced. Prioritizing their mental health and well-being is critical during this stressful time, and, expert say, parents can do so by caring for themselves first.
“While it is expected that parents are anxious and uncomfortable themselves, by effectively managing their own emotional reactions they can positively impact their children’s mental health during this pandemic,” said Renee Dominguez, Ph.D., Executive Director, Family Service Center.
“Parents set the tone for their children who are seeing, hearing, and feeling the reactions. I believe that a positive, healthy parent response to this time of uncertainty sets children up for resiliently moving through it all.”
Dominguez and other mental health experts in our community provided this back-to-school advice for parents:
- React positively: Your children are listening.
- Accept, experience, and validate negative feelings: Take time to model feeling sad, disappointed, or anxious and working through those emotions. This gives children permission to feel emotions and teaches them to move through them rather than becoming stuck or suppressing them.
- Radically accept: Identify the elements that are out of your control, accept them, and shift your focus to the things you can control like your reactions and decisions.
- Pivot quickly: Adjusting to change is a life skill, and this pandemic is requiring us to use it more than ever.
- Adapt smoothly: Seek simple strategies, no need to make things complicated.
- Remain calm: Attitude is important.
- Show Resilience: Bend, don’t break.
While we are all processing what we’ve already heard or are still waiting for news about the start of school, we must recognize that things will shift continuously, so deciding now how we are going to handle the turbulence of the school year can help all of us manage in the months ahead.
