The school supply list is checked off and your child’s backpack is full, but are they actually ready for a new school year?
When it comes to getting back to routine after summer vacation, kids often need more than textbooks and a great breakfast to feel emotionally equipped to take on school. Set the children in your life up for success by practicing our ten favorite ways to excite and empower them for the school year ahead!
Ten Easy Ways to Empower Your Child and Boost their Mindset for School
- Show enthusiasm about school. Social learning theory states that kids often soak in the attitudes of those around them, so an easy way to mentally prepare them for school is by preparing yourself! Sharing how interesting the new year will be and looking forward to helping them with homework will allow them to approach school with those same feelings of excitement.
- Work on mindfulness and use our After-School Check-In template here. Sometimes, kids can encounter overwhelming or confusing moments at school. When this happens, it’s important that they know how to move past it. Teach them to practice deep breathing to calm themselves down, or how to silently name 5 things in a room to combat overwhelming feelings. As a bonus, try printing our After-School Koozie Catcher template here to emotionally check-in with children.
- Practice affirmations to boost confidence and self-esteem. The boost of empowerment that affirmations give us also works for kids, too! Affirmations can be spoken in the mornings before leaving for school, or even slid into lunch boxes on a Post-It Note to brighten up a child’s day. We love this list of 30 kid-friendly affirmations to boost confidence and reassurance.
- Help them reconnect with last year’s friends. For children, anxieties may rise when thinking about rocky friendships or old social circles. A great way to combat this is by arranging playdates (and parent meetups, too!) with friends from previous years or upcoming classmates to help them feel connected before their first day back.
- Read books together that are all about school. Whether your child loves to read independently or prefers to hear bedtime stories from you, incorporate more stories about school adventures into their book rotation. This works to subconsciously bring school to the top of a child’s mind, and helps get them excited to experience adventures of their own! We love this list of 100 school-based books for kids.
- Encourage independence and boost responsibility. Kids love to feel grown up and in charge of things, so lean into this by giving them responsibility where it makes sense in your family. This could mean allowing them to pick out their own clothes, choose their school supplies, pack their own lunch, take the bus, or look after a younger sibling after school. This will boost their sense of self-worth as they step up to the plate with new responsibilities!
- Remind them about the things they were great at last year. Positive reinforcement is a great tactic to boost a child’s self-confidence by reminding them about their past achievements. Help them recall times where they impressed you with their positive attitude, were kind to classmates and friends, any subjects or tests they performed well at, or great things teachers have said about them.
- Encourage kids to join clubs and sign up for activities. Children can feel anxious when bored, alone, or thinking about things they aren’t a part of. To combat anxiety, encourage them to learn new skills at clubs and sign up for more optional school-funded activities. This is a great way to empower them with lots of fun activities to look forward to, skills to learn, and new people to meet!
- Set personal goals with them for the months ahead. Sometimes, children can get stressed if they believe that their self-worth is attached to their grades. By helping set personal goals outside of school for them to work on (like learning to cook new dishes with you, getting outdoors more often, or working on organizational skills by writing in a planner) kids become less likely to worry if others’ love for them is attached to how well they do at school.
- Remind them that you are always there for them. For a child, knowing they have a safety net when they need it is invaluable. Remind the children in your life that you are always there for them— this is a vital and easy way to help them seize the school season with confidence knowing that a trusted, safe adult has always got their back.
