Is your child starting secondary school this time …Here is the important stuff to keep in mind.

Is your child starting secondary school this time …Here is the important stuff to keep in mind?

Most important for parents, above all else (ironed on name tags, P.E kit etc) is to check in with themselves, are you anxious? Are you transmitting that anxiety through asking too many questions, keep fussing and checking your child is ok?

This stuff that parents do is perfectly understandable, but what this does is send the message to the young person that there is ‘something’ to worry about. The child begins to feel/think that ‘maybe this school stuff is scary and maybe I won’t cope’.

For some parents, their own school experience was not a great one. Maybe they felt anxious, they were excluded or bullied, however that will not necessarily be the same for your child and it might be useful to think about what makes you and your child different (characteristics, resilience, family set up, life circumstances ect)

Practical tips

Don’t plan much in the month of September, everything should be low key, homework routine, sleep routine and provide enough down time to process the change.

Listen to worries, don’t try to solve them. The child does not want you to come up with a solution, they want you to understand their worries, attune to them and imagine what it feels like to have those worries. It may be useful for parents to think of a time when you were experiencing a huge change that took you out of your comfort zone and induced feelings of anxiety and inadequacy whilst trying to process the loss of something familiar (your child will be thinking about primary and processing that as a loss in some way)

These worries are best listened to in the car sometimes, when eye to eye contact is not required.

Travel – Some parents feel more comfortable taking the child to school on the first day, that’s great as you can have a chat in the car and keep it as relaxed as possible. For the return journey, my advice would be that your child travels home on the bus if that is the long-term travel arrangement. The next day, he goes on the bus to and from school. The school bus IS the start of the school day, its where friendships are formed, homework is copied and they get to find their place in the school pecking order.

This is an obvious one. If you have a friend with an older child in the school can an arrangement be made that he will try and find your child at dinnertime (in a casual way) and check he is ok. You could offer a money incentive to the older child, not much (£1) but it may be a motivator for him/her to stick her head round the dinner hall door.

If your child starts to suffer with stomach ache, headaches, dizziness, light headed then they are probably starting with consistent anxiety. Again, a car journey conversation may open up a discussion about the anxieties. If it is friend related (lack of friends) YOU NEED TO CONTACT SCHOOL and speak to pastoral. There will be groups and clubs in break time and dinner time that your child can try. The pastoral people will know of other children struggling and they can suggest that they buddy up, they may never be lifelong friends but it can carry your child through the transition period.

Some other big changes that your child will need to navigate:

• Make 3 copies of the timetable. They will lose them in the early days
• Make sure you child gets a phone number of somebody in his subjects for when they are unsure of homework that has been set.
• Encourage your child to get into the habit of writing info/homework in his planner before he stands up to leave the class, as soon as he is out the door the chances of it going in the planner are slim.

·       Packing different books on different days (keep the timetable pinned on the wall near the front door)

·       Different teachers with different teaching styles and varying degrees of patience. Speak to your child about the possibility that there will be more shouting from teachers, but make it clear it is not directed at them it is a way to gain attention from chatty pupils. NOT ALL TEACHERS WILL USE THE BEHAVIOUR POINT SYSTEM IN THE SAME WAY!

·       Dinner money and dinner line, food is no longer bought to them by a smiling dinner lady, they need to be organised and get in the queue at the earliest opportunity.

Life will seem hard for them in the first few weeks, lots to remember, lots to organize so try to keep the questions to a minimum (in my experience they haven’t got the brain space and can’t be bothered to converse at length)

The most important thing is to transmit the message that this is just the next phase, you understand it is hard and different, but so are lots of things we try to master at first. Be as relaxed as you can with it and the anxiety will dissipate for both you and your child.  

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Please note my user name is shadow king as my son changed it and I have to wait 90 days to change it back !! I know kids !