Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlin Childress.

And on this episode, I am revisiting a

podcast episode that I've actually published twice now,

and it's called Back to School Shit show where I walk you through

five tips to help you with the school

transition. And I wanted to re release it because

it's still really an issue for parents. Of course, right,

because kids all of a sudden have to wake up early, they have to get

their backpacks ready, they have to get to school. And it's not

going to be just summer camp and fun or lay around and watch

television or play on their iPad or go into the pool or

to the lake. It is kind of like going back to work for them.

And they're excited, they have big feelings, they're nervous.

You know, they don't know who's going to be in their class yet. Maybe you

guys did a little roundup, but still they're not quite sure what the vibe is

going to be. And they might have a little bit of anxiety, a little bit

of excitement, a little bit of dread. If you have older

kids, middle schoolers, they're transitioning into where they're going

to have different classes and different periods and different teachers, they

might have PE for the first time. High schoolers, they

are excited to see their friends again. And also they have a

lot of social pressure to look a certain way and feel a certain way.

So there's just a lot going on for children and for teens when they

go back to school. And there's a lot for moms as

well. So it's definitely a transition. And during

transitions, really special challenges come up that I wanted to

walk you through on this episode. The other thing I want to remind

you, and I don't think I mentioned it in this episode, is

that you can go slow. I was just coaching a

mom this week and. And she was like, okay, school starts in three

weeks and I really think we should start back in our morning routine.

I was like, wait, what? No, don't pre

routine your kids because it won't feel genuine and they're still

gonna be in the school transition anyways. So I would just recommend

you slowly get back into that school routine. Don't

add chores yet. Don't add extra new stuff. I know,

like, for me, when I start something new, I wanna, like, start

off right and be really intentional. And I put a lot of pressure on

myself and my kids to, you know, do it all, like

100%. And I want to caution you that allow

for the transition to take place over the course

of the next two or three weeks. Like, it's okay

if you're late a little bit. It's okay if someone forgets their

lunchbox or, you know, they have a big meltdown before school

because their socks are itchy. Just allow that

process and don't make it mean anything about the whole school year

or about your kids or yourself. Just allow the

transition to take place. And if you're still having issues

after two weeks, two and a half weeks, then maybe you want to reach

out to me, get some help, Join the Calmomma Club. We can walk through your

morning routines and give you some really good strategies.

So this episode is going to be really helpful in walking you through five things

to think about that will happen over the next couple of weeks.

And I want to point out to you that I have a couple other episodes

that might be really, really helpful. One is a back to school

mindset episode just for you. And we'll link this in the

show notes. And this is episode 80. And then I also

have two different episodes about

making mornings easier. One is episode 30,

and then the other one is actually a whole entire

roadmap for your mornings. And you can get that on my website

or we'll link it into the show notes and I kind of walk you through

kind of how to set up your morning routine, what needs to be done at

what time, and all of that. So that's a really good resource for you.

So I really, I'm wishing you all great back to

school vibes. I was in my Pilates class this morning

and the teacher was saying that at her kid's school on the first

day of school, all the moms or whoever, they hook up

and they meet up at a restaurant and they have big mimosas.

And I think that's super fun and not

necessarily the drinking part, but just that celebration that you made it

to the end of the summer. Some of you might be feeling sad. That's fine.

Some of you might be feeling happy. That's fine. Our family

tradition, I don't know if I shared this, is that we really did

not like that summer ended and we loved

summer and we felt sad that we all had to go back to

school and that it was so hot and everyone was

like, so discouraged. And I remember Lincoln, when he went to

kindergarten, I picked him up, it was like a half day and

he was just like, oh, it's so hot. And you know, I don't like school.

And he was complaining Some of the things I talk about in this episode. And

I said, you know what? Let's just pretend that summer's not over and let's just

jump in the pool. And so we said, first day of school, jump in the

pool. And the three of us, Sawyer, Lincoln and I, all jumped in the pool

fully dressed in our regular school clothes. And that became a

tradition that we did for the next 18 years or whatever,

12 years. So create a little tradition if

you want some. Something that you do with your friends, something that you do with

yourself or with your family to really commemorate the end of the

summer and this back to school vibe. And just try to,

you know, go with the flow as much as you can and enjoy it.

And also, please enjoy this episode of Back to School Shit Show.

I think you're gonna love today's episode because I am talking

about something that's probably on your mind. And I'm calling this episode

the Back to School Shit show because I guess I want to

normalize that the transition back to school

from summer break is not usually

seamless. It is definitely a transition.

And I just want you to be prepared for

the shenanigans that might happen with your kids and

also help you have the right mindset going into

the next couple of weeks so that you don't lose

your mind, right? I want you to have a good mindset, right,

so you don't lose your mind. I'm going to get right into some of the

nitty gritty in the early part of this episode because I know

that sometimes you know your moms and you might get

distracted and not get to finish an episode. So I want to

give you the five things that you need to know right

as school starts. The first one is

that I want you to understand that your kid, they might not like

their teacher. Especially if you have younger kids like

kinder one, two, preschool, even third,

fourth, elementary school. You kind of want them to

like their teacher. When you have an elementary school kid, you may have a child

who doesn't warm up to the teacher. I just want you to know that that's

okay. That doesn't mean anything about your kid being, oh, they're so shy,

or, or they're not a very warm kid,

or, oh, this is gonna be such a hard year because they don't like their

teacher. I just want you to know that your

kids, they might be shy with their teacher and they might not want to talk

to them, and that's just normal. So I don't want you

to make your kids behavior A problem. I don't want you to be like, go

hug your teacher. You know, you'll see all their kids hugging the teacher and being

super sweet. And you might feel self conscious. You might think your kid's

like, social. And I just want you to know that

quality relationships take time to build and that

your kid might not warm up to their teacher right away. And that is

not a problem. So that's the first thing I wanted you to know.

The second is that I really think this is probably

the most important thing I'm going to say is that your

kids are going to be exhausted the first week of

school. This is just true. It is important

that you keep the afternoons open. You might

be tempted to plan like a big play

date or big back to school picnic in the

park and things like that. And you can plan those things.

But I want you to be a little flexible and know that your kids might

just not be up for it. Going back to school is very

tiring for them. They have to sit still. Even if you have

teenagers, they have to sit in a desk, they have to listen to their teacher.

They have like a lot of input, you know, sensory input going on.

I want you to be ready for that

exhaustion. Really my

recommendation is that you keep that first

hour after pickup so screen free.

There might be a temptation to have your

kids go on a screen to like decompress or come down.

But moving to a screen shortly after getting home, it will

make it a little bit hard for your child's like activated stress

response to reset itself and catch up. So instead of just

kind of letting them disconnect on the screen or a video game or watching

YouTube or watching TV or something. Want you to think about how can

I use this time to connect with them, like playing a game or hanging

outside or doing some of the things that you've been doing all summer, just

doing those in the afternoon and doing, you know,

allowing for some of that reset time, knowing that that

first week of school, your kids are probably going to be pretty exhausted.

The third thing that I would like to caution you about as

kids go back to school, that sibling conflict might

shoot through the roof during this back to school transition.

The way to move through, like decrease

sibling squabbles is by creating special

time. Your kids are going to need individual one on one

time with you most days right after school or, you

know, shortly after pickup. I call that period of time right after

pickup eyeballs, because that's the time where your kid kind of really

needs to connect with you. So if you have two that you pick up at

the same time, that's fine. Or three or four. However many you have,

you can get everybody situated at home, get them playing a game, get them

reading a book, get them playing outside. And then you can kind of pull each

child in and just say, hey, I want to hang out with you and spend

10 minutes, five minutes, you know, whatever you can spare

with each kid. And that can just look like playing what they want

to play. They're kind of playing Legos, or they're playing dolls, or they're playing

house or they're jumping on the trampoline or, you know, they're, I don't

know, whatever your kids do, going and doing that thing with them

alongside of them doesn't have to be talking.

You can actually just be in their presence and maybe wait

for the stories to come. Or maybe they're not going to need to say anything

to you. Just having that special time with just you is going to

be huge. Huge. It will really help. You have

fewer sibling conflicts. Okay, I know that's what you want

is to have less fighting with your children and less annoying

behavior with your kids. So doing this special time

is like an antidote. Is that the word, antidote

to sibling conflict? Okay, number four,

social stuff is going to come up.

This is going to happen. It happens at almost

every age. You got preschoolers who

are struggling with friendships. You've got middle schoolers

who are not sure how they navigate how they fit in. You've got high

schoolers who now people have boyfriends and girlfriends and

they friends and all of that. Right? So the social stuff is going to be

there. Friendships shift over the summer. Kids mature. Some

kids get really into one video game over the summer and then they come back

and that's all they want to talk about. And you're kid didn't play Roblox all

summer or they didn't play Fortnite and you don't, you don't have anything to talk

about. Navigating friendships, it might be hard

for your kid. They might not know who to play with at

recess. They might not feel comfortable at drop off.

It might be difficult that social stuff. And I want you to

be okay with this. I don't want you to think

that your child is like antisocial or on the bad

path to like being with all the bad kids or whatever. Not that I don't

really think there are any bad kids. You might, but I don't. So

if you're thinking that, just realize that all of this

friendship Stuff, it just comes up in the beginning of the year. And

allowing some time and trust that your child's going to

navigate, they're going to find their people, they're going to find their friend group and

it's going to be okay. So the more comfortable

you are with your child's discomfort, the easier it

will be for your child to move through their big

feelings. Because they're like, am I okay? Am

I gonna be okay? Nobody likes me. And then they look

at you and they really want to feel like they're getting this

feedback of like, no, no, no, honey, you're gonna be fine. But if

they're looking at you and you're thinking, ooh, I don't know,

are you going to be okay? They might adopt that thought. I'm not

okay. I'm not going to be okay. The more comfortable you are,

even when your child is struggling, the easier it is for your child.

That's kind of cool. Number five.

I'm sorry to share this one. Expect

misbehavior to escalate over the next two

weeks. Once school starts, whenever. If you're in it right now,

mamas, you're in the back to school shit show right now.

That's fine. You're seeing it currently. The misbehavior is

escalating. If you're just starting school, get ready because

it's coming. You're going to have more big feeling

cycles. Remember, a big feeling cycle is sort of what I call like

how I label a temper tantrum. Big feeling

cycle is an intense emotional reaction to a

circumstance. Your child has their big feelings and

they come out through complaining and crying and

negotiating and anger and whatever the big

feelings are and how they show up, right? So you're gonna have

more of those. We want to think about big feeling cycles,

intensity, duration and frequency.

So hopefully, if you've been practicing your KA mama skills, you know, the last

few months, then you're going to be able to help your

child move through these fast. So they won't last as long. So

you're gonna have decreased duration. Hopefully they're not as intense

because you've been practicing compassion in the middle of these feeling cycles.

But what is going to happen is that they're gonna increase in

frequency. You might be like, what the heck is going on?

How come they're so like, this is just a. It's a shit show.

Remember that? This is just happening, right? You're gonna have more resistance,

you're gonna have more feelings. Your child's just

going through a lot they're coping with a lot. They're having to use

all their good coping strategies at school all day. And

then they come home and they have that bra off feeling, right? Like that

relaxed feeling. And they're like,

now I'm just gonna let it all out.

And so your kids behavior is a strategy

that they are using to communicate or cope with their big

feelings when they're in those big feeling cycles. Pause.

Take that pause. Break. Take care of yourself. Reset

your own emotional and nervous system and then get

curious so that these are these five

things that I want you to be looking out for. I'll repeat

them just that your kids, they might not like their teacher. That's

okay. Your kids might be really exhausted the first week of school.

That's okay. Sibling conflict may happen.

Special time is the antidote. Number four. Social stuff is going to

come up, friends stuff, things like that. And then you're going to

have a lot more misbehavior and big feeling cycles. I share all

this because I love the ideal day and thinking, a

positive parenting vision and all of those things when we are kind of

anticipating good things. But I also know that

some circumstances are just difficult. I don't want you

to go into this school year feeling worried or

dread because of what I've just said. I actually want you to feel

confident. I want you to feel ready. I want you to be able to

feel calm when this stuff is happening and hopeful. I'm going to

give you a few thoughts that I think

will help you in this transition. These

are the thoughts that are going to help you feel confident,

calm, ready and hopeful. So one of my favorite thoughts when I am

in a transition, when the kids go back to school or the first couple

days of summer, or the first day or two of winter break, whatever it is.

I like to think this is a transition.

It is a really helpful thought for me and that's why I'm offering

it to you, because I then can add the second thought, which is

transitions are temporary. That's the whole purpose of the

word transition. I'm in between two stages. I was on

summer break and now we're moving to school

schedule and school rhythm. And this period of time is a

transition. So those thoughts are going to really serve you. Another thought.

It will take time to figure out our rhythm and routine.

So looking at these two weeks, the first two weeks of school, as like kind

of exploration, like curiosity. Wow. Where

are the things that are difficult? Where's the friction in our

rhythm? Where's the friction in our routine? What's not working? What is

working? Giving yourself permission to think,

I'm going to figure this out and it's going to take some time. And

then offering to yourself, I have plenty of time. You mamas,

you don't have to get it right. That first week of school,

you're gonna get to school, there's gonna be a carpool line mess up, it's

gonna be really long. You know, you're gonna try to get to pickup and there's

not gonna be any parking because no one has worked out their carpool yet. You

know, moms and dads are dropping off and moms and moms and all the people

are there at school, people are staying longer

at drop off. Like it's going to be difficult and

so you don't have to have it all worked out just perfectly. The

school also knows that this is a transition. They've done it many,

many times, right. Many years. So you can,

you can figure it out. You can give yourself time and permission. One of

my thoughts, and I'm going to talk about this now, is

that your job, my job as a mom and your job that I'm going to

teach you is to create a gentle handoff each morning and

at each pickup. I'm going to teach you this concept of a gentle handoff in

a minute. But I want you to really think about this thought that that is

your job. Your job is to create a gentle handoff each morning.

What do I mean by gentle handoff? When you drop your kids off

at school, I want you to think, how can I

deliver the calmest, most

emotionally regulated human being as possible? What

is it going to take for me to deliver that kid

to that school? School gate? What it actually means is that you

are going to need to be really calm yourself and not be

completely obsessed with being on time of looking a certain

way of having the perfect lunchbox and like having all of the

right school supplies and you know, the, the shoes

being tied and ready and everybody, all the things all lined up.

If you are stressed and you're trying to reach some kind

of mother standard that you created in your head

and you're putting that pressure on your kids, they are going to feel

it, they're going to act out more because that's just what they do, that's how

they respond to pressure, is it creates more feelings and then more big feeling cycles

and you're going to end up dropping off a kid who just got yelled

at, who was shamed, who was threatened, you know, is

stressed. Your stress is Going to, it's contagious, but

so is your positive thinking. And so that's why these

thoughts of this is a transition. It's going to take time.

I can figure this out. I don't have to be perfect today.

Those thoughts are going to help you create that gentle handoff. Another

thought I want to offer to you is that this one is so great. It's

my kids are 100% going to

master the back to school routine. Just decide right now

that you as a family are going to figure this out. If you figure it

out on day two, excellent. If you'd figure it on day 100,

fine. You're gonna keep at it until you have a school routine

where you have peace and calm at drop off. That is

the goal. If you have kinder and first graders or whatever,

preschool and kinder little ones, then you have a

lot of years to figure out how to master the back to school routine.

That's an amazing gift, right? You have lots and lots and lots of time. You

might not get it this school year. Who cares? Fine, you're late. Who cares?

Realizing that you have a lot of time to master this routine

is going to free you from the pressure. And then also

if you thinking, I will master it, we will figure this out.

You're gonna have a lot of confidence. So these are the thoughts that I

love for you for as you go back to school. Thoughts are contagious.

Feelings are contagious. You are the leader in your home

and that means you set the standards both for operations like how it

goes and the mindset. So first comes the mindset

and then comes the operations. I actually

really want you to do this exercise. I want you to sit, pause

this or like come back to it, come back and say, okay, what I

want to do is I want to write a list of thoughts that I want

to be thinking during the first week of school. Or if you're already in school,

just be like, okay, next week what are my going to be my

thoughts, particularly in the mornings and you can borrow the ones

I listed. Go back, listen to them again, write down how do you want to

be thinking? Because these thoughts are going to create

emotion in you and from your feelings, you're going to

show up differently. When you're feeling calm, you're going to show up

differently. As a parent, when you're feeling committed to your rhythm and routine,

you're going to have a lot more confidence. So I really want you to do

that exercise because the thoughts you have are contagious and the

feelings are contagious. So your children are going to follow along with your

lead. If you're thinking, my kid is a mess, this is a

disaster. You're going to approach situations

from that mindset and you're probably going to feel stress from that

stress place. You're not going to be able to calmly teach your kids

the rhythm and the routine for you, especially in

the mornings. I'll do a whole episode on mornings. Really all about, like

this whole first week. If you are just thinking like, this is a

transition, we're gonna figure it out. There's no problem here. Plenty of time.

You're going to feel much better than thinking, I'm a mess, my kid's a

mess. This is a disaster. We're so far behind. Other moms figured it all out.

Other moms are better than me. Other moms know what to do. I'm telling you,

I work with amazing moms. The moms who look like they have

it all together, they come to coaching and they still feel

like I'm not doing good enough. So all the moms are just walking

around kind of feeling like, ah. And so you can have a lot of compassion

for them. You can have self compassion. And you actually don't need to buy

into some sort of perfect standard of

motherhood or being a parent or anything. We're all doing the

best we can, especially in the back to school shit

show. That's just. You're just in the middle of it and it's not a

problem and it's temporary. These are the thoughts I wanted to give to you as

you head back into school and you start this school year off. Yeah,

I'm sure that you have all sorts of feelings and so

hopefully this episode has helped you think a little bit

more ready, like ready for it. And also

just compassionate for you and for your kids and.

And you can just love yourself through it. That's what I want to leave you

with. Have a great week and good luck and I'll

be thanking all of you as you start this next school year.

All right, everybody, talk to you next time.