How to Prepare for the New School Year: 7 Problems for Parents and Children

After 2 weeks, the free life on vacation will end: some of the younger household members will go to school, some to the garden. And the family train will go on completely different tracks. To prevent this transition from becoming a cataclysm, it is important to start preparing for it now. Child and family psychologist Svetlana Royz prepared several rules to help you adapt to the beginning of the school year 

1. Daily regime

The abrupt transition from a state of rest to a working regime is stressful. Therefore, you can now gradually wake up in the morning and go to bed a little earlier in the evening.

2. Inspiration for study

During the summer months, there is a rollback in knowledge - on average to the second quarter of the previous year of study. And that is why the first few months of the school year, teachers engage in repetition with the children. Vacation homework is often given to keep the child in the learning process. It's great if in the summer he systematically studied in a free vacation mode (for example, foreign languages). For the remaining time before school, you can flip through notebooks at a calm pace, without pressure or compulsion, and, possibly, reference books for the previous year (or download from the Internet the curriculum for the subject and at least just look topic titles). If during the school year it is planned that the child will go to circles and sections, it is better to start practicing in August.

3. Zinc against stress

The first months of school (especially in a new school, in a new class) are also stressful. When a person is under chronic stress, their brain is deficient in zinc. This trace element affects the work of the part of the brain that helps us process and remember large amounts of information. Now is the time to start eating foods with zinc (liver, nuts, cocoa). If you are okay with vitamins or dietary supplements, you can connect them as well.

4. Meeting with the class before September 1

For introverted, shy children, who also spent the summer months alone, returning to the team is a burden and a possible source of stress. You can suggest that on some day remaining until September 1, the whole class should meet and go to the cinema or to a picnic. This will help to reduce anxiety and, possibly, show the facets that are difficult for the child to show in school.

5. Excursion to school

Before September 1, it is important to come to school, walk along the corridors, look at the new (or remember the old) office. If a child brings something of his own to the class - a book to the library, a flowerpot, a poster, a photograph - it is as if he puts an imprint “I am here”. This makes it easier to adapt and get used to the class. It's great if a common "newspaper" is made in the class with photographs of all students.

6. Summer as a keepsake

For those who tend to focus on the negative, who have “nothing good and will never be”, who tend not to notice good events and joys, you can make a collage from photographs (even taken with a mobile phone camera) of the most joyful moments of the summer, write down the most significant in the journal of memories, gratitude, success.

Medical examination is not for show: what kind of specialists you need to go through

In the hectic preparation for September 1, it is important not to forget to undergo a medical examination. Moreover, this should be done not for show, but conscientiously - so that, for example, an unpleasant incident in the form of loss of consciousness or something even worse does not happen in a physical education lesson.

“First of all, the child, together with the parents, must come to the district pediatrician or family practice doctor, and they determine the list of specialists and the scope of examinations that need to be performed, - said the doctor of the first category, pediatrician Tatiana Kravets. - The required minimum is a general analysis of blood and urine, an analysis of feces for the detection of worms and protozoa, scraping for enterobiasis. School-age children also need to do a Rufier test (assesses the performance of the heart during physical activity). "

Without fail, Tatyana Kravets advises showing the child:

ophthalmologist - he will give recommendations about the distance from the desk to the board, the load on the eyes;

neuropathologist - he will appreciate the neuropsychic development. It is better to come to this specialist for an examination with the opinion of an ophthalmologist (for a neurologist, an examination of the fundus is important);

otolaryngologist - he will talk about the peculiarities of the structure of the child's nasopharynx, about the tendency to diseases of the ear, throat and nose and give recommendations for their prevention. In the fall, in a new collective full of viruses, chronic sores can flare up with greater force. And nasal congestion interferes with the flow of oxygen to the brain, as a result of which the student quickly gets tired. Therefore, the recommendations of an otolaryngologist will be very useful, especially if the future student often suffers from respiratory diseases;

orthopedic surgeon - he will be able to identify violations of posture, tell you how high the desk should be for your child, how to choose a backpack, etc.;

dentist - a toothache can pull a child out of the educational process, so it is better to treat your teeth before the start of the school year.

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