Starting the School Year Right: Helping your child develop good habits
When is a great time to start a new habit?
Anytime there’s a change in your schedule or environment!
As children and teenagers start another year of school we can help them be intentional about what they want from their year. Just like in my previous blog post about reflection questions to ask your teenager at the end of the school year, I’m going to guide you through some questions to ask your child to help them reflect and plan out their year. I’ll also include some tips for how to develop good habits with your child for common trouble areas for elementary, middle, and high school students.
I’m a speech-language pathologist based in the Chicago area who specializes in working on language, reading, writing, and executive functioning. I absolutely love thinking about how I can help children, adolescents, and young adults to create the lives that they want through increased communication skills. Let’s get started thinking about how we can help your child have a successful year in school.
How do you develop new habits?
I work with my speech therapy clients on developing healthy studying, homework, and project management (think group project, essays, etc) habits all year round, but there is something magical about the start of a new year.
So how do you help your child or teen develop healthy habits?
Start working on a routine before there is a problem, aka at the beginning of the school year. Having a healthy routine to fall back on once school gets stressful helps students feel more in control, maintain self-care, and do their best.
You need to get buy-in from your child so that they can complete their routines independently. They should be the ones choosing which habits they want to develop. Give them some choices to choose from (options below in the reflection questions section) so that they feel invested in the process. It’s their life afterall!
You might need to help them more at the beginning, especially if your child is in elementary school, but the goal is for them to complete their routines automatically, by themselves.
Don’t let this become another area that they are “failing.”
Don’t worry if they aren’t successful right away. Celebrate the small wins!
“Last week you completed your homework routine zero times and this week you completed it twice! Nice progress! I wonder how many times you will do it next week…”
Reflection questions to start the school year
In order to help your child be invested in the process, guide them through thinking about what they want and need in the next year.
We are essentially following the same blueprint as my end-of-the-year questions with an added focus on routines: (1) what went well, (2) what didn’t go well, and (3) what needs to change?
How are you feeling about starting the school year?
Let’s get started with seeing how your child is feeling. If they are feeling very scared, sad, or worried about starting the next year, honor those feelings.
Are you feeling excited, nervous, scared, worried, or apathetic (meh)? Are you feeling a mixture of those emotions? It’s so common to feel a lot of different feelings when there is a big change. Personally, I’m very excited and nervous about you going back to school.
Share your feelings as their parent! Let’s normalize feeling a multitude of emotions that may even conflict with each other at times. Let’s manage feelings before we get into the nitty-gritty of setting new routines.
What are you excited about happening this next year?
This is another way of reflecting on what went well last year and the positives of this next year. It might be best to start with the positives with your child or end with the positives. You know your kid! Do what feels right. Follow the emotions they are sharing. Are they very excited about the next year? Start with the positives! Are they very nervous? It might be best to start with what they are nervous about for the next year.
What was great about last year that you want to be equally good this year?
Sports, clubs, other activities?
It’s important to think about what is working as well as what isn’t.
What are you not excited about?
If your child shared that they are really nervous, sad, scared, or apathetic about the next school year, it might be best to start with investigating what is bumming them out. Feel free to exaggerate with them. Many of my clients open up when I’m a little silly about how HORRIBLE, how ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE math class is going to be this year. Whatever gets them talking and reflecting is great!
What are you dreading about this next year?
What didn’t go well last year?
- Staying up late for homework?
- Not getting outside before online classes?
- Getting distracted by TikTok?
- Homework taking a long time?
- Stressed getting up in the morning?
- Always being late or losing things?
- Not having enough time with friends?
Giving some examples and non-examples can be helpful if you’re getting a lot of “I don’t know”s. Give them the opportunity to say yes and no to different options.
How can we make the stuff you dread less painful? How can we make this year easier?
These questions are a good way to transition into thinking about routines.
What habits do you think would be good to start or continue this year?
Get your child or teen to choose the habits that resonate with them. It’s important for them to get buy-in and gives them a chance to actually flex their self-reflection muscles. That said, definitely give them some options of things that you think they already do well (brushing their teeth every night, etc) and ideas for habits that might be helpful for them to develop.
Here are some options to help you begin reflecting:
Do you want to make getting ready in the morning less stressful?
Do you want to have homework take less time?
Do you want a more clean and organized workspace?
You might be thinking, “ugh my kid would never say this” but many of the students I work with loooove an organized space because they find it more calming.Want to go to bed earlier or have time to relax in the evening?
Want to spend less time searching for lost items like homework and notebooks?
Want long-term projects and papers to stress you out less?
Alright, phew! You’ve now gotten some buy-in by letting them choose what routines they want to start with. Feeling frustrated that they didn’t want to work on a homework routine when you knoooow that’s what they need most? Say, “Okay! Let’s see how homework is going after the first week in case we might want to try out something to make homework easier.
Example on How to Establish a Routine
Now you’ve gotten some buy-in, your child has practiced self-reflection and self-awareness skills, and you may have even chosen one or more routines that you want to work on. Now what?!
How can we build routines that work best for your child? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution because the routine has to work for your child’s unique situation. That said, I’m going to share steps to develop one often problematic routine: getting ready in the morning.
Finding a Morning Routine for Your Child in Elementary School
Your child has shared that they don’t like how they are always rushing in the morning. Great! Let’s work on that morning routine.
Brainstorm together about all of the tasks that need to get done before your child leaves for school. Tasks can include: get up, eat breakfast, put dishes in sink or dishwasher, brush teeth and wash their face, shower, prepare backpack for school, and put on shoes.
Think about what order makes the most sense for the activities. Should you put dishes in the sink before eating breakfast? No!
Turn the list you made into a checklist. They can check each task off for each day of the week. Then, at the end of the day, you can check in on how they felt and make connections with them. “Ohhh you felt stressed today. I notice you didn’t get up in time this morning. Maybe that had you start your day feeling a little behind.”
Try role-playing the list before school even starts. Make this fun! Run around the house pretending to do each task. Have you pretend to be the kid! Your kid in elementary school will probably looooove telling you when you do something wrong. I know my students do!!
Help your child get started using the checklist at the beginning. They will probably need your help cueing the first few steps when they are first learning the routine. Eventually, your child will internalize the steps and won’t need your reminders or the checklist.
Need help establishing a routine?
I’d love to help you and your child!
I help children, adolescents, and young adults with all things language and executive functioning, like planning, prioritizing, and self-awareness.
Contact me to see if I might be a good fit for your child by scheduling a free consultation today!
Hi, I’m Hollis, the owner of Mindful Speech.
I’m a speech-language pathologist licensed in Illinois and Colorado.
I specialize in providing speech therapy to help children, teens, and young adults to improve language, reading, writing, and executive functioning skills. Now offering in-person sessions in Chicago!
Learn more about me on my About Hollis page.