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Community Corner

Going Back To School Schedules

Saying goodbye to summer and getting the kids ready for school

The days of summer are getting shorter, the heat is beginning to subside and high school football scrimmages are starting. Summer has been fun; we stayed up late, spent most afternoons by the pool, weekends at the beach, ate too much junk food and completely wrecked our schedules. But school starts in three weeks and it's time to pony up and get my wild children back on track.

Readjusting a Broken Clock

For years, all of my children went to sleep happily at 7:00 p.m. like clockwork. This routine went out the window over the summer. We stayed up excessively late and let the kids run wild. Getting them back on track is going to be quite a challenge this time around.

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I know a popular belief is to back up their bed times a few minutes each night. I think this is a pain and unecessary. So, here's my strategy: I'm going to put my kids in bed at 8:00 p.m. and they can read until they fall asleep. That means no toys or TV in their rooms, leaving reading and sleeping as the only remaining options. After a night or two of bedtime stalling (drinks of water, monsters under the bed, and “I can’t sleep!”) they will conform and go to sleep out of sheer boredom. This is much easier on me than trying to figure out 15 minute sleep schedule increments for three kids.

Less Junk Food

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Maybe more important than early bedtimes (our school does not start until 9:00 a.m.) is their diet. It was fun at the beginning of the summer to break the rules and let sugar replace protein, but now that it has turned my children into holy terrors, the fun has stopped. Back to cooking two meals a day and packing a healthy lunch. No more sweet tea or waffles covered in syrup for breakfast. I will wean them off the caffeine so no one experiences bad headaches.

Other than that, it is back to boring old reality. This is a perfect time to go ahead and do the whole sugar withdrawal, because you know it is going to be ugly. I do not condone the use of duct tape or strait jackets, no matter how tempting it is. Remember, if you put a ton of sugar in your kid’s lunch boxes, they will act as if they ate a ton of sugar. I have learned this the hard way.

We have started to get back into the school mindset, although saying goodbye to summer is hard with us still taking a few late summer trips. It has been fun, but now my kind of fun must include calm, productive kids who are learning in school. 

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