AAP Offers Back-to-School Tips Amid COVID-19

For many families, the school year is beginning with so much uncertainty – and yet, there are opportunities for growth and resilience.

Whether children are learning remotely from home or in-person in a school building, the American Academy of Pediatrics offers tips to help families get the school year off to the best start possible. This includes helping children and teens develop healthy habits, such as good nutrition, sleep and exercise, that are important for academic performance.

“However the school year begins for your family, keeping a daily structure and routine is really important," said Natalie Muth, MD, MPH, RDN, CSSD, FAAP, FACSM, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Family meals are a great way to add structure to your day, and we know that children eat healthier during shared family meals. Now more than ever having a chance to talk and unwind over dinner can also help improve mental health and wellbeing for both children and adults."

Dr. Muth, who chairs the AAP Section on Obesity, also suggests families work in regular exercise breaks throughout the day – especially if children are learning online for most of the day.

“Taking 5-10 minutes to play tag outside, dance, run up and down the stairs, or doing some quick movements with the help of a fitness app can really make a difference in children's energy levels," Dr. Muth said.

The AAP offers these tips for the school year:

• All children should be up to date on vaccinations. If you are not sure what vaccines your child needs, call your pediatrician. AAP recommends annual influenza vaccine for all children age 6 months and older.

• Establish rules and expectations with a built-in routine for each day. Keep bedtimes the same whether learning takes place at the school or home, and limit use of digital devices a half hour before bedtime.

• If your child is learning from home, provide a quiet place for schoolwork with the necessary materials, such as the WIFI password, logins for accounts, pencils, paper and organizers.

• If your child is learning in school, provide multiple cloth face coverings for your child, label them so they are not confused with another child's. Practice putting on and taking off cloth face masks with your child while avoiding touching the cloth portions. Remind your child that they should clean their hands before and after touching their mask.

• Have a conversation with your child's teacher so that the teacher understands how your child is handling these times emotionally and academically, especially if there are any specific issues or concerns to be aware of in order to help your child feel comfortable and supported upon returning to school.

• Help children take responsibility for their learning. Don't help too much. Becoming independent takes lots of practice and developing good habits.

• Talk with your child or teen and watch for any signs they need additional mental health support. Call your pediatrician and school if you suspect your child is having trouble adjusting to new routine or struggling academically.

• Parents will need to be on the look-out for any signs that a child is struggling academically or has learning differences. Contact the pediatrician, who can help evaluate if a child has a learning disability or something else going on. The signs are not always clear, and families can find information and support from resources including the Understood organization here.

• Keep your children home from school if they show any sign of illness. Make sure the school has an updated list of emergency contacts. Call your pediatrician to discuss symptoms and next steps. It's possible that your pediatricians may offer telehealth visits and can tell you if your child needs to come into the office,

• Children with disabilities have been especially vulnerable during this pandemic. Make sure you discuss an individualized plan with the pediatrician and educators to keep your child engaged in learning, whether at school or home.

• Arrange to regularly get some respite from caring for your children. Try to keep yourself safe, healthy and rested so you will have energy for those who depend on you.

Families whose children began the school year in a classroom should also prepare to go back to virtual learning if COVID-19 cases increase in the community.

“Remember, the pediatrician is available to help if your child is having a hard time adjusting to school this year," Dr. Muth said. “Your child's pediatrician understands what you are going through and is there for you to listen and help you connect with resources to help you and your child get through these unprecedented times."

For nearly all of 2020, school transitioned to virtual learning for nearly everyone. Children, teens, and college students had to ultimately adapt to a completely different learning environment: their house. Having peers or a social environment was no longer, and students were subjected to attend class or do homework entirely online. You may be wondering how to talk to them about going back to school after COVID>

This was incredibly stressful, perhaps even traumatizing for some children, as the world they once knew completely changed. It was stressful to navigate a laptop or tablet, and difficult to retain their attention from their home. Although teachers made efforts to make virtual learning special, it was difficult for a lot of kids.

Having to learn something online was frustrating. Parents took on the role of being both mom/dad and a teacher outside of virtual learning. Alongside providing enough attention and energy to their children, the whole family experienced some form of stress during the pandemic.

Now that schools are reopening for the Fall, you may wonder how to talk to your child about returning to school after COVID. Maybe they never attended in-person schooling before, or they are hesitant to return due to social anxiety. Here are some tips on facilitating this conversation with your child, and what you can do to best support them.

Child therapy in Simi Valley, Ca, offers your child a safe space to discuss their anxiety.

Going Back to School After COVID: Have an open discussion

A major thing to do for your child is offer them a safe space to discuss their anxieties or worries about returning to school. This can look like checking in with them to ask how they are feeling about it. An example would be: “I know that school is coming up next month. How are you feeling about it? Nervous? Excited?”. You want them to know you understand their anxiety for going back to school after COVID.

Practice active listening with your child. As parents, we want to be able to jump to the rescue and wash away any worries they may have. However, it’s actually very valuable to them for you to sit there, listen to them, and understand what they are saying.

Active listening includes giving them your undivided attention and being able to repeat things back to them. For example, if they discuss being scared to see their friends in person again, you can say something like, “I understand that you are feeling anxious about seeing your friends. It makes sense to me.”

When children feel validated, they feel heard, and comfortable with expressing hard emotions.

Encourage them to open up about their difficult feelings and praise them for sharing. “Thank you for sharing that with me, I’m glad I know how you feel now”. Ask them if you can help ease their nerves in any way, whether it be talking about what to do when anxiety comes up for you, or even talking about your own anxiety with it.

By normalizing the dialogue of talking about anxiety or worries, you are creating a safe space for your child to come to you. To be able to feel vulnerable in sharing what’s going on for them. Having your child trust in you is so important to establish that connection between the two of you. And, they will be comfortable talking about other things with you!

Child therapy with a child psychologist in Simi Valley, Ca, can provide parents with tools to parent their children in a positive and supportive way.

Going Back to School After COVID: Create a routine for your child

To help ease the transition back to school, establish a routine for your child prior to the year starting. This can look like getting started on nighttime and morning routines a few weeks earlier than their start date.

By creating this structure for your child, going into their official routine will not be as shocking or different for them. Having practice in going to bed at a good hour, getting plenty of rest, and waking up early to enjoy breakfast with you will be very beneficial.

Depending on their school standing, you can practice certain things with them such as knowing where their classrooms are, who their teachers will be, where their cubbies are, and more. You can even take a walk around the school together to familiarize them with walking around; being able to navigate the halls well before it’s go time.

Establishing a routine for homework can also help them get into the habit of it when the time comes. Set aside a designated homework hour and instead of fake homework, do a fun activity with them, like drawing or reading. Help them lay out all necessary supplies and become adjusted to following that routine when in school.

Child therapy in person in Simi Valley, Ca, for anxiety can help your child learn how to better express themselves to you!

Going Back to School After COVID: Consider seeing a child psychologist

In the end, it’s always a good idea to consult with a professional. Not only will a child psychologist be able to help your child work on their anxiety or fears, but they will also be there to support you. At Simi Psychological Group, we are very family oriented and want to make sure that we are engaging with all family members.

As a parent, you want to be able to provide your child with all the answers – to soothe all of their anxiety away. However, sometimes, maybe you don’t know all the answers, and don’t know how to solve their problems. Maybe you are stressed out about it yourself, and don’t know how to ease your own nerves either.

Child psychologists are trained and experienced with work with children on a range of issues. They will be able to help your child open up about their anxieties or fears with returning to school. By providing your child with tangible tools and coping mechanisms, they can learn to self regulate their emotions.

How I Homeschool My Kids and Work From Home

Lack of positive peer pressure isn’t the only motivation-killer though. Facing an unfamiliar learning experience can incite fear that manifests in different ways, including “becoming withdrawn, acting out, crying or being more aggressive than usual,” says Erin O’Connor, Ph.D., director of NYU’s Early Childhood Education Program. And Professor Horn reminds us that teachers spend years “figuring out what kids like, what gets them going.” As they take their lessons online, inevitable “bumps in the road” can make kids lose interest.

So how can parents help kids focus and make the most of what their teachers offer remotely? By understanding that a handful of feelings have been shown to enhance motivation: a sense of safety, meaningfulness, competence, belonging, autonomy and connection. What different children need will differ, of course, but a few evidence-based guidelines can help caregivers improve distance learning.

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Create the best space possible.

Abigail Amoako Kayser, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Virginia. She says now that our homes have become classrooms, we can learn from research on “the complexities of these spaces.” She and her husband Brian Kayser, Ed.S., a former teacher who's now also at UVA, report that to feel safe, children need a designated work space that’s comfortable.

To create a feeling of belonging, they suggest asking kids to pin up artwork or otherwise personalize their learning space. Help children feel more autonomous by keeping the materials they’ll need — not just pencils but also pencil sharpeners, for example — close at hand.

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Ideally, the Kaysers say, kids will have multiple distraction-free work spaces, such as one for class Zooms and another for quiet time. This is a piece of cake for some families and a downright laughable proposition for others. But knowing what the ideal is can help us get as close as possible with what we have. If a straight-backed chair and desk setup isn’t available, for example, try making a “work throne” out of pillows on your child’s bed each morning. In the spring, one of my kids liked to work in his office, a.k.a. my bedroom closet.

Establish rules and goals.

“Research shows that students will work hard when expectations are clear,” the Kaysers say, and teachers are also taught that kids “are more likely to follow the rules when they have a voice in co-creating them.”

That’s why Charis Lauren Wahman, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Michigan State University, recommends having an explicit discussion about home expectations. “Use loving words,” is one of her suggested house rules.

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You can also earmark time at the beginning of each day to set goals. Gregory Fabiano, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Florida International University, provides an example of how to communicate one to an elementary-age kid: “Stay in your assigned area with no more than two reminders. That means stay in this chair. You can stand, you can kneel, but you really have to stay in here to get your work done, and if you get more than two reminders, then that would mean you didn’t meet that goal for the day.”

For older children, rules might revolve around eliminating “technoference” or “media multitasking.” Teenagers often think they can scroll Instagram on their phone while listening to a teacher on Zoom, but Michael Rich, M.D., and his colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital say doing so has been shown to make them “take longer to finish, make more mistakes and remember less of the material.” So ask your teen: “What could work here? Maybe your phone stays in the kitchen during class time?”

Once you’ve clearly and jointly defined expectations, it’s important to model compliance by following the rules yourself, no matter how hard it is to muster those loving words after the ninth interruption in 20 minutes. Be consistent in reacting to broken rules and unmet goals. The Kaysers say teachers strive to use logical consequences and give an opportunity to repair whatever harm has been done, all while remaining supportive and empathetic.

Rely on routines and systems to get and stay organized.

Lack of predictability is often what’s causing the emotions that derail learning, says Professor Wahman, which is why increasing predictability can help. And rules and goals alone aren’t enough.

Teachers can’t control whether kids show up to class tired and hungry, but we can make sure kids get sleep, waking up with enough time to eat a hearty breakfast and get dressed in school clothes — a subconscious cue that it’s time to focus — before distance learning begins.

Last spring, my kids and I did “Circle Time” each morning, going around the room and sharing what we planned to work on that day as well as answering an icebreaker-style question. At first this attempt to boost connection, belonging and autonomy (routine boosts a sense of safety too, though I didn’t know it at the time) felt like a net-loss of 10 minutes for my work day, but when I started looping the kids in on my big deadlines and calls, they demanded less of me later.

Professor Horn says an up-front investment in other systems pays off in the same way. Instead of just creating checklists and whiteboards or setting timers, problem-solve solutions like these alongside kids to increase their buy-in. (Miriam Romero, a fifth-grade teacher at my children’s school in San Francisco says parents can propose programming Alexa or another smart speaker to tell their child when a new Zoom session is starting.) Then revisit your systems regularly. Professor Horn gives an example of how that could look: “So I see this checklist isn’t working, and I noticed you were supposed to have 20 minutes to play with the dog and you ended up playing for an hour and not getting the rest of your stuff done. What can we do about that?”

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Bolster autonomy in a second way by setting up systems that kids can navigate independently as much as possible. Try keeping a bucket of healthy snacks out on the kitchen table so a child can leave their work space after a lesson ends, help themselves to a snack and return afterward. It’s important to plan for transitions like these, Professor Wahman says, and Professor Fabiano suggests helping kids get organized each day, walking through a schedule and which passwords are where, before expecting them to be self-sufficient.

But don’t go overboard with the scheduling, either: Dr. Rich reminds us that loads of research shows kids benefit from free play and unstructured time. Time spent outside and physical activity have both been proven to reduce kids’ stress levels and increase their readiness to learn. There’s a reason schools have recess and Free Choice Friday!

Make work meaningful.

Professor Horn says one of the biggest challenges with distance learning is that “the person who is designing the work is at a remove from the child” and a parent can be left without an answer to the question, “Why do I have to know this?” As much as possible, steer clear of the knee-jerk response “because your teacher said so” and take a minute to engage the question (I know, yet another 10 minutes, gone forever). Professor O’Connor started the website Scientific Mommy with Robin Neuhaus, a doctoral student at NYU. They recommend “encouraging students to look for ways that academic content aligns with their personal values.” If that fails, try telling a story about an experience of yours that makes the assignment more relatable.

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But let’s be real. You can also use a backdoor to make the work meaningful. As Horn says, “Even though in a perfect world, we want kids to be intrinsically motivated, everyone is just doing their best right now.” It’s not the worst thing in the world to use your kid’s preferred activities as incentives for completed work. Professor Wahman agrees, noting that extrinsic rewards have been proven to support new skill acquisition.

But O’Connor and Neuhaus say here too we have to strike a delicate balance between structure and flexibility: “Parents can undermine motivation if they are overly controlling and create a home learning environment characterized by surveillance, pressure and extrinsic rewards.”

Play to their (and your) strengths.

To help things flow more naturally, consider a strengths-based approach. To understand strengths-based education, teachers learn that focusing on what kids don’t do well can cause them to become disengaged, while focusing on their strengths — things they enjoy doing, are good at, and choose to do, explains psychologist Lea Waters, Ph.D. — increases feelings of competence, meaning and autonomy.

Catch them at being good.

You can start with a strategy dubbed “catch them being good.” As Professor Horn explains: “You definitely want to say, ‘It’s so great that you used the timer.’” But a strengths-based approach also requires some deep thinking about what engages your kid. O’Connor and Neuhaus say it’s important that students can express themselves in a “format that fits their individual strengths.” If a teacher has assigned a book report but you know your child will be more engaged in producing a video news story, encourage them to ask. They (and you) can also request homework arrangements that play to your kid’s strengths.

It’s not just kids’ strengths that need honest assessment though. Research ties a parent’s belief in their potential to positively impact their child’s learning (called “self-efficacy”) to stronger academic outcomes, O’Connor and Neuhaus report. For me, feeling efficacious has meant acknowledging that, as a former English teacher, I’m qualified to help with reading and writing, and I legitimately enjoy it. But science is another story; it’s messy and makes me anxious. So my kids’ dad handles the outdoor education, and their step-dad-to-be runs experiments the teachers assign.

Focus on relationships.

A lot of these suggestions boil down to a fundamental truth: There is no better way to give kids a sense of meaning, connection and belonging than to intertwine schoolwork with supportive relationships. Research shows that “children will work hard for their teachers, be cooperative and follow rules and routines if they perceive you to be supportive and caring,” say the Kaysers.

As you pivot from parent to learning-facilitator and back again, Professor Horn says, “Most of us fear our whole relationship with our children becoming about nagging them to do their things.” When things don’t go well in the classroom, she says, teachers are taught “about how you pull a kid aside and how you don’t just reprimand or chastise. You start with a curiosity, like, ‘I noticed this isn’t going the way we talked about? Tell me what is going on.’”

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Notice her use of “I-statements” and the “say what you see” method. Both are meant to make kids less defensive and more open. Which brings us to two other things Horn says teachers are trained to do: Avoid overt power struggles, and, relatedly, keep things light and playful whenever possible. (Before I had kids, one of my favorite strategies as a teacher of physically full-grown ninth graders was to sillily chant, “Butt in seat, butt in seat” rather than ordering them, “Sit down!”)

Since that’s hard to do when you’re burned out and isolated, make distance learning as social as possible. Encourage teachers’ attempts to bond with your kids. If they send a postcard or letter, give your kid a nudge and the supplies to write back. Horn recommends setting up virtual study dates with friends “to give that shared experience of, ‘My friend and I can talk about the funny video that the teacher posted’ instead of ‘It’s just me in my living room, watching this video.’” Others have gotten creative about finding or maintaining community in ways that are both safe and equitable.

Embrace a growth mindset.

No teacher education program today graduates students who haven’t heard the term “growth mindset.” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, Ph.D., explained the basics for Harvard Business Review: “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning.”

When a child encounters a lesson they expect to be able to do and can’t, Professor Horn says try, “Okay, so you don’t get it now, but what questions do we need to send to the teacher?” Somewhere along the line, I picked up the trick of adding the word “yet” to the end of a kid’s sentence. “I just don’t get it,” my daughter will say, and I’ll chime in with “yet” so frequently that my kids now add “yets” to each other’s self-criticism.

Stay as positive as you can.

You’ve got all this right? No problem?

Children look to their parents to figure out how to react to new or intimidating situations.

For many of us, life already felt like a juggling act before we heard the term “coronavirus,” with balls dropped at work and balls dropped at home, never enough time or energy to catch and relaunch all those little red balls. Now, we’re still releasing and watching and welcoming and cradling — only we’re doing it while standing on a surfboard, on a wave, on the River Styx, in a pandemic. We don’t have 10 more minutes here and there and everywhere and always. It can be impossible to catch them being good and also finish a slide deck on time. Even the most well-resourced among us can’t do a teacher’s job and our own, regardless of how much of a growth mindset we embody. And some have much more immediate needs like shelter and food taking precedence. There just is no “yet” in this situation.

Yet, say O’Connor and Neuhaus: “Children, especially young children, look to their parents to figure out how to react to new or intimidating situations. If their parent seems skeptical or defeated, then they’re likely to follow suit.”

So motivate them, not just by creating a work space, establishing rules and systems, making work meaningful, playing to strengths, encouraging a growth mindset, and focusing on relationships, but by staying as positive about distance learning as you can. “If their parent is enthusiastic about their child’s new teacher, about the things they can learn,” O’Connor and Neuhaus say, “then they’ll be more likely to be excited.” And you don’t need a professor’s advice to know a more excited kid is a more motivated one.