‘Twas the Night Before School
Tomorrow is a big day for our family. Our youngest will be entering kindergarten, 2 days after his 5th birthday. This is it, game time, what we have been working towards for the last 3 years, is all coming down to tomorrow. It’s go time.
Let me explain. When our youngest was diagnosed with autism (right before his 2nd birthday), we knew exactly what we needed to do. We went all in on ABA therapy. This included 40 hours a week of therapy in our home during a pandemic while my husband was risking his life working in the hospital every day, I tried to run my business from our home, and our oldest was in zoom kindergarten herself. To say we were dedicated to his therapy is an understatement. When schools finally started to open up, we chose to send him to his clinic for 35 hours per week instead of preschool. He has been working on communication, regulating his body, and learning how to learn. The goal of putting in so much work for 3 years was always with the goal of giving him the best possible shot of getting the most out of kindergarten. The progress we have seen over the last 3 years has been amazing. When it finally came time to prepare for his transition to kindergarten we questioned if he was ready. He is still struggling to communicate vocally using a combination of an iPad to communicate and some heavily practiced vocal phrases. Is he going to be able to ask for help when he needs it? To make the most out of his time with his peers? Will he be able to communicate that he needs to go to the bathroom? Despite these worries, we decided he is as ready as he is ever going to be, so we embarked on the overwhelming and exhausting journey of kindergarten assessments, IEP meetings, and planning to make sure our little guy has exactly what he needs as he enters this new stage of his life. Tomorrow he enters kindergarten where he will spend half of his day in the special education setting and the other half in a general education classroom.
Tomorrow is also a big day for our daughter who will be starting 2nd grade in a new school. In a huge stroke of luck we were able to transfer her to the school her brother will be attending, so this lucky mama has two kids at the same school for the first time, and i’m over the moon about it. Our daughter is excited for the new school but she is apprehensive at the same time. She is happy she will be there with her brother, she is fiercely protective of him, but this is a big change for her as well.
Whether you are embarking on a school year similar to ours, or your kids are returning to the school they know and love, there are some things we can do for them today and over the coming weeks to help ease their transition back to the school environment.
Social Stories
If your child will be attending a new school this year, go visit. Get on that campus while it is quiet without any other students running around and give them the chance to explore the playground and find out where the bathrooms are. Take pictures and show them to your child, talk about the school, talk about what to expect and what they can do if they feel scared or overwhelmed or lost. If you can visit several times definitely take advantage of that so on the first day your child has the experience of swinging on the monkey bars and knows where the closest bathrooms are and where the lunchroom is. This will help to ease their anxiety about the first day immensely.
Lunch
Pack a school lunch and serve it at home, have your child practice opening the various items you will be placing in their lunches, or practice asking for help for the things they need assistance with opening. That last thing we want is for them to miss out on food or play time because they were struggling with getting food items open or the attention of an adult to help them open something. Practice practice practice.
Support
For the first few days your child is going to be absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. Adjusting back to the school schedule can be a lot on a little body. Think back to the last time you started a new job and how exhausted you were at the end of each day and then at the end of the first week. This adjustment takes a toll on our kiddos in a big way. You may see some big emotions and some tired kiddos and that’s ok. Don’t fall in to the trap of going out to celebrate the end of the first week of school. Stay home, pop some popcorn, put on jammies and watch a movie. Help your child regulate their body after the first week of school so they can enter that second week feeling refreshed and ready to tackle it all again.
As I sit here writing this with my children asleep in their beds, I still question if we made the right decision, if he really is ready for kindergarten tomorrow, if I’m ready for kindergarten tomorrow. I find comfort in the fact that we have a great team of people ready to support him at school, and we are ready to support him at home, and that together we can work to make this year just as magical for him as it is for general education kiddos. Wish me luck tomorrow morning at drop off, and I’ll wish the same for you. We can do this, we always do!