Back to school: ‘Enough about the kids, won’t someone please think of the parents?’

And so it begins. The countdown to back to school is on. It seems like only yesterday little darlings, all around the country, were hanging up their schoolbags – or abandoning them in the hall – and discarding their well-worn, impractical and uncomfortable uniforms, ready to embrace the long, summer holidays.
For some, it was the end of a milestone year, the end of Montessori or primary school. For others, a goodbye to school altogether. The end of a school year can be an emotional occasion, a time of tears, not least for the parents who are wondering how they’re supposed to manage working and keeping the children occupied, but off screens, at the same time.
All of that is a distant memory now.
We made it through the summer intact, kind of. And now it’s time to get ready to wave goodbye to our little darlings once more as they step forward into a new school year, full of promise and, unfortunately, for reasons known only unto schools themselves – homework.
But enough about the kids. Won’t someone please think of the parents?
Back to school is a period of adjustment for us all. And here’s how parents can make that transition slightly easier for themselves.
As we parents of schoolchildren veterans like to say, accept the inevitable. Forget all the stuff they told you when your children were babies about making time for hobbies. There’s a new sheriff in town and he looks remarkably like your child’s sports coach.
Those evenings fill up pretty quickly, so if you’re to have any hope of finding a hobby and committing to it, try to do so before back-to-school D-Day arrives, bringing with it endless extracurricular activity possibilities.
And cut yourself some slack. They don’t have to do everything. But you doing something is good for everyone.
They get a raw deal, but where would we be without WhatsApp groups to remind us of our failings, and by that I mean the fact that you forgot it was actually jersey day in school, or to compare your dismal baking efforts ahead of the school cake sale.
Yes, the incessant pinging can raise anxiety levels and make the mental load feel ever heavier, but there’s a way around that (mums I’m looking at you); start adding the dads to the groups, so they too can share the joys.
And consider using them as the good Lord intended, and organise a parents’ night out.
All focus for the next little while will be on getting the children and teenagers’ sleep patterns back in order, after we allowed them turn feral during the summer holidays.
But once school returns, and we lose the free and easy(er) summer evenings to pointless homework battles and extracurricular activity runs, it can feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day so the temptation to mindlessly scroll or sit in front of some streaming service well into the late hours is real. Or you might just be caught up for hours in the evening painstakingly labelling every individual twistable crayon, so that you can do it all over again two weeks later when they’re lost.
Either way, mind your own sleep habits too, because it’s not just the kids who end up irritable.
And if you didn’t sing that, you clearly haven’t watched as much Peppa Pig as I have over the years. Back to school is a really expensive time, but we can help to reduce the pressure on our pockets by buying only what we really need.
Are new schoolbags/ pencil cases/ lunch boxes and stationery really required? Have they outgrown/ ripped/ lost every single piece of last year’s uniform?
Do you have friends with older children who would only be too delighted to pass on their children’s outgrown pieces of uniform?
Well you know those pesky WhatsApp groups? There’s the place to find out.
So don’t get sucked in. Activities; birthday parties; school gate fashions; number of holidays; tidy houses on play date pickups; parents who manage to go for coffee/for a run/ to the gym after the morning drop-off; happy, smiling non-school-resisting children; people who are always on time; it’s enough to make you question what you’re doing wrong.
But the reality is, everyone has their own sh*t going on, so don’t be fooled by appearances.
And who’s to say their way is better?
Be authentically you – it’s easier to remember anyway.