Do you feel the weather changing? The breeze is just a little bit cooler. The apples in the trees are ripening. Your morning is filled with more energy and excitement. What could it be? Why it’s the new school year! As our kiddos and community members start climbing back on the big, shiny school bus, we at Autism Care Partners started thinking about what help we could provide our families to work through the unsureness and unpredictable nature of a new school year. Will my child make friends this year? Will their teachers be kind and accommodating? What if-? As we’ve seen firsthand how attentive our families are, we know you want the absolute best for your bright, imaginative little ones.
With you in mind, three of Autism Care Partners’ brilliant Board Certified Behavior Analysts—Michaela Smith, Alexa Ina, and Nicole Dodd—generated these strategies to kick the school year off right:
- Visit the classroom and meet the teachers and paraprofessionals prior to the first day of school. This will allow you to discuss any behavior plans or accommodations needed in advance and begin the collaborative teacher-family relationship. Having your child present will also allow them another chance to build rapport with new faces and a new environment, begin establishing trust, know who to go to and where to sit on their first day, and see you advocating for their needs.
- If possible, visit the school grounds a few times leading up to the start of school. Walk around and play on the playground! Going to school can be scary for any child. New teachers, new people in their space, friends get moved to other rooms, the feels and smells of what we’ve grown accustomed to are gone. Helping your child become familiar with this big new place can help them feel more confident. I know where my classroom is. I know where I keep my things. I know where the potty is. Here is where I play with my friends. School is fun!
- Keep a consistent routine. ChoiceWorks is an online application that can be downloaded from the App Store. This app is super user-friendly and can be easily customized and created by families to provide a visual schedule for your child to reference throughout the day.
- Consider starting your child on their school sleep/wake schedule a week or so ahead of time so that time change is not a factor on their first couple of days at school. Even as adults, we know the power of a change to our sleeping patterns. The school year likely has your child waking up much earlier than summer break. Help them transition to the school year with less stress by structuring their sleep/wake schedule in advance of Day 1.
- Create and read social stories about returning to school. This can help your child become more accustomed to school norms before entering the environment. Just like visiting the classroom before school starts, social stories help children feel confident and safe in this new place.
- Create a visual for the week (Sunday–Saturday) to show your child when they will be in school and when they will be at home. You can use a clothespin to mark the day and hang the schedule up in their room, so they know what to expect when they wake up. Establishing and understanding this routine is an important part of your child becoming comfortable with this transition.
- Practice your morning routine in the days and weeks leading up to school. This allows your child to know what is expected of them. As we are sure you know, routine and consistency are such a huge benefit to a child learning and getting accustomed to something new.
- Write a letter for your child's teacher to highlight important information about your child: favorite reinforcers, strengths, sensory issues/concerns, etc. Having met a lot of family members prior to Day 1, it is understandable if your teacher does not remember everything you discussed prior to the start of school. This reference guide will be a great reinforcement of your child’s needs, a tool teachers can look at when they need to make a quick decision, and better sets your child up for success within the classroom.
- Role-play school-based scenarios with your child. Children learn so much through play! You be the teacher and your child is the student. Play what happens at school, how we use our listening ears, how we raise our hands to ask questions, who we talk to when we have to potty, and more. Becoming familiar with the norms of school through play will help your child better understand the expectations of this new environment.
Can your child be completely successful without these interventions? Yes. Any child, no matter their needs is a vessel of opportunity. Transitioning to school is hard for any child. We are meeting totally new people in a totally new environment. Even if this is not your child’s first year of school, every teacher, every paraprofessional, and every classroom is different. Our friends move into new classrooms or totally new schools. That’s a really big deal, understandably. With the strategies above in hand, you have the tools you need to set your child up for success by getting familiar with this new routine, new environment, and new people early in a structured way. Whether you implement these strategies or alternative ideas you know will work better for your child, we share your confidence in knowing that this is going to be the best school year yet. We are cheering so hard for your child and you!
