It\u2019s happening. The thing you thought would never come has come. We\u2019re back to school. Pools are closing. Backpacks are fattening up with things to be done. Buses are rounding the corners like jumbo jets ready to take your kids up and away to higher learning. And on those mornings as you stand at the end of your road and wave them off, the air is just a degree or two cooler and you feel made new again.<\/p>\n

And then the full speed of autumn hits and your kids turn into Children of the Corn, hollow-eyed and monotone. They\u2019re feeling the constant buzzing of homework and later nights and darker mornings and extracurricular activities and meals on the go. They have touched down in a new season on a new clock, but their bodies and minds are still in summer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There are ways to gently bring them around though, so that it doesn\u2019t feel quite like getting thrown off a moving walkway. Here are a few suggestions for easing the transition so that it doesn\u2019t have to feel like the end of the world to wake up and do the school thing instead of the pool thing.<\/p>\n

1 |\u00a0Let the light shine in<\/h1>\n

We\u2019re in a sweet spot right now at the tail end of summer when it gets light right around the time the alarm should go off. It doesn\u2019t always work this way. In October, we\u2019ll be buying new blackout shades and cursing the 5 p.m. darkness. But for now, the sun works in our favor. Let it help you wake them up. Leave the blinds cracked so that the natural light can wake the brain and the body and keep that Circadian rhythm working in your favor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2 |\u00a0Make this homework rule the rule of thumb<\/h1>\n

The basic math equation for elementary school homework is this: for every grade level, add 10 minutes of homework per night. So, if you have a second-grader, they should have around 20 minutes of school work to do at the day\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Kids can\u2019t handle much more than that<\/a> allotment on a daily basis. If it looks like much more than that then something\u2019s off. Talk to the teacher and find out how much he or she expects from your child. They can\u2019t ease in to a new year if they\u2019re already snowed under with homework.<\/p>\n

3 |\u00a0Keep the schedule at home<\/h1>\n

Free time for an hour right off the bus or work first and then play. Home-cooking around the dinner table or takeout on the go. Bedtime at 7 p.m. Whatever works for your family, do it. Just be consistent about it. As much as kids hate routine, they also need it, especially at home when they\u2019ve been trying to learn a whole new schedule at school. Routine gives the brain and the body a rest when both have been in \u201cgo mode\u201d all day.<\/p>\n

4 | Limit the junk<\/h1>\n

I\u2019m not just talking caffeine or snacks from the vending machine. I\u2019m talking the junk from Facebook and Instagram and all the other corners of the internet that light up like pinballs when school starts back. It gets slower over the summer when there\u2019s more outside time away from gadgets. You can watch them sit and look at a bug for the same amount of time they normally spend texting or scrolling. Now that school is back, so is all that, and you\u2019re going to have to help them rein it in so they remember to look up and breathe every now and then.<\/p>\n

5 | Live the last bits of summer that you can<\/h1>\n

For just a little while longer the water is warm and the sun is out until bedtime. The crickets are still chirping and the grill is still fired up and the tan lines are still visible. Let them enjoy it. Soak up the remnants of summer days with dinner out on the deck and bare feet and lazy Saturdays at the park. The start of school doesn\u2019t have to mean drawing the curtains and barring the doors. If anything, now is the time to let them run wild even more. They\u2019ll need a way to get all that pent-up energy out and it will do everybody some good to separate the academic day from the domestic one with some free play.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t have to feel like whiplash, this back-to-school season. The jet lag only really gets you when you think you can hit it at a run. If summer was all about easy-living, let the transition to fall be that too.<\/p>\n

*This article originally appeared on Parent.co<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s happening. The thing you thought would never come has come. We\u2019re back to school. Pools are closing. Backpacks are fattening up with things to be done. Buses are rounding the corners like jumbo jets ready to take your kids up and away to higher learning. And on those mornings as you stand at the end of your road and wave them off, the air is just a degree or two cooler and you feel …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,26],"tags":[78,367,365,97,366,46,176,209,55,136,63,54,84],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/homework-e1506123055993.jpg?fit=1920%2C1108&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-Ty","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3700,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions\/3700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}