It’s an interesting time to be a parent. The Groundhog Day of online school bleeding into summer vacation bleeding into online school again leaves little to be excited about. Do we even shop for school supplies this year? New shoes to start the year off sharp? Why bother?
Here’s why this is important
I’ve been reading this great book called The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath. It is categorized as a business book, but it’s has made me think of ways to celebrate milestones, mid-milestones, and even failures-as-learning-experiences with my kids. So, how do I take these lessons forward into a new school year? Here are some random musings, and I’d love to hear your ideas.
- Take a first-day-of-school picture, even if they aren’t going anywhere. Granted, this will be a really special (and annoying to my teenage boys) day in my family, since I didn’t do this consistently even before COVID.
- Fix a special breakfast for the first day of school. Chances are this will be a brutal early awakening, even if to show up on a camera for class.
- Buy a special poster for your kid’s virtual school background.
- Celebrate the end of the first week of school with a no-screen outing. Even kids must get sick of looking at their computers all day.
- Plan a weekend “recess” with a few of your child’s friends. Limit the numbers and be outside and social distanced.
- Get a back-to-school pet from your local shelter! I’m kind of joking. Shelters are really full and a new pet would add some excitement for sure. Then again, with two cats, I’m not about to do this myself.
- Decorate bikes in school colors and invite kids to a homecoming bike parade.
To be clear, there only about 3 of these that I might actually do. Plus, making my surly kids participate is an entirely different story.
Happy Back-to-School to all!
