Dr. Olutola Adetona, Practical Approach

Back to School – Practical Approach

What approach should parents take regarding getting kids ready to school and its different schedule?

• Our focus is just getting them ready for school getting them in the appropriate mindset that school is going back.  (Sometimes) we don’t talk about it until it’s actually time to go back to school and so you find also some anxiety-related issues with that . . . so if you start talking to the child from maybe about a week before summer ends or they’re about to get back to school,  you start saying,  “look, kids, schedules are going to change, bedtimes are going to go back to the bedtime that you’re used to” . . .  so it kind of takes all of those tensions away because now you are involving the child.  You are empowering the child.  And that makes the stress a little less.

What medical responsibilities should be taken care of for kids going back to school?

• The medical side of it is … you want them to be caught up on their vaccines.  As well, once kids congregate, they share germs so you want them to be vaccinated.  If they haven’t had their annual physical checks, you want that to be done.  If they participate in sports, you also want them to get their sports physicals done before school starts so that you don’t have to take them out of school.  (That way) you don’t miss work and things like that because the first few weeks of starting school are usually very stressful on any family no matter how prepared you are.  But if you are now prepared, it lessens the body and the anxiety that the child feels.

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