{"id":5191,"date":"2021-05-19T22:01:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T22:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s37407.p1377.sites.pressdns.com\/resources\/en-nz\/?p=5191"},"modified":"2021-05-19T22:01:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T22:01:02","slug":"your-back-to-school-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/your-back-to-school-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Back-to-School Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As summer winds to a close, it&rsquo;s time to go back to school. No more lazy days of summer. Instead, you have to deal with buying school supplies, packing healthy lunches, helping with homework and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-nz\/profiles\/childcare\/after-school-care\">finding after-school child care<\/a>. Scared yet?<br>&nbsp;<br>Don&rsquo;t worry! Here are A+ tips to help you manage the chaos.<br>&nbsp;<br><strong>Before school starts<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Save money on school supplies by doing your back-to-school shopping early, so you have time to find the best deals and avoid the crowds.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Figure out what to do with your kids when school lets out. Explore your&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-nz\/profiles\/childcare\/after-school-care\">after-school child care options<\/a>&nbsp;now, so you&rsquo;re not left scrambling at the last minute.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Want to hire&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/en-nz\/profiles\/childcare\/after-school-care\">an after-school sitter<\/a>? Start the process early &ndash; the best nannies and babysitters get snapped up early.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Ensure your child has a great first day of school and an even better school year by getting organised and preparing early.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Talk to kids about important issues they may face this year. Watch a few back-to-school movies together to kick start the conversation.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Is your child starting a new school? Ease the transition&nbsp;by going on a tour of the building, scheduling playdates with new classmates and using this advice.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Sign up for after-school extracurricular activities, if you haven&rsquo;t already. Find the right ones for your kids.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Get arty with some back-to-school crafts. They&rsquo;ll get your kids in the school spirit and they make great gifts for teachers.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Learn the common back-to-school problems that parents face &ndash; and how to solve them!<\/li><p><\/p><li>Plan how your little ones will get to school and how they&rsquo;ll get home. Decide if they&rsquo;re ready to walk to school alone.<\/li><\/ul><p><strong>1 week before<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Contact your child&rsquo;s teachers this week to see if they have any advice before school starts.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Consider purchasing a special back-to-school gift for your kids.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Get kids on a regular schedule before school starts, going to bed early and waking up early. Have them fill out a nighttime routine checklist.<\/li><\/ul><p>&nbsp;<br><strong>The day before<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Head to the store and stock your fridge and pantry with food to make these quick and healthy breakfast and lunch ideas.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Squash any back-to-school worries that may be cropping up today by talking to your kids about how great school is.<\/li><p><\/p><li>As you prepare your kids for school, get yourself ready too.<\/li><p><\/p><li>&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul><p><strong>The first day of school<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Start the year off right by keeping your morning relaxed and organised.<\/li><li>Encourage children to talk about their day when they get home from school.<\/li><li>Help your kids release all of that post-school energy with these fun after-school games and activities.<\/li><li>Prepare some simple after-school snacks so you can feed grumbling tummies.<\/li><\/ul><p><strong>After school starts<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Kids complaining about classes already? Encourage them&nbsp;to love school.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Look out for signs that your child is being bullied (or bullying someone else). Ask your after-school sitter to be aware of these red flags too.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Give kids a hand with homework, but don&rsquo;t overdo it &mdash; many parents get too involved, which hurts kids in the long run. Read up on these other homework solutions.<\/li><p><\/p><li>Ask the teacher how you can be involved with your child&rsquo;s classroom &mdash; your participation will help your kids do better in school. Try these options for parents who have three hours a day, a week, a month or a year!<\/li><p><\/p><li>Prepare for the first parent-teacher conference by creating a list of things you want to discuss.<\/li><\/ul><blockquote><p>Read Next: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/stories\/6876\/back-to-school-blues-how-you-can-help-your-k\/en-nz\/\">Back-to-School Blues: How You Can Help Your Kids Beat Anxiety&nbsp;<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><blockquote><p>Read Next: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/stories\/10227\/getting-the-most-out-of-your-tutor\/en-nz\/\">Getting the Most Out of Your Tutor&nbsp;<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><blockquote><p>Read Next: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/stories\/15576\/6-steps-to-raising-environmentally-friendly-c\/en-nz\/\">6 Steps to Raising Environmentally Friendly Children&nbsp;<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><figure>\t&nbsp;<br><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As summer winds to a close, it&#8217;s time to go back to school. No more lazy days of summer. Instead, you have to deal with buying school supplies, packing healthy lunches, helping with homework and&nbsp;finding after-school child care. Scared yet? &nbsp; Don&#8217;t worry! Here are A+ tips to help you manage the chaos. &nbsp; Before <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/your-back-to-school-guide\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1162,"featured_media":31029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":false,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"","last_update":"2021-05-19","view_count":259,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"member-type":[44],"vertical":[50,86,82,74],"platform":[2],"class_list":["post-5191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","member-type-all-en-nz","vertical-children-en-nz","vertical-child-care-advice-en-nz","vertical-child-care-options-en-nz","vertical-kids-health-safety-en-nz","platform-resources"],"acf":[],"created":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5191"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=5191"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=5191"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/en-nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=5191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}