4 Ways to beat Back to School Challenges

As the sun sets after another day, it is also setting earlier.

Despite the denial that the Summer is almost over, I am gearing up for the Back to School frenzy. The air is cooler and the days are shorter and as much as we hate to admit it, summer is drawing to an end. What does that mean exactly? For one, it means that I have to start making the shift to get everyone in the household going to bed earlier and getting up earlier in the mornings. All this to avoid the jet-lag effect of the "first week of school" routine. For one thing, it means that my ongoing quest for a more streamlined life will rev up a bit when I kiss the kids goodbye and wave as I turn them over to the school for the day. More time to work on getting rid of excess!You can be sure that I will get stuck in and not only organize, but purge. The minimalism principle is not merely to order and organize your stuff, it is to minimalism, pair down, prune and purge until only the meaningful and important things remain. This in order for your mind and heart to be clear and at peace and less distracted by clutter and material belongings. It is about choosing "Quality" over "Quantity" and doing so with purpose. Speaking of Quality vs Quantity: I am going to go through one more sweep of our clothing closets and get rid of the excess! Although I have made progress, I still spend way too much time a week doing laundry. Time to cut back a little more.

 How do I plan to prepare for the back to school madness? Here are some things on the list to do:

1. Have a plan ready for introducing healthier foods for kids lunches. That means it will take more of my time, and more thought but for the sake of my kids education and well being I am happy to make the shift. This will mean eliminating prepackaged snacks full of unpronounceable ingredients and replacing them with real food. Their concentration will increase and introducing Omega 3 foods will help them with their increased brain activity. Think "brain foods" mom! Bear in mind most schools are a nut free environment so planning needs to be made for that fact too. Get creative with foods, cut sandwiches using dinosaur shapes if you have to. Keep lunches interesting.
2. Have a plan in place for a neat and tidy way to have clothes ready for donning in the morning, and extracting these from the closet, coordinating them by colour or style and having them ready the night before.
3. Have a plan in place to have breakfast as nutritious and sugar free as possible. At the moment my kids know that we have a sugar limit when we buy cereals, but I think it is still too high at 10g per serving. I want to get it down more. Preferable to only 4 - 6 g. Setting the table the night before is a good routine to get into and training the kids to do it is even better.
4. Have a plan in place for homework time and those chaotic 5 minutes when the kids rush through the door and dump everything on the floor. You know what I am talking about. Let us not stress ourselves too much, shall we? I hope to prevent such stress by training the kids to put their shoes and coats and whatever else, where they belong. Rewards will be great for complying. In our house, nothing happens until after homework is done. No exceptions.

Now if there is anything hindering the implementation of these plans, take a long look and eliminate the hindrances. Whether they be physical or not. Clear out, cut back, simplify all these processes and in so doing decreasing the stress and fuss in all of these things. Getting back into routine after a carefree summer is a challenge for everyone. There will be bumps along the road, but take heart, kids adapt quicker than we as adults do.