Tips for Blended Families: The Back to School Edition
Ahhh… the smell of erasers and new notebooks, stiff backpacks with tags still dangling from them, and too many target bags on my kitchen table.
It must be back-to-school season.
Around our house, it means that the reign of bedtimes and wake up routines returns. It means I won’t get to hit snooze 4 times. I’ll be up before the sun again, ready for work before they’re up, so that we can all get out the door smoothly before school starts.
My kids won’t get to watch old Disney channel shows until way-too-late every night. Their relaxation time will again be relegated to the weekend. How cruel the universe can be! Or, as they say: “It’s not fair!”
Some parents live for this. Heck, most kids do best during the school year. The familiar, the sameness of each day. The predictability of the schedule.
For the blended families however, there’s an added layer of complexity.
It’s not just getting back into the rhythm of school pick up and drop off, but who is doing pick up and drop off each day. Not just, “what day is soccer practice?” but “which week do I handle practice?” Not just the added cost of school supplies, but “who is in charge of paying for school supplies this year?” or “I hope my co-parent can afford their half of the school supplies this year.”
And that’s just from the parents’ perspective.
Imagine adjusting into the school year from your kiddo’s vantage point:
“Which house will I be at for that tournament?”
“Who will be the one taking me to gymnastics mostly? Do they do my hair best for keeping it out of my face?”
“Who is going to pick me up? Oh good, they’re usually on time.”
“Who will I be with for spring break this year?”
“Who will take me to meet-the-teacher? If I’m nervous, will they help me feel better?”
“That parent has me after school, but they don’t take my coding club seriously… I hope I still get to go...”
Here are some tried and true pointers for heading back to school as a blended family, or as a co-parenting family from 2 households:
Look ahead on the calendar. Communicate about tricky days.
When the academic calendars are out, look ahead! There are more days off school than you think.For example, most schools have 1-2 scheduled days off or half-days each month. Yes EVERY MONTH.
How are you going to handle those? Who is going to watch the kids that are too young to stay home alone? Work together. Do this early in the school year.Get ahead of extracurricular activities.
Discuss the extracurriculars that you’d like to support your child in pursuing. Make sure you’re both on the same page about dates of events, practices, etc., and who will be handling pick up and drop off. Ideally, your settlement agreement (divorce decree, etc.) will have addressed how you will handle these things, but if not, you’ll need to work together to support your child.When New Things Come Up, be Proactive:
When new events get added to the calendar, have conversations about them early. For example, if your child gets invited to a birthday party from 5pm – 7pm on a Friday, but your normal transition time is 6pm, how will you handle that? Work it out as soon as you can with your coparent, then let your child know the plan.
One more example: if there is a Fall Festival or some other major school event during Parent “A”’s parenting time, but Parent B really enjoys attending those, have a discussion. If Parent A isn’t interested in attending, and Parent B would like to take the kids, that’s a great way to increase the kids ability to have a touch point with parent B during their normal time with Parent A.Look at longer school breaks:
Your agreement likely addresses how the longer school breaks will be handled each year. However, the way the weekly schedule falls up against those school breaks may vary each year. Look at how all those days line up and make sure that you don’t have an unforeseen issue. For example, if you have a week on / week off schedule, and one parent has Spring Break – you may end up with on parent accidentally having a three-week spread. With young children, I would argue that’s probably not ideal for anyone in the family. It would be worthwhile to spend the time at the beginning of the school year checking those dates and planning to deal fluke problems, should they come up that way.
Communicate with your kids:
Create an “overnights” calendar that the kids can see at any time in both homes where they live. It should be posted in a common space (somewhere like the kitchen), so that they can review it and ask questions about it at any time. The calendar at one home should match the calendar at the other home.
If your kids are older, they may appreciate having an online calendar, like Google Calendar, iCalendar, etc. that they can access any time on their phones. This would be shared by all family members.
The reason for this: All of us (but especially children) feel more comfortable when we know what is coming. We can create time to prepare ourselves when we know what to expect.
Shifting into the new school year requires so much of us all. We will all get into the swing of things. Take a deep breath each morning, be thankful for our sunshine, hope for some cooler fall weather, and know that you can do this!
