There have been a lot of kids in and out of the office these last days before they start getting ready to go Back to School. They’re asking questions about how to deal with some of the stresses of going back to school!

Are my friends from last year going to be my friends this year? Is my new math teacher going to like me? Will I make the soccer team or land a role in the school play?

While there’s no way to control the world of back to school, there are some things you can do to make the process a little bit easier. Here are some tips that parents can talk to their children about and for the more mature kids to read independently to help keep you cool, calm and collected in the hectic time of back to school.

5 Keep It Cool Back-to-School Tips

1. Make some time to reconnect with your friends before school starts – you’ll feel a lot more comfortable come September. If you went on vacation or to camp for the summer, you probably have a lot of catching up to do with your friends from school!

2. The end of summer before school starts is the best time to start getting organized! Buy a planner/calendar so you can organize all the things you want to do before the homework starts piling up. You might also want to include a diary in your back to school supplies.

3. Start going to bed and waking up a bit earlier each day so that you’re body is tuned up for the back to school routine. Once school starts you can say goodbye to sleeping late on the weekdays!

4. The new school year is a great opportunity for new friends. Challenge yourself to talk to one new person every day – by the end of the first month you’ll know everyone in your class!

5. Your teachers have already begun setting up their classrooms. If you’re heading to a new school, see if you can get into the building a few days early to look around and find your classroom. This way you won’t get lost on the first day!

Hope this helps you get ready for Back to School! Now, enjoy the rest of the summer.

Success without fulfilment equals failure and a lot of our pain comes from one or more of the six not being met. Now the good thing about that is; you’re about to learn what those 6 needs are as well as some options for ensuring that you are meeting your own needs and then helping to meet your children’s needs (remember the aircraft scenario, where you put your own mask on before you put the mask on of others.)

We can sometimes look at the challenges we have with ourselves, our children and partner as a problem and get bogged down in the pain or we can focus on creating an opportunity to learn, grow and develop our relationship. You may also find that as you resolve your own needs those of your children may be met and therefore the issue disappears. There’s this theory, and it is only a theory, that the world around you, is a bit like a mirror and it reflects what is going on within you. So theoretically if you clear “stuff” up within yourself by meeting your needs then some of the issues that are faced by those you love may also disappear. Mmmmmm, interesting stuff.

Now I know that that may sound like new age hippy stuff about embracing problems and being at one with the world. The thing is sometimes it’s not about what you are doing; it’s about who you are BEING. We learn more from our mistakes in life than from our successes. It’s not what is going on in your life, but how you respond to it that counts; it’s about BEING response-able.

It’s interesting that as you learn about the 6 needs you will instantly recognise in your life when the need is not being met. How? Well normally we will ‘act out’, and that’s you as well as your children, when our needs are not met. It’s interesting, especially when you start to look at your children and their behaviour, then look at what is going on when they are ‘acting out’ that you can start to recognise that one or more needs are not being met. You can then start to help your child meet their needs in a more ecological (good for them, your family and the wider world) way.

The thing is Parenthood is one of those things that didn’t come with a handbook. Some people didn’t even apply for the job and yet here you are responsible for the wellbeing and development of another one, or more, human beings. Now that used to scare the living daylights out of me; now it only scares me a little bit;). The reason being is sometimes it’s not about getting it right all the time, it’s not about doing the right thing and being politically correct all the time, the key is your intention behind the action.

Children of any age can see through adults like we are made of glass and if your intentions are misplaced then they will see right through you. It’s better to be up front and honest than to try and manipulate your children into doing something. Now I know that sometimes we don’t tell our children the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth, because it’s also our job to protect them from ‘stuff’ that may be going on in the family, whether it is financial worries, relationship problems or anything else. Just remember be as honest as you can. Be yourself and stop trying to be the perfect parent, whatever that happens to be. One of my sons said to me when he was about three…”Mum, you’re the best mum in the world” and yes I felt rather smug…then he said “Auntie Shirley is the best mum in the world for Jessica and Auntie Linda is the best mum in the world for Lewis, because we picked you to be our mum”. Talk about being insightful! You are the best mum or dad for your child, so stop trying to get it right and start having fun and play around with being the best parent you can be. Oh and when you do make a mistake, apologise, there’s nothing like being a good role model. We expect our children to apologise and sometimes forget to do so ourselves.

It’s important to remember that how you go about getting your needs met will either empower or dis-empower you. There are two ways to have the tallest building in the world; you can build one yourself or tear everyone else’s down.

Fulfilment is where you do things that are VERY IMPORTANT, BUT NOT URGENT. Satisfying your needs contains all of the actions that we “never get to” because we are “so busy”. So as you read through the upcoming e:mails, think about how you can have your needs met and think about you can help your child meet their needs; and here’s the thing, I want you to commit to making the time to make the changes and to take action. Can you do that? Yes? Great. No, then maybe your not ready to make the change…. yet.

The Bible has a lot to say about a lot of things, and among those topics is the very crucial subject of raising children. The Bible makes four key points on the subject, four statements that literally lay the foundation for good parenting.These are things you really must know as a parent–and they may very well surprise you!

The first admonition from the Bible tells parents that they should raise their children “in the way they should go.” In other words, parents should raise children with a view of how they should live as adults. Rather than focusing on the immediacy of their day-to-day experiences, parents should bring up children thinking about the kinds of men and women they should grow to be.

This means that children should be raised with values, but not the pop culture values or age-appropriate values, but real grown-up values. The Bible teaches throughout its pages what those values are: honesty, integrity, hard work balanced with appropriate rest and recreation, compassion, and a sense of fairness.

If you want your children to be adults who care for the poor and needy, speak out for the disenfranchised, and honor their commitments, don’t expect them to get all that the day they turn 18. Children-even little kids-should be raised with adult values.

The second thing the Bible says is that parents should tell their children about God. Many otherwise well-meaning Christian parents feel that they’re doing a good job by bringing their children to church regularly, taking them to Sunday school, or buying them books or other materials that help instruct them in the Bible. Those things are great and should be done. But the Bible says that parents-not teachers, not pastors, not friends-should tell their children about God and the things of God.

This brings up an important point that is often overlooked today. Parents have a unique privilege that no one else has. A parent is able to speak to his or her child in a way that no one else on earth can. A good and loving parent has an incredible ability to make an impression on a child’s mind. Regardless of what children say or how they seem to tune out, they do listen to their parents. In fact, most of us remember a lot of the heartfelt things our own parents told us.

Unfortunately, few parents bother to relay anything to their children about how they feel about God, the Bible, and their faith. Parents need to tell their children about the big things in life, not just ordinary day-to-day matters.

The next thing the Bible states about raising children is that they ought to be disciplined. The Bible recommends corporal punishment in this regard, but the admonition in Scripture is not so much how to punish the child, but that a child be punished for wrongdoing.

Nowadays people sometimes even hesitate to use those terms-I have even heard people say that children should get “consequences” for making “bad choices.” The Bible does not use that kind of sissy language, and it doesn’t mince words. It says that children ought to be disciplined, which means that breaking the rules or doing something bad requires punishment. Punishment should never harm the child, but the child should come to know what’s right, what’s wrong, and what happens when he or she does the wrong thing.

On a related note, the Bible also says that parents should not make a child crazy. Actually, the Bible uses the old-fashioned word of “vex.” Parents should not vex their children. Vex means to frustrate or make a child feel like he or she cannot do the right thing or can never please the parent. Children should grow up with clear rules and boundaries they understand, but they also need to live in an environment that gives them a lot of wiggle room to do things that won’t get them in any trouble.

This means that parents have to be consistent. The kind of parent who punishes a child for swearing on Monday, laughs off the same word on Tuesday, ignores it on Wednesday, and then punishes it on Thursday is the kind of parent who vexes his or her child. The rules are whimsical-the child cannot figure out from one day to the next what’s acceptable.

This statement also means that parents have to decide what’s right and wrong. This may not be easy to do in all too many homes today, where lines between right and wrong, good and bad, and acceptable and not acceptable are blurry and getting blurrier! Parents and other caregivers need to get on the same page to formulate the household rules. Children get vexed when the rules are blurry or not defined. Parents can make their children crazy when the children cannot reasonably predict how the adults in their lives will respond, particularly when the children start to test limits and put their toes over boundary lines.

Those are the four key points the Bible says about raising kids: give them adult values (train them up in the way they should go), tell them about God (parent’s can’t out-source this task), discipline them but don’t make them crazy, that is, be consistent and give them clear guidelines.