Celebrating Back to School

The number may vary by district but there’s no escaping that the back-to-school countdown has begun in earnest.

And while the lists may be long that doesn’t mean they can’t include some last minute summer fun.

Our family had a tradition of celebrating the end of the school year but it wasn’t until our children reached the high school years that we celebrated back-to-school. (And I don’t just mean as parents getting the teenagers out of the house for hours at a time every school day.)

Instead we just took this annual milestone as a time to stop, smell a few of those last minute summer roses and find an excuse to have a family party. We discovered that not only did we have some end of the summer fun, but it also improved everyone’s attitude about the start of another school year.

Here’s just a few ways to celebrate as your children head back into the classroom:

1. Before school starts take at least one opportunity each week to plan a family activity. It can be as simple as going out for ice cream, building a fire and making s’mores or as involved as a weekend get-away. The point is to try and do something together that you can only do in the summer.

2. The weekend before (or the night before) host a “back to school” dinner celebration. Our meals have ranged from pizza and soda with lots of school friends to a dinner out at a pricey restaurant with just the family. Since the idea is to celebrate a milestone in the children’s lives, we let them choose what they want. The only catch is we do one event and they both have to agree on the details.

3. For one meal during the first week of school, each child gets to pick the meal for dinner. Not only do they get their favorite food, we get a great opportunity to spend a family meal together.

4. Hide a unique symbol that lets your child know you love him or her in a hidden pocket of a backpack, purse, or book. This works best when it not an obvious expression. Our family loves the beach, so if I throw a photo of a seashell somewhere in their pack, they know its from me and what it means, but it doesn’t shout “mom” to the rest of the world.

5. And my children’s favorite “back to school” celebration? The first week of school is a “No nagging” week. I am allowed to ask about classes, teachers, friends, etc but not a single word about homework, tests or grades.

These five little items put some pep in our back-to-school routine.

By adding these five little items to our back-to-school routine, we have found a positive addition to the first week of school.

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