7 emotional tips for a warm return to school

These days comes the countdown for many boys and girls.

Emotions flow in different streams, navigating between the joy of seeing friends again, the laziness to return to early mornings and the sadness to leave behind a few days of enjoyment and rest next to the family.

• Related article: "The 6 stages of childhood (physical and mental development)"

How to promote a warm return to school?

For many children, going back to school is not always easy; For this reason, we leave you below a series of recommendations that can help us to adapt to our sons and daughters.

For families ...

These are the tips and key ideas to keep in mind for parents to make it easy for the little ones.

1. Connection

Talk to them about how they feel at the beginning of the course (for this we can use drawings, games, songs), calming your discomfort in case of fear, anger or anxiety, without minimizing or minimizing it, and helping them to integrate that emotion through the transmission by the adult of understanding and security.

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2. Anticipation

Visit the school days before the start, try to promote a previous meeting in the park with children who will belong to their classroom, explain through dolls or images, or take an imaginary trip to school; it can help to give children confidence in their beginning.

3. Cooperation

So that our children feel that they are taken into account, that their opinion and collaboration is important to us make them participate in the preparation of school supplies, accompanying us to buy and whenever possible, choosing based on their tastes. This will strengthen the creation of a positive expectation towards going back to school.

4. Accompaniment with serenity and calm

Avoid rushing and anxiety on the part of parents when going to school, becoming aware of the present moment and being next to our children, listening to what they tell us or helping to put words to those who are living, always being aware that we transmit security and not "I have to go." This moment is very important, so that the first steps of our children towards school are taken with poise and serenity.

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For teachers ...

Teachers can also help with many actions to receive their students with and from the heart, fostering pleasant and positive emotions about the reunion. For this, our suggestions are as follows.

1. Prior communication

Any contact with the students, days before starting, that is charged with emotionality, transmitting welcome and security, can help children come to class more confident.

A video call, email or, for example, the idea that my daughter's teacher, Bakarne Robles, had with this postcard to home, full of affection and images, can fill with illusion and positive expectations to the minors.

• Related article: "The 28 types of communication and their characteristics"

2. Building bridges between home and school

Start with an activity that involves continuity between home and school, such as bringing a photo of the holidays (example that you can see in the previous postcard), or an object that remember where we have been (shells, sand, stones, books, etc.), it will allow the transition to be more fluid.

Likewise, offer families the possibility of prior communication, in the event that they consider the need to convey some relevant information, it will always help to better contextualize each pupil.

3. Empty the backpack of emotions

As teachers, mental and emotional states are also activated in us before the beginning of the course. Becoming aware will help us to better capture the emotions that students bring, since as Jose María Toro says, "good education has a lot to do with creating ties and untying knots."

We can achieve all this by starting an affective communication, and transmitting an emotional state (tone of voice, gestures, rhythm of speech), which denote commitment and understanding, to envelop in an aura of security to the student body.

In short, going back to school is not only about getting students to enter class, but also about wanting to stay and come back the next day.

Author: Anabel De La Cruz Sánchez, Psychologist at Vitaliza.