Back To School Tips: Prioritizing Your Child’s Mental and Physical Health

This post was written by Frankie Wallace.

Of course, parents are stressed about back-to-school. They’ve got to put together schedules, do back-to-school shopping, get to know teachers, help with school work, volunteer, and keep an entire household together.

But what about the children? They, too, are experiencing back-to-school-related stress. If that stress becomes too much, it can adversely affect their mental and physical health, which also impacts the quality of their education.

Regularly checking in with your child to support their mental and physical health is crucial for ensuring they return to school at their best. Use these five tips to prioritize your child’s psychological and physical health.

Stay on Top of Your Child’s Physical Health

For your child to remain physically well throughout the school year, you must stay on top of their physical health. This means scheduling healthcare appointments before returning to school and paying attention to how your child looks and feels.

In addition, make sure to prioritize the following tasks:

• Check your child’s hair for lice to ensure they don’t spread it to other kids at school.
• Take your child to the eye doctor to check their eyes to find out if they’re suffering from dry eye disease or if you simply need to get a handle on their seasonal allergies.
• Visit the dentist to ensure their oral health is good.
• Ask your doctor to check up on their blood work for preventative health measures.

Ultimately, it’s about keeping up with regular doctor, dental, and vision appointments and creating great relationships with your child’s healthcare team.

Prioritise Good Nutrition and Exercise

A diet full of fats, sugars, and carbs and minimal exercise does nothing good for your child’s physical and mental health. On the other hand, a nutritious diet and regular exercise help keep your child in great physical shape and prompt clear thinking, less stress, and a better mood.

As such, your child’s meals should look a little like this:

• Breakfast: Never skip out on breakfast. It’s called the most important meal of the day for a reason — it essentially sets up the kind of day your child is going to have at school. Their breakfast should have plenty of protein, healthy fats, and fibre for your child to feel full and focused for their day.
• Lunch: When packing their lunch, fill it with vegetables, fruits, and proteins. If your child doesn’t like vegetables, make it fun! You can cut them into fun shapes or you can even be sneaky and make a fruit smoothie with hidden greens for them to drink on the go. In addition, make sure to pack extra snacks they can chip away at throughout the day if they end up getting hungry.
• Dinner: Dinners are equally as important as breakfast and lunch. Like the previous two meals, you should include plenty of vegetables, protein, and fibre for them. In addition, this is the perfect opportunity to eat dinner as a family. There’s even been a correlation found between family dinners and mental health benefits such as lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders. It also increases one’s self-esteem.

In addition to these meals, ensure your child gets some sort of physical activity every day. This could be playing sports with friends, taking a walk with you, going on a family hike, gardening, or another activity that will give them a decent workout.

Know the Signs of Poor Mental Health

The latest UNICEF South Africa U-Report poll revealed that over 60% of young people had a mental health challenge but didn’t get any treatment. Instead, they lived with symptoms that probably negatively impacted not just their education but their life generally.

That’s why you need to know the signs of poor mental health in case your child isn’t forthcoming about their issues. It’ll also help you get your child some help as soon as possible. If your child is showing these signs, it may indicate poor mental health:

• They’re easily distracted;
• They’re worrying more;
• Their grades are suffering;
• They’re overwhelmed by homework;
• They aren’t eating and sleeping well;
• They have a hard time concentrating;
• They’re not interested in doing anything;
• They’re struggling to socialize with other kids;
• They’re crying more, isolated, or exhausted all the time;
• They have unexplainable mood swings and emotional outbursts.

When you recognize signs of poor mental health in your child, you can move on to finding solutions, and take action instead of standing idly by.

Implement Mental Health Breaks

To keep your child’s mental health intact, implement mental health breaks throughout the day.

Whether it’s five, 15, or 50 minutes, give your child time to unwind and let their minds wander. Encourage them to talk about any mental health challenges they’re experiencing and be open about any you face. Or, if they just need silence, that’s okay too.

Also, show your child how to initiate mental health breaks at school. You could talk with their teachers before school starts to give them a heads up on your child’s mental health needs. Then, it’ll be easier for your child to ask their teacher for time to address their mental health.

Regular mental health breaks are the key to nurturing your child’s mental wellness.

Make Self-Care a Part of Their Every Day

Self-care is also a great way to benefit your child’s mental and physical health when gearing up for school. During this time, they might be a big ball of anticipation or nerves, depending on how your child feels. Either way, Self-care activities will help them nurture a healthy relationship with themself and encourage genuine care for their mind, body, and soul. There are many forms of self-care your children can participate in.

For example, you could teach them deep breathing techniques to soothe their anxiety. They could recite positive affirmations daily. You could carve out time for meaningful conversations. You could also encourage them to meditate, journal, read, paint, colour, or explore nature.

Making self-care a part of your child’s every day only helps them become more in tune with their mind, body, and emotional well-being.

Conclusion

Back-to-school is an exciting time for kids. But it can also be taxing on their mental and physical health. So, it’s essential to keep an eye on both and use the tips above to ensure they remain mentally and physically well throughout the school year and beyond.