Does anybody else have a little one starting Primary School next year? Or transitioning to a new school? Or starting high school?

This is such a significant transition – for your little person and for you as their parent. My (Dr Matt’s) daughter is starting primary school in 2024, and we’ve been working slowly but surely on putting some positive steps in place to help her (and us!) get ready. Below are some tips that might help your family – and even though they are a bit more geared towards primary, most of the things hold true even for the older kiddos

– Aim to have LOTS of little conversations about the transition. What are they excited about? What do they think will be interesting or surprising? What are they worried about?

– Through these conversations, make sure to listen hard and be patient. You DON’T need to fix or jump to reassuring. Spend some time letting them talk about the things that might concern them. Once they’ve been heard, ask some more questions about what you can do together that might help manage that concern. Come up with a plan and work it through together

– Create a (age-appropriate) storybook. Many of you will be doing school orientations over the coming weeks, which is a great time to get some photos. Get a photo of the school entrance, the classroom, bathrooms, tuckshop, play area and other important spaces. Use a template in Canva (search ‘storybook’), put the photos in, print it off and sit down and read it together. Encourage them to show their friends and other important adults, who can also share their excitement

– A lot of kids will only have had a very small amount of time on campus before they start. Over the holidays (and without trespassing!), go for some walks through the school. Do a role-play of coming into school, where they’ll put their stuff and where they will go

To explain the “why” behind some of these things:

– Those thoughtful and repeated conversations help to model to your child that engaging with things that are exciting and scary helps us feel empowered and resilient. We don’t have to pretend like it is going to be easy and perfect, and in doing that, we show them how they can experience a big jumble of feelings and work through them

– The use of stories, role-playing and physically experiencing the space are all examples of exposure-type activities. Often when we are scared/worried about something, we avoid engaging with it (literally and in our own minds). By having multiple opportunities to ‘practice’, our kids get the chance to imagine their experience, but in a lower intensity context

And importantly: hold in your own mind that big transitions take time. Some kids will respond well and others won’t. In no way is that important. Every person going through a school transition is going to deal with something. Our goal is to help them navigate it if and when it comes up. We don’t pre-empt it being bad and we don’t pretend that it will be sunshine and rainbows! We aim for realistic and go from there.

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At ConnectEd Counselling and Consultancy, we believe that all families, and the communities they belong to, benefit from a little extra care and support. Whether the problems are big or small, we want to make sure everyone has the chance to feel connected – to themselves, to others and to their community. We offer counselling services to young people and families and have immediate availability. If you need some support, get in touch here: https://connectedcc.com.au/book-now/

(Written by: Dr Matt O’Connor)