How to answer your child’s big questions before going back to school
The laundry basket was still heaped on my 10-year-old Leo’s bed when he looked up from his new teacher’s Google Classroom page and said, “I have some questions before going back to school.” I was mid-fold of a too-big pack of crew socks, one eye on the school supply list open on my phone, and my first instinct was to say “Shoot, but make it quick—we have to pick up your birthday cake in 20 minutes.” Then I remembered last August, when I’d done exactly that, rushed through his questions, and spent the first two weeks of fifth grade picking him up from the nurse’s office with random stomach aches that only went away once we got home and he finally admitted he’d been scared to ask his teacher for bathroom breaks the whole time. I set the socks down, scooted the laundry basket off the bed, and said, “Okay, hit me. One at a time.”
First up: “What if I forgot how to do long division over summer? Ms. Carter, my new teacher, is going to think I’m stupid.” My next instinct was the generic go-to: “Of course you didn’t forget, you worked so hard on that last year.” But instead I said, “Let’s check. Grab that small whiteboard off your closet door.” He did, I wrote out two problems, and sure enough, he forgot to add the zero placeholder on the first one. He stared at it for a minute and went, “See? Told you.” I walked through it once, he did the second one perfectly, and then I said, “Half the kids in your class are going to forget some part of what they learned last year. Teachers plan for that. If you blank on it the first week, just tell her you need a quick reminder—no shame there.” We stuck the two problems he got right on the fridge with a dinosaur magnet, just so he could see them between now and the first day.
Next question: “Do I have to raise my hand to go to the bathroom every single time? Last year my old teacher got annoyed when I got up during math, and she said I should have gone during recess.” That one I remembered from last year’s stress, so I had a low-fuss plan ready. I said, “We’re going to write a short note to Ms. Carter tonight. You can write it, I’ll sign it, and we’ll send it through the class portal before school starts. It’ll say: ‘I sometimes need to use the bathroom unexpectedly during class, and I don’t want to interrupt the lesson. Is it okay if I slip out quietly without raising my hand?’ That way we don’t have to have you awkwardly bring it up in front of the whole class on the first day, and she knows what’s up before you even walk in the door.” We sent it yesterday, and Ms. Carter wrote back 10 minutes later saying that’s totally fine, she does the same for a lot of kids. That’s one less thing to worry about, no big meeting, no fuss.
Third question, the one he asked so quiet I almost missed it: “What if no one saves me a seat at lunch the first day? All my old friends are in different classes this year.” I almost said “Everyone’s in the same boat, someone will save you a seat,” but that’s a lie. I remember being that kid, standing in the lunchroom with a tray full of warm food, every table full, no one shifting over to make space. So instead I pulled up the class list I’d saved to my phone and said, “Look, Mia from your soccer team is in this class, remember? If you get to lunch and no one has a spot for you, go sit by her. She always has extra space, her mom told me she saves seats for kids who don’t have anyone. If Mia’s table is full, the back table by the water fountain is always where kids go who don’t have a spot yet—that’s what the lunch aide told me last year. And if that still feels really awkward, you can text me. I work from home half a mile away, I’ll come get you, we’ll sit in the car and eat a popsicle for 10 minutes, and then you can go back to class. No one has to know, it’s just our little safety net.” He nodded, and I could see his shoulders drop a little, like that weight was gone just from having a plan.
Then the last question, the one I didn’t expect: “What if I still don’t like school after the first month? Do I have to pretend it’s fun?” That one stopped me. I’ve spent so many years telling him school will be fun, he’ll make new friends, it’s a great adventure. But he hated last year, hated getting up early, hated the homework, hated that recess was only 20 minutes. So I said, “No, you don’t have to pretend. You can hate all of it, or just hate parts of it. We’re going to check in every Sunday night, while we’re making your lunch for the week, and you can tell me what’s bugging you. If we need to change something, like talk to the teacher or cut out an after school activity to give you more down time, we will. You don’t have to love school to go to it. We just have to figure out how to make it okay for you.”
I used to think that when kids ask questions before going back to school, all they need is a quick pep talk and a “don’t worry, everything will be fine.” But the more I do this, the more I realize that most of their questions aren’t actually asking for reassurance. They’re asking for a map. The unknown of a new classroom, new rules, new people feels huge when you’re 10. Turning that big unknown into tiny, concrete plans makes it small enough to handle. It doesn’t fix everything, but it takes the edge off the quiet panic that bounces around the back of their head before the first day.
We’ve got six days left before the first bell. Leo’s already gone back to playing video games, I finished folding the laundry, we picked up the cake, and everything’s quiet right now. I still don’t know if the first week will go smoothly. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get a text from the nurse on Tuesday about another stomach ache. I keep a pack of popsicles in the freezer just in case I have to make that lunch run. But this year is different from last year. All the questions are out in the open, not bouncing around inside his head waiting to turn into aches and bad moods. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.
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