{"id":9281,"date":"2023-08-31T17:02:27","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T17:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/?p=9281"},"modified":"2024-05-09T12:35:43","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T12:35:43","slug":"back-to-school-burnout-getting-back-to-routine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/back-to-school-burnout-getting-back-to-routine\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to School Burnout is Real"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>My husband asked why the stress levels seemed to have gone through the roof since we returned from holiday. I explained (perhaps a little irritated) that juggling work with back to school preparations is no mean feat, especially when you have two out of three children <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/end-of-primary-and-starting-secondary-school\/\">starting a new school<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Back to school and the mental load <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The end of the suspension of reality that comes post-holiday is pretty tough &#8211; and it isn&#8217;t just the return to work. There&#8217;s the mental adjustment as the fluid carefree days begin to make way for routines, and eating out and having picnics is replaced with cooking day in, day out. There&#8217;s the food shopping, cleaning and laundry; the admin that took a backseat is suddenly top of the to do pile. Then there&#8217;s catching up with personal correspondence\/social media. Whilst a whole year WhatsApp group chat is very useful, I do find it stressful when it&#8217;s pinging off the hook! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The to do list <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Buying all the uniform for a new school and ensuring it has the correct house colour trim (of course my twins are in different houses!) <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>New school bags suitable for &#8216;big school&#8217; <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Buying PE bags<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>New school shoes &#8211; grappling with sizes being out of stock  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>New PE trainers <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Buying new stationery items and maths equipment that wasn&#8217;t needed at junior school <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Replenishing other stationery equipment <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.awin1.com\/cread.php?awinmid=15242&amp;awinaffid=175921&amp;ued=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mynametags.com%2F\">Uniform labelling<\/a> (and labelling everything else)  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ensuring they have a reading book they enjoy for the first day back  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Making sure all homework and &#8216;voluntary tasks&#8217; have been completed for school and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tutorhunt.com\/\">tutor<\/a>  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Signing up for clubs both school and external  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Checking new timetable <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Preventing back to school burnout<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst nothing can prevent the back to school burnout totally, there are a few things that I find alleviate it. Breaking down the whole to do list into smaller chunks and tackling tasks individually definitely helps. For example, a morning of shoe\/trainer shopping. For me it pays to start early and tick a few things off for a psychological boost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>File all school emails together so you can quickly and easily refer back. Also write down all dates mentioned in emails as soon as possible on a wall calendar. I find that with so much going on if I don&#8217;t do this quickly, it slips my mind!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Get the kids back to their normal &#8216;term time&#8217; bedtime routine three days before the start of term and make sure us parents get a few earlier nights: tiredness never helps anyone!    <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meal plan for the week ahead and do a big food shop before they go back. This removes a lot of last minute stress and saves lots of trips to the supermarket.<br>                                                               &#8212;&#8211;  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good to luck to all the children (and parents) for next week! <\/p>\n\n\n<p><!-- START ADVERTISER: startriteshoes.com from awin.com --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.awin1.com\/cread.php?s=3427084&amp;v=3134&amp;q=468901&amp;r=175921\" rel=\"sponsored\"><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.awin1.com\/cshow.php?s=3427084&amp;v=3134&amp;q=468901&amp;r=175921\" alt=\"Back to school \" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" border=\"0\"><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- END ADVERTISER: startriteshoes.com from awin.com --><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My husband asked why the stress levels seemed to have gone through the roof since we returned from holiday. I explained (perhaps a little irritated) that juggling work with back to school preparations is no mean feat, especially when you have two out of three children starting a new school. Back to school and the<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/back-to-school-burnout-getting-back-to-routine\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[635],"tags":[212,1274,177],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/305134344_10160127205020011_3688622283842638055_n.jpg?fit=1536%2C2048&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3ej6a-2pH","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9281"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9878,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9281\/revisions\/9878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}