The new school year from a dad's perspective - organization and responsibilities

Summer vacation is over, children are disconsolate, and parents are already anticipating the first bell. For everyone, the new school year brings the stress of new responsibilities, daily schedules, and a new daily routine and challenges.

Can you prepare for this?

The logistics, which my wife oversees, and the daily instilling of regular daily routines in our children definitely help. You know, waking up and getting up efficiently, breakfast, morning toileting, and dressing. My children might know all this, but September is a trial month. We also have the fun of preparing the layette and reviewing our children's wardrobes – fortunately, that's not my thing. While not everyone might be as enthusiastic about the layette as I am, every child loves choosing new markers, notebooks, paints, and so on. We usually head to the supermarket to have the widest selection possible. The kids run from shelf to shelf, never realizing when the entire cart is full. Of course, I make a selection before we get to the checkout, because so many sets of markers are unnecessary. I often ask the children who they missed the most over the summer, and if they think anything has changed at school or preschool, to mentally prepare them for their return. In the evenings, when they're already in bed, I ask them directly how they imagine returning from vacation and listen to their interesting stories. Most of the time, there's nothing outlandish about them, but if they use their imagination, even I'd gladly return to a school full of kittens in the hallway, cotton candy and ice cream in the school cafeteria, or a teddy bear as a math teacher. Speaking of lying in bed, my biggest nightmare is putting the kids to bed and waking them up in the morning. When it's bedtime, the kids strangely have boundless energy, and it takes a lot of effort to calm them down and get them to finally fall asleep. But that's only half the battle, because the crisis begins first thing in the morning. It takes one wake-up call, and two wake-up calls, with a gap of around half an hour between the first and second. That's why, when the kids leave at 8 a.m., they start waking up at 6:40 a.m. Fortunately, we're not far from educational institutions, or I wouldn't have it any other way. I wish everyone, and myself, that the 2022-2023 school year will be peaceful and free from conflict, that the children will be eager to learn, and that we, the parents, will have plenty of energy. Dad and kids @tata_i_dzieciaki