Top 10 Tips for Setting Your School Year Up for Success
By week three or four of the school year, the new backpack excitement has worn off. Homework is piling up, shoes are missing, everyone's exhausted, and you're bracing for the first big meltdown of the semester. If this sounds like your house right now, you're not alone — and this week's episode is all about getting ahead of it.
Below are my top 10 strategies for building a stress-free school year, from setting up a solid back to school routine to handling the homework meltdown before it even starts. You don't need to use all of these. If even one lands for you and makes your week a little easier, it was worth the read.
1. Keep Your Expectations Reasonable
Every September starts off shiny. We're hopeful, ambitious, and excited about new teachers and new goals — for us and for our kids. That's a good thing. But as the weeks go on, those big goals can start to create real back to school stress. If a goal is causing more friction than happiness, it's okay to scale it back. The point of the school year is to build confidence, not dread.
2. Know What You Can Actually Control
A lot of back to school anxiety tips miss this one: you cannot control your child's behavior once they've walked through the classroom door. If you're hearing reports from teachers that things aren't going smoothly, punishing your child hours later rarely helps. Instead, practice tricky moments together when everyone's calm — like walking through what it looks like to sit down and start a morning journal assignment right away instead of stalling.
3. Stick With the Routine You've Built
Starting a new routine is easy. Sticking with it in week five, when everyone's tired, is the hard part. Repetition is your friend here. A simple visual checklist — something your child can physically check off each morning or night — can go a long way toward reinforcing a school night bedtime routine or a morning routine for kids that actually works, without you having to nag every step.
4. Open the Lines of Communication With School
Back-to-school nights are chaotic, and it's tough to connect meaningfully with every teacher in that setting. A short, friendly email early in the year goes a long way. It signals that you're a partner in your child's education, and it makes it much easier to problem-solve together later if something comes up.
5. Set Up a Real Homework Station
This is one of the most requested topics I hear about — how to help kids with homework without fighting. The fix is often more practical than you'd think: set a consistent time and place, and stock it with everything your child might need — pencils, scissors, glue sticks, paper — so there's no last-minute scramble. Sitting down with your own work nearby can help your child co-regulate, too. Fewer negotiations, fewer power struggles, less homework stress overall.
6. Protect the Whole Sleep Schedule, Not Just Wake-Up Time
It's tempting to focus only on getting out the door on time in the morning. But a good morning actually starts the night before. A consistent school night bedtime routine is one of the most effective tools for smoothing out mornings, especially for tweens and teens whose growing brains need more sleep than we sometimes remember.
7. Build In Real, Unscheduled Downtime
Kids' schedules can rival adults' these days. Make space — even just a little — for time with no agenda. No homework, no practice, no lessons. Just hanging out. It matters more than it seems.
8. Set Screen Time Rules Before They Become a Nightly Battle
Clear screen time rules for kids, decided ahead of time, take the negotiation out of the equation. When kids know what to expect, there's less to argue about — and far fewer opportunities for a nightly blowup.
9. Praise the Effort, Not Just the Outcome
A great grade deserves celebration, but so does a child who studied hard and still struggled, or who asked for help instead of giving up. Kids who hear "you worked so hard on that" tend to keep trying when things get difficult. Kids who only hear praise for outcomes tend to avoid anything they might not be immediately good at.
10. Take Care of Yourself First
Parents are the emotional thermostat of the household. A few quiet minutes to yourself — coffee before the house wakes up, five minutes of silence before carpool — isn't indulgent. It's what allows you to stay steady for your kids when they need your calm the most.
Hang in there. You've got this.
This article is based on an episode of the Tantrum of the Week podcast, where we talk about real-life parenting challenges and practical ways to handle them.