Ten Tips for Ensuring a Healthy, Safe and Successful School Year

I am participating in a blogging program through Twitter Moms and Airwear and they want to know how parents are ensuring a healthy, safe, and successful school year. As the new school year quickly approaches I am both nervous and excited for both of my children because they will both be in the middle school. I am nervous because I know the work gets harder and so does peer pressure, but I am excited because they are growing up and doing fairly well. But I do believe that there are things that parents can do to help their kids with a successful school year. Here are some of my ideas:

1) One of the most important things that parents need to do is to keep your kids involved over the summer. We cannot let them go the whole summer just playing and allow them to forget everything they have learned in school. I encourage parents to take their kids to the library at least twice a month and encourage them to read.

2) Talk to your kids regularly about how to stay healthy by washing hands and using hand sanitizer. A lot of the classes these days have sanitizer in the rooms but if yours doesn't then I recommend sending a small bottle with your child and encouraging him/her to use it. We all know how quickly germs spread in school!

3) Along the same lines of being healthy, it is also important to take your child to the doctor for regular check ups. I firmly believe that yearly physicals are beneficial to everyone, old and young alike.

4) Talk to your kids A LOT about peer pressure!! The peer pressures in school are getting worse every year and they start out at younger age groups than I would have ever imagined before.

5) Talk to your kids!! Sometimes we get so busy in our everyday lives that we don't take the time to really talk to our kids. I think if they know that we are open and willing to talk and listen to them, then they will come to us when they need to talk. Let them know that you can sit and talk without being judgmental so that when they have a problem they feel comfortable talking to you about it.

6) Help your kids be successful by helping them be prepared. Go to the school on the night of open house and find out what supplies the kids will need and make sure your child is prepared with all supplies on the first day.

7) If your kids usually eat school lunch, I think it is important to have an option available if they want to take lunch. My kids will look at the menu for lunch and decide on days that they do not like what the school is offering that they want to take lunch. So I try to keep sandwich makings and snacks just in case.

8) Make sure kids get a good breakfast. I think all of the schools offer breakfast now so there is no reason why a child should not get breakfast. Studies have always showed that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and I have to agree with this!

9) Encourage your kids to go to bed early. This will help them to be well rested and able to pay attention more in the class room.

10) And last but certainly not least...Encourage your kids!! Don't dwell only on the bad grades or the bad behavior but make a point to encourage them and talk about something good that they have done. This makes them feel special and makes them want to do more things that will get them this kind of attention.

Airwear is offering an opportunity for readers to participate in an essay contest. If you would like to participate and have to opportunity to receive up to $1,000.00 in Airwear vouchers, Click Here. Good luck with your kids and the return back to school! Share your tips for back to school as well...maybe together we can make it through another year!

Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Airwear blogging program, making me eligible to get a $25 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, visit http://airwear.twittermoms.com/about.

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