Especially Organized: Sensible Solutions for Special Needs Moms

15 | Transition Survival Series Part 1: Back-To-School with Courtney Howard

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15 | Transition Survival Series Part 1: Back-To-School with Courtney Howard


Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What about middle school or even high school?  You’re still a little tired from waking up early for the first time in 10 weeks and you’ve got that mix of nervousness and excitement whirling around perhaps in your head or even your stomach making it too hard for you to eat. How will you find your room?  Will you have any friends in your class? Will your teachers be nice? So. Many. Questions about to be answered.

Now, imagine what it is like for your child with special needs heading back to school. Perhaps they are entering kindergarten or middle school or even high

school for the first time and the whole day will be different from what they already know.  Maybe they are riding a bus for the first time? Maybe they have multiple teachers now and have to switch rooms for the first time?  You can imagine how that combination of nervousness and excitement might be staggering for some of our kids.

Knowing that transitions of any kind can be so overwhelming for our kiddos and fraught with anxiety and fear for both mom and child, I thought I would start out this second season with a series on all those major transitions we go through with our children with special needs.  And

back to school was at the top of my list! 

And I am excited to have Courtney Howard on the podcast to share some tips and strategies to lessen that overwhelm and create some calm around the first day of school. She is not only a mom to 3 little under 6, two of whom are starting a new school for the first time this year, but she is also a fabulous teacher

of kids with intellectual disabilities and neurodivergence for almost 10 years now.  Not only that, her husband is also a high school physics teacher at a local high school here in Dallas as well.  She knows a thing or two about going back to school. In fact, Courtney has been the lead teacher for the
Primary Group at the Notre Dame School here in Dallas, guiding the littlest ones in the school who are all new every year just like say a kindergarten
class. 

Courtney also shares that she herself has ADHD and has really been on a journey to find the simple strategies and solutions that work to keep her on time and not so rushed as she tries to get three kids out the door and off to 3 different places. So if you are a parent with ADHD, this is a great one to tune into as well.


Takeaways:

  • Give your kids the chance to be independent and show off those skills; perhaps they are now ready to do more!
  • By putting items in the same place everyday, you are encouraging 'muscle memory' for your body and hopefully lightening the mental load your brain carries trying to remember where everything is.
  • Don't forget to generate some wonder in your child's brain by asking those questions throughout the summer about what school will be like. "I wonder what your teacher's name is?" "I wonder if Jeff will be in your class?" etc. This gets them excited to find out and more likely to work through the anxiety they might feel on the first day.


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    Especially Organized: Sensible Solutions for Special Needs MomsBy Angela O'Brien
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