Three Back-To-School Parenting Tips for More Joy All-Around

Time to move from unorganized chaos, into... organized chaos!

Yep. Sometimes that is what the start of school feels like. I’m Flora McCormick, licensed therapist and parenting coach, and I’m sharing three sustainable parenting strategies to help you start the year with more joy and ease: plan for the worst, start family meetings, and get a life.

First, we talk about why realistic expectations are a form of kindness (honestly - to yourself AND your kids). “Plan for the worst” doesn’t mean assuming your kids will fail. It means looking ahead at what typically goes sideways, like waking up earlier, missing shoes, forgotten gear, and rushed mornings, and building a simple back-to-school routine that prevents avoidable blowups. When you feel prepared, you’re more in control of your response and less likely to swing between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline.

Next, we dig into family meetings as a practical Positive Discipline tool. I walk you through a three-part structure: an appreciation circle to build connection and gratitude, one collaborative problem-solving topic so you’re not doing top-down rules or inconsistent consequences, and a small repeatable “fun finish” so kids actually buy in. 

Finally, we get honest about parent self-care. When you’re depleted, patience disappears. “Get a life” means finding one doable way to reconnect with what makes you feel like you, which helps the whole family system.

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Transcript

Three Tips For School Success

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey friends, today I've got three key tips for you to have a successful school year. They are plan for the worst, start family meetings, and get a life. If you're not sure what those three things would mean on helping your school year so you have more joy and ease, I'm about to share with you how that can help no matter if you have littles or bigs. Let's get

Welcome And How To Follow

SPEAKER_00 0:21

started. Hey friend, welcome back to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, where we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline so that you finally have the joy and ease you've been missing. I'm your host, Flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach, and truly it means the world to me to have you here. So if you're new or returning, I hope that there are a few things going on. One, that you have hit the follow button so that you get our upcoming episodes. Two, if you have an episode that's been useful, please share it with a buddy. And third of all, I would really love to hear from you your thoughts about what's been most useful and any feedback you may have because I really read every single review and take those completely seriously. How do we have a successful school year? We're transitioning in the mode of what does it look like to get in those rhythms? This one friend told me it's like moving from unorganized chaos to organized chaos. And yes, that's basically the difference between summer and school year. But how can we have that chaos sting a little less and have a little more joy and ease? Friend, I want to suggest three key things. They are plan for the worst, start family meetings, and get a life. Let's dive into these three because they are sustainable strategies that can really help you be more of a family team working together and be growing grit and resilience in these littles that will prepare them for life and not just make the moment in front of you go easier. And that's something we're talking a lot about on this podcast. So if you've been out there wondering, is this just one more place that I'm gonna get another should, this is the place to get strategies that are kind and firm at the same time based on evidence-based strategies and informed by real parental wisdom.

Plan For The Worst

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So, first and foremost, plan for the worst. What does that mean, Flora? Wait, shouldn't I be optimistic? Here's what I'm saying. If I have the plan that my kids are gonna wake up and be excited I made waffles and just be thrilled they're gonna wear their new school clothes and jump out of bed excited. And then the day comes and they're like, we haven't woken up at seven o'clock for like three months, we can't do it, and I don't want to go. It's been so fun to do my own thing every day. Then we have not planned for the worst. And we do this, friends, don't we? We like think there's enough positives, there's not a chance that something will go south. And then when it does, we're not prepared. So I want you to be prepared because when we're prepared, then we feel in control of how we're gonna respond. And when we feel in control of how we're gonna respond, we're less likely to be in that gentle mom, monster mom cycle that we can fall into. So being prepared would look more like, okay, let's look ahead. We have school coming. We're gonna start to have bedtimes be a little bit earlier so we can practice getting up earlier and ease into that. Now, if you've already missed that boat, then it may be other things like the chaos in the morning of where did the shoes end up? Do we have the cleats? Okay, let's prepare for the worst instead of just thinking it's gonna go fine. Maybe we add to our evening routine that we need to find our tennis shoes and put them right by the door because I know that's always the last thing that makes our morning go the worst is when we've done everything else, and then dang it, we can't figure out where we put those darn shoes when we changed into soccer cleats yesterday. So prepare for the worst. Think about the things in your day that last school year tended to go poorly or already at the start of school are going poorly, and make a plan.

Build Weekly Family Meetings

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Secondly, start family meetings. If you do not have family meetings going on in your family yet, they are so essential to having a spot in your week to problem solve, like we just talked about. What are the things not going well? And how can we as a family make a plan for this? So we're not just authoritarian style saying top down, here's the new rules, deal with it. And we're also not just being super wishy-washy and like some days upset and throwing out consequences, and some days just like reminding, reminding and fixing it for them. Let's make a plan that's concrete and that can happen in family meetings. My favorite favorite strategy for family meetings comes from positive discipline, and the framework looks like this: three things, just three things. You start with a compliment circle or appreciation circle. So you say, I enjoyed or appreciate dot dot dot this one thing, and you do it for every person. So everyone does it for mom, everyone does it for brother, etc. This alone has been something that improved our life and our school year two years ago when we started it. Improved sibling rivalry because they're forced to acknowledge and give each each other some compliments, and that feels good and builds relationship. It helps the marital conflict or, you know, challenge around being all the work it takes to be teammates as parents. You get this moment that you're acknowledged in front of the kids by your partner for the efforts that you're putting forward, and that feels so good. It did for me. And it also is a way to just, you know, encourage our kids to understand gratitude and build the practice of gratitude, which much research has shown is a key component to decrease anxiety and depression. So, so many benefits to an appreciation or compliment circle. Part two of a family meeting then is to solve one family problem and do so in a way that's like, here's the challenge. Mornings are rough. What could we all be doing to make mornings go better? So do so in a really collaborative way where all ideas are welcome until you come to a place of choosing from those many ideas what is gonna work for you. And let me say if you have silly little ones that like to say things like, we could just buy a spaceship and fly to the moon, and then we wouldn't have the problem. You know, roll with that. Kids like to be playful, and if we're always like, stop that, be serious, then we just get more resistance. So just be like, ah, I love that. Okay, I'm writing it down. Spaceship. That's one idea. What else could we do? And then idea number three of the family meeting is that you end with something fun, ice cream Sundays, movie, something that makes them look forward to the previous two steps each time you say it's family meeting time because they know it's gonna end with something enjoyable. And make sure that's small and repeatable and sustainable. So it's not going to the roller skating rink because you're not going to be able to do that every time. And then number three thing for a more successful school year, we've talked so far about number one, how to plan for the worst, expect the worst, number two, start filming

Get A Life Outside Parenting

SPEAKER_00 7:31

meetings. Three, get a life. This is probably the biggest thing that I see parents not even thinking about for the school year and has a giant impact on them enjoying their family more. Which is, friend, if you're just only always spending your time, how will the kids do better? How what do they need for school? Then you are operating from a drained place that likely is not going to be very fulfilling and possible for showing up as the best mom or dad that you can be. So I take myself, for example, I just bought myself two new pairs of shoes. And I bought them because the shoes I was wearing were literally like two and a half years old, torn heels, falling apart, absolutely no support. And I just kept like, there's never time for mom. I'm doing this for them. I had bought my kids several other things: clothing, shoes, you know, gone and found crafts for them for the summer. Had I attended to what I needed, no, I had not. And it just like is this little drone of I'm a little more crabby, my back kind of hurts, my knees kind of hurt because I didn't have shoe support. So, my friend, take care of yourself. If there's something that you need for yourself, take steps to do that. And part of that is getting a life. Right now, in a week, I'm gonna be performing a hip hop dance in a local performance. And I'm so excited about it. It's called Independ Dance, really focused on 18 and older, people who used to dance or always wanted to try to dance, being able to perform in a show. And it just makes my heart so happy, fills me with this sense of like who else I am besides just a person who creates recipes and cooks meals and cleans constantly, right? What that might look like in different moments is when my kids were one and three, my desire to dance looked like turning on my favorite songs and just jamming out to, you know, the Pointer Sisters jump while holding my babies, and knowing that just moving my body with fun, upbeat music playing or getting into some real booty pop, like total like raunchy music that my kids couldn't understand because they were so little, and just pretending I was back in the dance clubs in college, like fed my soul. That's what I did to get a life and bring more life back into my body, my soul at that phase of parenthood. So, you know, when you find something, what is your passion? Is it pottery? Is it dance? Is it poetry? Find that, find one tiny way that you can be engaging more in that thing that brings you joy, that used to bring you joy, or you've always thought might bring you joy if you gave it a try and do it. Do it this year because it will fill you up in a way that will help you show up more to do all the other things that my other episodes talk about. How to be patient and respond with more calm when your kid is overreacting or when they're emotional, or when they need you to be able to pause and take a breath and walk away instead of screaming. It will serve the whole system. All

Takeaways And Next Week Teaser

SPEAKER_00 10:40

right, friends. So those three things, assume the worst, plan family meetings, and get a life. I hope that helps you have a great new school year. And join me next week as I'm going to give you my top three tools for how to parent strong-willed kids. And just as a little teaser, they are headphones, duct tape, and a magic remote. And we are not gonna use them in the way you might be imagining. No, no, no. I have a surprising way that those three tools can ultimately serve you with your strong willed kids. Listeners, if you need parenting advice, talk to my mom. Sustainable parenting with Flora McCormick.