Decoding your family's back to school routine: Insights from an elementary school counselor.

By Devon Riley

As the school year approaches, Erath County parents are rebuilding routines. Bedtimes move up. Backpacks come out of closets. Supply lists get checked off.

Every August, I get a call from a mother who has done everything right. She moved bedtime earlier in July. She lays out clothes the night before.

She built a picture checklist because her son does better when he can see the steps. He still can’t sleep on Sunday nights. He still asks every morning if he has to go.

She asks me what she’s missing. Often, the answer is nothing.

I’m a counselor at Texas Virtual Academy at Hallsville. My students come from across the state, including Erath County, the Rio Grande Valley and the Panhandle.

After years of these calls, I’ve come to see the back to school routine as a diagnostic tool. A good routine is worth building. It is also one of the most honest tests of whether an environment fits your child.

When a solid routine keeps failing, that failure is information.

Watch the Sunday night routine. For some children, anxiety starts Sunday evening no matter how early the bedtime or how strict the screen rules are.

This is not first day jitters. It is real anxiety, and this year I worked with elementary students who missed weeks of school because of it.

When those children began learning somewhere they felt safe, they participated. They joined clubs and made friends. Their parents called to tell me their child was sleeping through the night.

Watch the drop off. Sometimes the morning goes fine until the last hundred feet.

Bullying happens in every kind of school. But this year I spoke with families who escalated from teacher to counselor to principal to district, and nothing changed while their child kept walking through that door.

Watch the homework. If it’s finished in twenty minutes and your child is bored or it stretches to three hours and ends in tears, the pace is wrong.

No schedule fixes pace. At my school, some students complete a year of math in a few months because nothing holds them back.

Others take extra time on reading and carry no label for it.

Some families I serve care for a child with a chronic illness or ongoing treatment. Their routine is built around infusion days and flare ups.

They aren’t making a point about policy. They just want their child to stay in school.

Other families have children who train, compete or perform at levels a standard school day can’t accommodate.

And in rural counties, some families face long drives, or going without, because the local school can’t offer the courses their child needs.

None of this means traditional schools are failing. Some of the best teachers I know work in public schools right here in Erath County.

My point is harder to say out loud: no single environment fits every child and pretending otherwise has cost children years of learning.

As you rebuild your routine this month, notice what it tells you.

Is your child engaged when they learn?

Do the adults around them truly see them?

Does the pace match how their mind works?

And the question I ask parents most often: when your child gets ready for school in the morning, what do you see on their face?

You know better than anyone how last year went. The good news is that Texas families now have more than one accredited public school option for what comes next.

The right setting makes all the difference.

Devon Riley is a counselor at Texas Virtual Academy at Hallsville.