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Back-to-School Transitions: When a New School Year Asks More of Your Child
A new school year brings new teachers, classrooms, classmates, and routines. But there’s another part of the transition that can be easy to miss: the expectations change, too.
A child who did well in second grade isn’t walking back into second grade.
Third grade expects them to keep track of more materials, follow longer directions, work more independently, navigate more complicated friendships, manage disappointment with less adult support, and recognize when they need help and ask for it.
So when a child who seemed to be doing well last year suddenly struggles, consider what has changed around them. This year may require skills that were barely necessary a few months ago. The environment is asking more of them.
A New Grade Means New Expectations
Some changes are obvious. The academic work gets harder. Others are woven into the school day and may be harder to notice.
Here in Naperville, District 203 incorporates social-emotional learning throughout its curriculum, with expectations that develop across grade levels. Children are learning more than reading and math. They’re also increasingly expected to manage themselves, make decisions, navigate relationships, solve problems, and participate more independently at school.
Even the environment itself changes from year to year.
This fall, District 203 reduced technology use for its youngest elementary students. Kindergarten and first-grade classrooms moved to two students per iPad, and second-grade Chromebooks now remain at school rather than traveling back and forth with students. Across Illinois, schools are also implementing new restrictions on personal wireless devices following legislation signed by Governor Pritzker in July.
I think those are positive changes as schools continue moving away from some of the technology-heavy practices that expanded during COVID. Kids need opportunities for direct teaching, active practice, interaction, and learning by doing. But they’re also good examples of something we sometimes forget: school is not the same environment from one year to the next.
We acknowledge that the classmates and the teacher and the classroom might change. The specials, the schedule, the routine, when lunch is. But also, the tools change. The social world changes. And what children are expected to manage on their own changes.
Sometimes new demands expose skills that are still developing
Maybe last year an aide reminded everyone what needed to go into their backpack. This year, students are expected to keep track themselves.
Maybe your child can follow a familiar classroom routine beautifully but struggles when the schedule unexpectedly changes. The beginning of a new school year can involve a lot of trial and error while everyone figures out what the new routines will actually look like. For autistic children, changes in expectations, routines, support, and social demands can make that adjustment especially noticeable.
Maybe they have plenty of language, but explaining a misunderstanding with a friend is much harder than answering a question in class.
Maybe they know exactly what they’re supposed to do but have trouble organizing themselves enough to actually do it.
These aren’t necessarily new problems. Sometimes a new environment simply makes a developing skill more important than it used to be.
That’s why, when we see a child struggling at the beginning of the year, one of the most useful questions we can ask is:
What is this year asking them to do that they weren’t being asked to do before?
Difficulty adjusting doesn’t always look like difficulty at school
Some children will tell you school is hard. Others hold it together all day and show us at home.
You might see more exhaustion after school, bigger reactions to small problems, harder mornings, increased resistance around school, or a child who suddenly needs much more help with things they used to manage.
That doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. Adjusting to increased demands takes energy and time.
And too often when parents look for advice, we’re given another job. I’m here to give you different advice:
Home can just be home.
If your child is spending six or seven hours a day working hard to navigate new expectations, you do not have to run through all of the issues from school at home. You do not have to teach them the skills that school is reporting is an issue. You don’t have to solve school’s problems.
There’s a reason everyone says “it takes a village,” but we’re often terrible at actually letting the village take things off our plates. Consider school part of your village. If you get a call about something happening at school, take it as information. Ask what they’re seeing and what their plan is. Ask how you can support that plan if you want to, but you do not have to come home and recreate the intervention yourself.
At home, lower the expectations for a while. Help them with things they might normally do themselves. Let them decompress. Watch TV. Play. Eat a snack. Be silly together. Let them talk about school if they want to, and leave it alone if they don’t.
When possible, let the transition difficulties at school stay at school.
Giving your child more support while they adjust doesn’t mean you’re creating dependence or moving backward. It means you’re recognizing that they currently have a lot on their plate.
As the year becomes familiar, you can gradually return to your normal expectations.
And if there are skills your child needs additional help learning, tag us in. That’s literally our job.
Parenting is a big job. You don’t have to also be therapist and teacher, especially during a time of transition. You get to love your kid, have fun with them, and be their parent. The rest of us can’t do that.
Give it time, and pay attention
The first few weeks of school give us new information about our kids. Most children need some time to settle in.
But sometimes the transition shows us that the demands of this school year are bumping up against skills that need more support. For autistic children, that might mean struggling to manage their day, navigate relationships, regulate their emotions, stay flexible when things change, keep track of what they need to do, communicate effectively, or advocate for themselves when something isn’t working.
Those are all skills that can be directly taught and practiced. They’re also the kinds of skills we work on every day at Precision ABA.
If school continues to be hard after the initial transition, or you’re already seeing that your child needs more support than their current school day can provide, you don’t have to wait for things to get worse. Sometimes focused teaching outside of school can give a child time to build the skills that are making the school day difficult. Learn more about how Precision ABA supports children when school isn’t working.
Your child may not have gone backward. The expectations around them may have moved forward. And sometimes that tells us exactly what they need to learn next.
Wondering what your child's harder mornings or bigger reactions after school might actually be telling you?
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