8 Tips for School Smarts: One of the Best Back-to-School Tips List You Will Ever Read

Back-to-School Season’s Greetings!

This season finds me feeding my office/school product junkie habit under the guise of buying extra school supplies for my kids.

Where does it find you?

Back to School Tips From a Mom Who Could Not Retrieve Any Of the Children’s Birth Certificates In Under 25 minutes, and Also Does Not Remember How Much Any of Those Children Weighed at Birth…

BUT Who is Almost Never Late to Any Appointment and Whose Children (Despite What They Might Say) Are in No Way Actually Starving

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1. Learn to say “no” without explanation/justification. This is particularly helpful in this season when multiple volunteer requests come to your inbox from people you don’t even know.

BONUS: Here’s a handy Bible verse for back up when saying “no” to those gratuitous volunteer opportunities: Matthew 5:37 (NKJV) “Let your “yes,” be yes, and your “no,” no. MORE EXPLANATION THAT THAT IS FROM THE EVIL ONE. (Emphasis mine).

And BONUS BONUS: Put the scripture at the bottom of your email response, right below your signature.

People are less likely to argue with Jesus.

2. Feed easy. Keep these foods on hand: apples, peanut butter, crackers, carrot sticks. These foods last a long time (carrots and apples best in the fridge) and you can make a fairly healthy, protein + fruit + vegetables lunch quickly out of them when you’re in a pinch. Also, it’s all paleo and dairy-free. Gluten-free if you get gluten-free crackers (or just scrap the crackers altogether). Plus, peanut butter-cracker sandwiches are just all kinds of fun.

3. Be last. Strive to be one of the last (not late) parents in the car ride line. Less waiting, more time for…other things. Also, nothing beats the feeling of coasting through the route, picking up your kids without inhaling gas fumes of 34 other cars, and driving away without having come to a full stop.

4. Let those kids get school lunch. If you pack lunches for yours, take a break and pick a day or two each week to let the kids get tray lunch. Also, kids are supposed to be packing their own at times, but that’s so much supervision and yanking out the nine cookies they tossed in and then it’s a big battle and ain’t nobody got time for that in September. Push that fight to October.

5. Wait. In other words, pause on issues that are relatively small. If you think there’s something that might be an issue with school stuff or homework or whatever…just hold up for a bit while schools and teachers and students and parents get their bearings and work out the new-school-year kinks. Sometimes these things resolve themselves, or get resolved by someone else, without you having to be That Parent Who Brings Up So Many Issues and Stuff and Looks All High Maintenance and Stuff. Passing this on from a FRIEND.

6. Stash some cash. Get thee to the bank and line your pockets (and car and purse and bag) with dollar bills and five-dollar bills. You know what for: field trips, little bits of money for this and that on special school days. DO IT NOW.

7. Pick one thing. On a day when you feel so overwhelmed, you don’t know where to start or what to do after that, pick one thing that will make you feel less so. ONE THING.

8. And then be sure to do that one thing. I forgot to say that.