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Back-to-school 2021 is finally upon us, and it presents a new and interesting dichotomy of celebration versus trepidation.
COVID-19 has caused us all immense turmoil over the past 18 months.
The magnitude of disruption to education and learning for our little ones was of unimaginable proportions. The pandemic forced parents, teachers and children alike, to find new coping mechanisms in order to deal with these unprecedented circumstances.
Empty classrooms and the sudden shift to home-schooling, combined with remote working for parents, obliterated the comfort of our daily routines.
This left many parents and children socially and emotionally troubled.
And yet there is hope. There is still that sense of new beginnings that a new school year brings.
But it’s no surprise that back-to-school 2021 just doesn’t have the same buzz as it did before.
Is it a welcome or woe?
Here are 8 reasons why back-to-school 2021 could be either or both for Scholarly Mamas.
1. Back to school 2021 may trigger worry about future disruptions
We always hoped that when each of our boys started school, they’d have an amazing introduction to formal education.
However, when our middle son started school last year, we feared he won’t have the same experience our eldest had a few years before him.
Indeed, it wasn’t long after he started school that we found ourselves amid another COVID wave and subsequent lockdown, just two months later!
His new school routine went quickly out the window!
He missed out on so many firsts. No first Christmas school performance to look forward to, no birthday parties or play dates with new friends, no class Christmas party.
Friendship building paused as he could not see his new friends. In-person learning from his new teachers halted.
It was such an anticlimactic start to his school life!
When I reflect on this, one thing this pandemic has taught me as a parent is that a school year without disruption cannot necessarily be guaranteed.
It’s something I think most of us took for granted previously. Now, we plan just a few weeks at a time.
But as Scholarly Mamas, who are also on our academic schedules with funding limitations and time-sensitive research projects, it’s hard to imagine how we’d cope with further disruption or another potential lockdown.
I just can’t even stand the thought.
I personally experienced severe disruption to my own PhD journey, which resulted in me interrupting my studies temporarily.
So now that back-to-school 2021 is here, I can’t help but wonder whether it will be back-to-school for good or if this is just a hopeful illusion of normality.
Who knows!
Only time will tell, but whatever comes our way, I now know how very resilient and resourceful I am, and how adaptable our kids are.
So with hope and optimism, we look forward to the back-to-school journey ahead of us.
2. Getting back into a routine is definitely welcome
This is a big one. Kids thrive on routine and I’m not going to lie, as parents we do too!
As a Scholarly Mama, having some structure to the day allows me to plan and allow time for work with reasonable predictability.
I say ‘reasonable’ because nothing about raising children is predictable! So one has to be flexible.
But once the kids are back to their daily routines and bedtime rituals, it does help the household to run a bit more smoothly.
Even though this means a return to the early morning school runs and making packed lunches, there is no denying the power of routines for kids.
So I don’t know about you, but in our household, this is top of our list of back-to-school welcomes.
Getting back into the routine of back to school? Yes, please! I’ll take it!
3. Welcoming a return to in-person learning
As mentioned above, we’ve been attempting a return to in-person learning in the UK since September last year.
But this has not been without interruption. The kids have been commuting to their computer screens and missing out on the interactive learning experiences that the school has to offer.
If your kid’s school has been closed since the pandemic started, I am sure back to school 2021 is definitely welcomed by you.
Truth be told if you’re not an experienced home educator, you may have found home-schooling quite difficult. And if you were balancing that with work and/or your PhD research, it probably felt borderline impossible.
You’re not alone.
According to a 2020 Coronavirus Parent Survey by ParentKind, a large network of Parent Teacher Associations in the UK, many parents worried about the negative impact of school closures on their children’s education and few felt empowered to support their child’s home learning, with the stress of juggling work commitments with homeschooling, a common theme.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, what we were doing last year was not home-schooling was it? It was taking on an emergency educator role many of us parents were ill-prepared for.
A role that was further complicated for many by simultaneous remote working.
It wasn’t easy.
In fact, it’s given me a new respect for teachers and parents who home-school full-time.
I’m certainly not ashamed to say that I welcome a return to in-person learning!
4. Back to school 2021 may bring new worries about the risks of becoming ill from COVID-19
I was chatting with another Mum recently, who was very worried about her kids going back to school this month.
She was worried about the risks of COVID exposure on their school bus commute and in the classroom.
I know that for many parents, this is a real concern.
COVID-19 isn’t going to disappear just because we chose not to think about it. While the vaccines help, experts have warned that it won’t be going away anytime soon.
So understandably, there will be concerns about increased viral transmission when children return to mixing within the school setting.
I don’t think anyone can fully eliminate the risks of going back to school in 2021.
However, you can take the necessary precautions and adhere to the safety measures in place at your kids’ school.
At the end of the day, that’s all you can realistically do.
5. Time with friends (for the kids) and time for myself are both welcome
We love our kids more than words can express.
And we know how much they love their Mamas too!
However, we must accept that they also need time away to build and enjoy their friendships. It’s been a year and a half of unpredictable disruption to their mini-social lives.
So it’s no surprise that they are looking forward to returning to their circle of friends at school.
If the past 18 months have left you a tired Mama, then you’re probably looking forward to back-to-school in 2021 too!
Perhaps you want to get back into your usual work routine, get back into the groove of your research, pamper yourself for once, dive into a good book or just get on with some errands without the kids in tow.
Not to mention, if you have more than one child, you’ve probably been operating as a part-time sibling rivalry referee! So a welcome break from wearing that hat will be fully embraced, I am sure.
Hey Mama, you deserve a break too! As they say, you can’t pour from an empty cup so take the time you need for a guilt-free recharge!
6. The back to school 2021 woe of reacclimatising your introverted child
If you’re a Mama of an introverted child, you may notice that they may not miss their social circles at school as much as expected.
Perhaps they just loved being at home with you for a bit, in the quiet comfort of home.
If you’re an introverted Mama yourself, then you’d also recognise this feeling very well. You understand why they may not be facing the return to school with much glee and hype.
Back-to-school 2021 maybe a woe for both you and them.
One way to help with this, is to spend some time connecting with them one to one. Talk through their emotions about going back to school.
This will also help them to feel as prepared as possible and will ensure their expectations are rational and realistic.
Depending on their age, reading books together about returning to school or going to school for the first time may also help with the preparation.
One of my books, Doodle Dozen Let’s Get Doodling at School, intended for little readers aged 4-8 years, is just one example. I’ve shared the short book trailer below.
Positive affirmations for kids to help foster a growth mindset and promote healthy self-talk can also help. Check out these inspirational doodle videos for some ideas!
After their first day back to school, spending some time debriefing after what might have been an over-stimulating day for them, may help them to open up and feel less overwhelmed.
Remember that introverts often have a lower threshold for stimulation and need time to recharge after long periods of interaction. For an introverted child, the first day back to school may feel quite overstimulating.
Susan Cain’s book, ‘Quiet’, which I recently added to My Bookshelf page, explains how being an introvert can be a real superpower in this noisy world. She also has a version of this book for kids, called ‘Quiet Power’.
So although reacclimatising an introverted child may be a woe, there are ways to minimise the stress of it all.
Please seek mental health professional opinion and advice if you believe your child needs additional support to cope with back to school 2021.
7. Welcome new skills to share
Speaking about books, let’s talk about new skills too!
As you know, the many lockdowns imposed by the pandemic provided an opportunity for me to tap into my own creativity.
With inspiration from my kids, I was fortunate enough to be able to use the time at home with the boys to publish my first children’s book series.
The boys have been such an integral part of this journey.
They are my executive committee, my beta readers and the active voices of the book characters on our Youtube channel.
They’ve been through the entire process with me.
As a result, they’ve gained many new skills which I hope will serve them well in their future endeavours.
In addition, during lockdown and over the summer holidays, they’ve also picked up some other new skills.
They’ve been learning French and Spanish with Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. Learning to play the piano on YouTube has also been fun for them! And of course, they have picked up some homemaker skills too by helping out around the house!
So they are embarking on back to school 2021 with exciting new skills which they can share with their friends.
Who said back to school can’t be creatively cool, right?
But it’s not only the kids who have developed new skills. This PhD Mama also acquired some too!
I stepped out of my comfort zone and started the Mrs Mummy PhD blog.
The entire process was self-taught and executed DIY style.
I will share a step-by-step guide on how I did it all very soon here on the blog, but for now, I’ll just say that using Bluehost to host my blog made it super easy! I’ve also become savvy with using tools like Canva!
It’s really made my blogging journey one that I am happy I did not abandon.
So it’s new skills all around for both this Scholarly Mama and her kiddos for back-to-school 2021!
8. Back to school 2021 may create a financial woe for PhD Mamas
As we know, illness, hospitalisation and death were not the only things we had to worry about in this pandemic.
As Scholarly Mamas, we’re used to the stresses of job insecurity, with short-term work contracts and competitive research grant funding, a regular headache for us.
But with the additional financial woes brought on by the COVID such as job losses and reduced hours, it’s been a very challenging time for many Scholarly Mama households.
As researchers, funding woes imposed by the pandemic have also been a major concern for many of us.
Not to mention the expense of back-to-school 2021. From new school wear to school shoes and school bags, it’s no wonder that this time of year can be a blow to our bank accounts!
So although we maybe smiling at the school gates, financial insecurity may not be far from our thoughts.
As Scholarly Mamas, it sometimes feels taboo to talk about money. We may not want to admit that we are even the slightest bit motivated by it. We may feel guilty about wanting a better financial future for ourselves or our families.
After all, academia can often feel like an environment in which we operate solely for the love of research and the pursuit of knowledge.
But the reality is that we have bills to pay, children to feed and other financial responsibilities to meet. We simply can’t fulfil those without money.
But even with the best intentions, it’s hard to know how to manage our finances effectively as Scholarly Mamas.
That’s why talking about money and taking steps now to improve our financial literacy can help to alleviate the woes.
One thing I’ve learned on my journey so far, is that in order to achieve a different result, one must take a different approach.
So I am unapologetic about working towards securing my family’s financial future by learning how to approach the subject of money more purposefully now.
Conclusion
In this post, we’ve explored why you may or may not have caught the back-to-school bug in 2021. I am sure many of the points may have resonated with you.
For some, back-to-school 2021 may be welcome, for others a woe.
However, for the vast majority of us, it’s probably a bit of both!
Like it or not, back-to-school 2021 is upon us. And frankly, we’ve never had one quite like it! Sadly, it presents a new dichotomy we may have to get used to.
Whatever the experience is for you, I hope you manage to embrace the challenges and celebrate the little wins too as we ease ourselves into this new normal.
Do you have a little one returning or starting school this year? How are you feeling about it?
Are there any welcomes or woes that I’ve missed?
Let me know in the comments below. I’d love you to share your experience!
Remember, these are our journeys of becoming!
Great article, on point! (Pun intended 😆).
Thank you! I’m glad it resonated with you 🙂