Back to School Routines for Empty Nesters

Back to School Tips for Empty Nesters

As much as we love Summer, Back to School is the time we all use to reset whether we have school age kids or not. We all need a little structure and that comes from establishing routines for self care and priorities. Our self care and priorities are part of the big picture of purpose and meaning. Back to School can be a time of reflecting, learning and boundary setting.

 

Resetting Self Care

Summer might have meant more fast food dining. It could have been too hot for outside exercise. AND maybe you have been staying up much later because it is light so late into the evening. Resetting your priorities is often resetting your self care. Take baby steps to get back to your daily routines of hydration, exercise and nutrition. First, reset your bedtime to mirror what is best for work from home or work in the office. If bedtime is a continuous struggle, look at your routines before bed.  Keep your self care goals easy to accomplish and link existing successful routines to other routines.

 

Reflecting on Priorities

Back to school time feels a lot like new year. It can be a time where we evaluate and update our priorities, balance and connections. Our work life integration is where we have a balance between our professional life and personal life. Set aside a few minutes of reflection time to create a vision of balance. Priorities result with a clear decision on how you want to spend your time after work and where you work. Resetting priorities gives us the opportunity to find meaning and connection in our lives. This is also a great time for an annual summit for you, your family and your business.

 

Back to life long learning

Life long learning and curiosity go together. There is no age limit on learning so let Back To School prompt you to begin learning something new. Reading, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube, taking a course are all ways we grow in knowledge. It is also how we thrive. Learning new skills slows cognitive aging. Now this is a good reason to continue life long learning of all types.

 

Resetting boundaries

The best part of Back To School is setting boundaries.  Remember in school when time in one class was 50 minutes. That was a great boundary for work in that content area. Boundaries add structure to your time and connections helping you adhere to your goals and priorities. If it is a struggle to set boundaries, know why you are setting a boundary to get the most benefit.

 

Back to School for Empty Nesters is an optimal time to create new opportunities, let go of what has not served you well, and get back to routines. Seize the opportunity to overhaul and create time for what is important to you.

Back to School Tips for Meal Prepping and Planning

Back to school meal prep and planning

 

Back to school time is the time for easy family meals, simple healthy lunches, and fast breakfasts to get you all out the door. What’s behind our meal planning goals? We want to have time together to share the joy, gratitude, and struggles of the day. Healthy meals make our bodies and brains work best. However, we don’t want to be spending so much time in the kitchen alone, being solely responsible for meal planning and feeling exhausted at the end of it all.  Check out these quick, easy and simple solutions.

 

Team up

No one wants to be left in the kitchen alone. Parents feel frustrated when they make dinner and everyone moves the food around their plates. Create a family responsibility chart for cooking and clean up. Make each part fun with music and friendly conversation. Have everyone add to the online grocery list to keep everyone in on decisions. Use simple recipes everyone in your family can all cook or do meal prep together where people are mixing and chopping to make dinner.  It all comes down to finding ways to get everyone together.

Order online

There are lots of ways to order online to make meal prep easier. Start by looking in your local grocery store to order online. There are lots of pre-made salads that can be packed for lunch or eaten at home for dinner. Grocery stores offer prepped meals to simplify your cooking. Use online Costco, Amazon or Instacart subscriptions for bulky weekly purchases like toilet paper and paper towels. Meal subscription services offer variety of options. Choose what is the best fit for your needs. You can subscribe to a variety of these and place these on pause to change things up. Just make sure you order on the same day weekly and plan on the time your delivery is occurring to put away the items.

Use multipliers

Doubling up can make cooking easier.  Cook once and eat twice by double recipes and freezing the second casserole. Or cook a protein and use it in two different entrees. Sheet pan dinners make large portions with ease. One bowl meals are a hit with families using beans, rice and a protein. Multipliers give you options for multiple ways to feed your family with multiple outcomes for variety. Find one multiplier you can multiply.

 

Be pantry prepared and freezer ready

There is a lot in your pantry that makes dinner preparation easy. Easy pantry meals include canned proteins, such as tuna or chickpeas.  Group your items in your pantry together by meal to “see” ready to go, pantry raid meals. Or organize your pantry like the grocery store and pull items onto the counter that day you are preparing.

 

Organize your freezer so that you have easy meals to go from freezer to oven.  If your tight on freezer space, organize the shelves with flat containers stacked for dinner. Use a dry erase board with a list of freezer meals.

 

Sandwiches are for breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner.  A variety of breads can simplify your meals. There are so many options including avocado toast, grilled cheese, nut butter toast, and more!

 

Rely on organization

Get organized and set up a team strategy for preparation. Create a routine that your family packs their own lunches and preps breakfast the night before.  A station with bins and baskets with ready to go food, stocked up weekly, will keep your meal prep running smoothly.

 

Chart your course

Family dinner charts are everywhere on pinterest. Dinner by day, dinner theme days or a dinner grid take away the decision making.  Ask your family and create a rotation meal options.  In this way, everyone is part of the decision making.

 

Remember your dinner goals and keep it simple. Pause and give yourself a moment to gather your thoughts and your team when you get home. Happy times come from these dinners together.

 

 

 

 

Back to School Tips for Students with ADHD

 

Back To School Tips for Students with ADHD

Was last year’s virtual and in person school a chaotic, disorganized situation?  Was it common for your student to miss assignments, turn in papers late or not be prepared for a test?  These are some of the effects for students with ADHD. They have week executive function which interferes with their ability to organize, prioritize, and analyze.  Use these strategies for your disorganized student to create and maintain order. Most importantly, your student will get better grades this year and feel better about school success.

 

Your Coaching Role

Organizational skills for students with ADHD do not come naturally. You are the coach partnering with your student on the basics of planning and organization.  By coaching, you are involving your student in setting up organization systems with choices and decisions. A team approach provides support and accountability. You are sharing ways to practice these skills, systems, and routines. These might be a work in progress as you both find innovative, resourceful ways to be organized and productive.

 

Organizing Skills and Systems

At the foundation of all organization is using tools for planning and productivity.

A calendar is a planning and initiating tool. Calendars offer a place to park assignments and projects. Entering all activities helps a student start to see time with a “visual record of activities” and using verbal processing is auditory processing about the details, interactions, and emotions of that record.  Calendars offer accountability because deadlines activate the ADHD brain.  Calendars come in all shapes and sizes, both online and paper. It may be hard to choose one calendar however match the needs of your student with the right fit.

Paperwork is a struggle for students with ADHD. Think about the paper that your student works with daily.  There are different “filing” systems needed for this.  A notebook is the spot for daily paperwork. Use a slash pocket for homework at the front of the notebook and one for each subject in the binder. Set up a file box for paper that does not need to be accessed daily. In the file box, color code the files to store papers by subject area. Papers are added to the file box at the end of a marking period.  This s great preparation and life skill for future paper management.

School supplies require organization. School supplies can be easily organized in a clear zipper case, a section of a backpack or in a caddy at the homework station.  Replenish supplies as these are often lost. Choose supplies the student loves because that is an incentive for being organized and keeping up with supplies.

 

Maintaining and emphasizing school success routines

Students with ADHD need a higher level of accountability on their schoolwork.  Check planners and review online assignments weekly with your student. Sit as a body double if your student is having trouble settling in and getting started.  Encourage a weekly re-organization and clean out of papers that can be stored in the file box or in an archive art container.

 

Encourage your student’s success as you continue coaching. Be patient, expect multiple first tries of new systems, and use accountability wisely to help create an organized, positive, and productive school year.

 

Back to School Tips for Students with ADHD graphic