With the new school year just around the corner, many parents and carers find themselves frantically rushing around trying to get uniforms, stationery, lunchboxes, backpacks and everything else together. It's a minefield, even for the most experienced parent.
But, for some, this will be the first time they're preparing their little ones to fly the nest into the world of full-time education, which can be a daunting time, especially as we navigate our way through post-pandemic life with many kids having barely socialised over the last 18 months.
Starting school is an incredibly exciting time for kids, seeing the world through a new lens, meeting new and exciting people who come from all different backgrounds, and it's likely little ones will come home with some burning questions about the world, their peers, and their own family set up.
This is something which author and journalist Bryony Gordon knows all too well, after she had to explain to her daughter she would be heading off to rehab the day she started reception class.
"I was so full of shame and horror and you know, with parenting you kind of feel like you have to be the perfect person and you’re scared that you’ll lose them," Bryony told the Mirror.
"But, of course, none of us are perfect and actually we don’t want to be showing our kids that because it’s not achievable. What I have learnt in the four years since is that every person at that school gate is coming with their emotional baggage, even if you can’t see it, even if it’s masked in athleisure wear."
In fact, research shows that a third of kids starting school will come home and start asking questions about their own family set up after making friends and meeting others whose home life might look entirely different to theirs.
"With family set ups now, you can have people with two dads, people who don’t know their dads, people like my daughter whose mum’s in recovery, there’s so many different experiences, and so I think the more you make it a normal thing, and you let people know we all look different," Bryony continued.
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Now, the mum, who penned No Such Thing As Normal, is fronting a campaign by Haliborange called It's All Normal, which is reminding parents and kids alike, no matter their situation, it's normal.
"When I was a kid, growing up in the 80s, there was a comedy programme called 2point4 Children, which was the phrase for the nuclear family and how it should look, and what I always say about a nuclear family is that they can explode like a neutron bomb," Bryony explained.
The key, according to Bryony, is to have open and honest conversations with your children about their differences and their feelings, so that any issues presented at school don't manifest into bigger problems later in life.
"Mental health education needs to start from day one, even from before the day they’re born, you want the biological parent to be tuning into it from the moment they get pregnant, but it starts at childhood. We know that around 60 percent of people who will experience a mental illness in their life, it will have manifested in some way by the time they’re 14," she explained.
"So having these conversations is so important. You might thinking ‘oh, it’s tricky, it’s difficult and kids should be allowed to be kids,’ but they can still be kids, it just makes their experience of being kids a lot easier if they feel more able to have these tricky conversations with you."
Bryony recalled some of her own early memories, being told: "Oh, don't cry, don't be silly," when she was upset, which was, of course, well-meaning, but often left her feeling as though her hurt was invalid in some way.
"We can very inadvertently shame our kids for the feelings they have and that sores up problems in the future," she said. "Feeling that way is not bad, obviously we’d rather be happy the whole time, but that’s life, sometimes we’re not and you don’t want to attach a value system to it, so I say to my daughter now if she’s upset, ‘do cry, let it out, get it out and let’s talk about it.'"
Bryony Gordon is working with Haliborange, the UK’s No.1 kids vitamin brand, on their #ItsAllNormal campaign reminding parents that at back to school time, it’s all normal. Haliborange reassures parents that their kids are getting the vitamins and minerals they need for growth and development at every stage. For more information, head to @HaliborangeUK Instagram page.
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