Ten Tips for Ensuring a Healthy, Safe and Successful School Year

Twitter Moms and Airwear are asking moms to share tips on how they ensure a healthy, safe and successful school year for their children.

So here are mine:

Successful

1) Routine - A couple of weeks before school starts, begin your weekly routine.  Make sure bedtime will be the time it will be when school starts.  Have children wake up to their alarms, eat breakfast and get school bags by the door.  That will make sure that when school starts they're ready to go with no hassles.

2) Reading - Set a certain amount of time aside each day for reading.  Let children read books of their choice.  Even leisure reading will help with comprehension, writing and grammar.

3) Scheduling - Don't over schedule.  Let kids be kids, one or two extra curricular activities are fine, but don't have every day full, or kids will get stressed.

4) Communication - Start off the year right, when meet the teacher come around at the beginning of the year, make sure you introduce yourself, get the teachers e-mail address, so if problems arise during the year you have a quick efficient way to let the teacher know your concerns.

5) Participate - When parents are willing to get involved, children are more likely to work to their potential and succeed.

6) Label, Label, Label - Kids are kids and will lose things. Labeling everything really does help, most always things will make it to the Lost and Found, or another student will return it if it is labeled.  No parent wants to buy mittens and markers every week, labeling will surely help on increased costs of buying extras throughout the year because of missing items.

Safe

7) Shoes - Buy good running shoes with closed toes and heels that fit well.  Sometimes the cost of shoes can be overwhelming but with all the running around on the playground, well fitting, quality shoes are safer over all.

8) Contact Information - Make sure children of all ages know their home phone numbers, work numbers for the parents, their address and emergency contact names.  Also of course the safety rules of not talking to strangers.

Healthy

9) Allergies - Many schools have allergy-free zones for students with peanut allergies, or other food allergies.  Make sure your child knows about them whether or not they have allergies.  It will keep both themselves and their peers healthy.

10) Eye Exams - Have your children's eyes checked prior to the start of the school year.  Often this is a neglected appointment.  A child who has never worn glasses before, really doesn't know what their vision should be like, so until an optometrist checks their eyes, you may not know they need corrective lenses. 

www.LighterSaferGreener.com. Airwear and your fellow TwitterMom, Beth Aldrich, are sponsoring an essay contest for consumers, encouraging parents and care-givers to share how they plan to help their kids live a healthy, safe and successful school year. Families can submit their thoughts by visiting LighterSaferGreener.com. One grand prize winner will be awarded $1,000, while 10 first prize winners will receive vouchers for Airwear lenses valued up to $400. On LighterSaferGreener.com can learn more about Airwear’s eco-friendly practices and view more of Aldrich’s tips to ensure kids have a healthy, safe and successful school year.

Tune back in to my blog August 22 - 28th, for more Back to School ideas, products & giveaways.

What are some of your tips for a healthy, safe & successful school year? 

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Airwear blogging program, making me eligible to get a $25 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, visit http://airwear.twittermoms.com/about."