My husband went to pre-Pre-K orientation this week.
He came home with three primary takeaways: he was by far the oldest parent in the room (his birthday gift this year was a cervical support pillow, so yea… #millennialparents), the school teaches kids that their hands hold power, and for infractions they need to sit on a rug to “power up” since they used up all their power for evil (or at least that was our Star Wars inspired interpretation), and lastly, apparently the school “doesn’t do poops.”
Now, can’t say we blame them, but also Big M is being verrrrry stubborn about this whole potty training thing so guess who’s likely to a frequent flyer at school during the work day …. this lady!
Anyway, we thought it would be a good time to share some research-backed tips for heading into the back to school cyclone season. Godspeed.
In this issue:
✅ The drop-off move that makes crying shorter (and the one thing that makes it worse)
✅ What actually needs to happen the night before — and it's not just packing the bag
✅ Why "how was your day?" is the wrong first question (and what to do instead)
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💗 Leave faster. It's the kinder move.
👉 If you've ever stood at drop-off trying to make the crying better, and felt like you were making it worse, you were probably right, but also it’s fixable.
Child development research is pretty consistent on this: brief, confident goodbyes shorten distress. Extended farewells extend it. The ritual doesn't need to be elaborate. A hug, a specific phrase, a wave. Under a minute. Then you leave.
Two details that matter more than the ritual itself:
Return language that actually lands. "I'll be back at 3" means nothing to a 3-year-old. "I'll be back after outside time" does. They know the school schedule. Use it.
Don't sneak out. It feels like mercy but what it actually does is teach them to guard the door. Researchers call this "wins the moment, loses the month."
Most kids are calm within 5–15 minutes of drop-off. Ask your teacher — they'll tell you your kid is fine by snack time, and you'll have spent the whole morning imagining otherwise.
🧘♀️ Give the bag a home. At their height.
👉 "Pack the bag the night before" is on every back-to-school list ever written. So we're going to go a little past that.
The actual problem with that advice is it solves one morning. A spot solves every morning.
The setup: one hook at kid height (24–28 inches for a 3-year-old), shoes directly below it on a tray or mat, and a small basket or shelf at your height nearby for papers and extras. The bag lives on the hook. The shoes live under it. Nothing gets decided in the morning because there's nowhere else for any of it to go.
Command hooks at the right height work, or these letter/personalized name hangers are adorable too. The non-negotiable part is that they can hang and retrieve the bag themselves — if the hook is at your height, it becomes your job.
And here is one of the rare times their memory works for you: do the bag check with them the night before. Walk through each item, they call it out, they help load it. (Even at 2, Big M was doing something like this, narrating every item going into the bag like a tiny cargo manifest.) It takes 90 seconds and they feel like they're running the operation.
📋 Your free back-to-school checklist
The bag check you do with them in 90 seconds. The one-time setup. And the questions nobody tells you to confirm before the first day of school.
Save it, share it, check things off on your phone. Or print it, if that’s how you roll.
💗 Stop asking how their day was. At least not yet.
👉 If pickup looks like a meltdown in the parking lot or a full emotional reset the moment they walk in the door, especially the first week, that is not a behavior problem. That's a nervous system doing its job.
Kids hold it together at school all day. They use a huge amount of energy adapting to a new space, new people, new rules. Home is where they finally release it. And "how was your day?" is basically asking them to process everything before they've had a chance to put it down.
The move: 20–30 minutes of nothing first. Snack, low stakes, minimal demands. Let them shift gears. The question can come later: dinner, bath time, whenever. It almost never produces a real answer in the parking lot anyway.
(Experienced parents have told us that bath time is when the actual good stuff comes out.)
💼 This Week's Work WTF
Inspired by real life events.
Scenario:
Day three of drop-offs. You join the morning standup a few minutes late. Your boss goes: "Oh hey — hope the first day of drop-off went okay yesterday."
What We Wish We Could Say:
"My dude. It is every day. Drop-off is every single day for the next twelve years. This is my life now."
Steal This Response:
"It did, thanks- we’ll see how the rest of the week goes. I'm targeting a 9:30 start while we get into the routine. Should be back to normal by next week."
K that's all. You're the best and we love you.
-CK "Now Part of Snack Rotation" Fuller (Editor) & the JB Crew 🫡
P.S. Next week: why your kid loses it the second they walk in the door after school — and what to do about it. (Spoiler: it also applies to your partner.)
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