Lower Austria

The little messenger is ready for the change of school

(Bild: Krone kreativ/Daniela Gaigg/canva)

How I help my daughter prepare for the upcoming change of school. As a columnist, "Die kleine Botin" aka Daniela Gaigg writes about topics relating to life with her family. These include sustainability in everyday life, self-care and food for thought for parents.

My younger daughter is just a few weeks away from a very exciting event: she is moving on to the next school! The anticipation prevails, she has been talking about it a lot and often since enrolling at AHS. Nevertheless, there are moments of uncertainty and excitement. The change to a completely new environment with lots of unknown people and a previously unfamiliar number of different teachers casts a bit of a shadow. How will it be?

To give her enough time to deal with this, it is important for me to talk to her about it openly and respectfully whenever she wants to. I listen to her concerns and expectations without devaluing them. I try to boost her self-confidence by talking about previous successes - even at elementary school, not every day was easy and unfortunately it's too easy to forget the small successes.

Preparing together
To keep things tangible and exciting for them during the vacations, we make many of the necessary preparations together. The list of new school materials, for example: She draws up a shopping list that we work through together.

Mixed emotions often make themselves felt, especially in the evening. Then it helps a lot to listen to them and let them go again with the help of simple relaxation exercises and encouraging sentences as affirmations.