Resources
New Suicide and Crisis Number 988
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๐ Parenting Tips for K–12 Success
๐ Simple Ways Parents Can Support Their Child at Every Grade Level
Parenting through school years can be challenging! Your child’s needs change from kindergarten through 12th grade, but your involvement, encouragement, and communication continue to make a difference.
๐ ๐ BUILD GOOD HABITS AT HOME
- โฐ Establish a routine. Set regular times for waking up, homework, meals, and bedtime.
- ๐ Encourage reading every day. Let your child choose books, magazines, or other age-appropriate reading materials they enjoy.
- ๐ Help your child stay organized. Check backpacks, folders, planners, and online school portals regularly.
- ๐ Create a homework space. Choose a quiet area with the supplies your child needs.
- ๐ Know important school dates. Keep track of parent conferences, testing, activities, registration, and deadlines.
- ๐ป Check grades regularly. Use your school's online grade portal to monitor progress and celebrate improvement.
๐ฌโค๏ธ TALK WITH YOUR CHILD
Your child needs to know you are listening.
- Ask open-ended questions instead of only asking, “How was school?”
- Try: “What was the best part of your day?” or “What was something difficult today?”
- Listen before immediately offering advice.
- Let your child know that mistakes are part of learning.
- Celebrate effort, improvement, and perseverance, not just perfect grades.
- Make time for conversations without phones or other distractions.
๐ฉ๐ซ๐ค PARTNER WITH THE SCHOOL
You don't have to navigate school alone!
- Get to know your child's teachers, counselor, and school staff.
- Attend parent-teacher conferences and school events when possible.
- Contact the school when you have questions or concerns.
- Ask for help early if your child is struggling academically, socially, or emotionally.
- Keep the school informed about circumstances that may affect your child's learning.
- Encourage your child to advocate for themselves as they get older.
๐ K–5: BUILD THE FOUNDATION
๐ฑ Elementary School
At this stage, children are developing the academic and social skills they will use for years to come.
- ๐ Read with your child regularly.
- ๐ข Practice basic math skills through everyday activities.
- ๐ฃ๏ธ Encourage your child to explain what they learned.
- ๐ง Ask questions and encourage curiosity.
- ๐ด Make sleep a priority.
- ๐ Praise effort and persistence.
- ๐งน Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities at home.
- โค๏ธ Help your child learn how to handle disappointment, frustration, and conflict.
Remember:
You don't have to do everything for your child. Teach them how to do things for themselves.
๐ 6–8: BUILD INDEPENDENCE
๐ Middle School
Middle school brings academic, social, and emotional changes. Your child needs support and increasing independence.
- ๐ Help your child learn to use a planner or calendar.
- ๐ Encourage them to organize their own backpack and assignments.
- ๐ป Continue checking grades and school communication.
- ๐ฑ Set clear expectations for phones, gaming, and social media.
- ๐ฃ๏ธ Talk openly about friendships, peer pressure, bullying, and online behavior.
- โค๏ธ Pay attention to changes in mood, behavior, sleep, friendships, or school performance.
- ๐ฏ Encourage activities, sports, clubs, and interests.
- ๐ค Teach your child how to ask a teacher for help.
Remember:
Be involved without taking over.
๐ 9–12: PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE
๐ High School
High school is about academics and preparing for life after graduation.
- ๐ Monitor grades and graduation requirements.
- ๐ฏ Help your student set academic and personal goals.
- ๐ซ Encourage college visits, career exploration, trades, military options, or other post-secondary pathways.
- ๐ฐ Talk about the cost of education and financial aid.
- ๐ Keep track of ACT/SAT or other testing opportunities when applicable.
- ๐ต Encourage students to research and apply for scholarships.
- ๐ Deadlines matter! Help your student develop a system for tracking applications, scholarships, testing, and financial aid.
- ๐ง๐ Encourage your student to communicate directly with teachers, counselors, colleges, employers, and other adults.
- ๐งญ Let your student take increasing responsibility for their decisions and future plans.
Remember:
Your job changes from “doing it for them” to helping them learn how to do it for themselves.
๐ฑ๐ป TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL MEDIA
Technology is part of children's lives, so conversation is just as important as rules.
- Set age-appropriate boundaries for screen time.
- Know which apps and platforms your child uses.
- Talk about online privacy and sharing personal information.
- Teach children that online behavior can have real-world consequences.
- Encourage children to tell a trusted adult if something online makes them uncomfortable or unsafe.
- Keep devices out of the bedroom at bedtime when appropriate.
- Model healthy technology habits yourself.
๐๐ง SUPPORT YOUR CHILD'S WELL-BEING
Your child's emotional well-being is just as important as their grades.
Watch for significant or lasting changes in:
- ๐ Mood
- ๐ด Sleep
- ๐ฝ๏ธ Eating habits
- ๐ฅ Friendships
- ๐ซ School attendance or performance
- ๐ฏ Interest in activities they normally enjoy
- ๐ก Anger or irritability
- ๐ซถ Social withdrawal
If you are concerned, talk with your child and reach out to a trusted adult or school professional.
๐จ If your child is experiencing a mental health or substance-use crisis, or thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
๐๐ THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS PARENTS CAN DO
BE PRESENT.
Your child doesn't need a perfect parent. They need a parent who is there.
BE CURIOUS.
Ask questions and listen to the answers.
BE CONSISTENT.
Clear expectations and routines help children feel secure.
BE ENCOURAGING.
Remind your child that struggling doesn't mean failing.
BE INVOLVED.
Know what is happening at school and stay connected with teachers and counselors.
BE THEIR SUPPORT SYSTEM.
Let them know:
“You can always come to me. We will figure it out together.”
๐โจ EVERY CHILD IS DIFFERENT.
๐ EVERY FAMILY IS DIFFERENT.
๐ BUT EVERY CHILD BENEFITS FROM KNOWING THAT SOMEONE BELIEVES IN THEM.
LOSS
Here are six ways you can help your child cope with a loss
- Let them grieve in their own way. ...
- Let them express a wide range of emotions. ...
- Give them some slack. ...
- Encourage them to have healthy outlets to help relieve their pain. ...
- Let them remember and celebrate with others. ...
- Let them get help.
The Five Stages of Grief™๏ธ
DENIAL
Denial is the first of the five stages of grief™๏ธ. It helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.
ANGER
Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. The truth is that anger has no limits. It can extend not only to your friends, the doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died but also to God. You may ask, “Where is God in this? Underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. At first, grief feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. Then you get angry at someone, maybe a person who didn’t attend the funeral, maybe a person who isn’t around, maybe a person who is different now that your loved one has died. Suddenly you have a structure – – your anger toward them. The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. It is something to hold onto, and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing. We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.
BARGAINING
Before a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would be spared. “Please ” you bargain, “I will never be angry at my wife again if you’ll just let her live.” After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?” We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what it was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening…if only, if only, if only. Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. The “if only's” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt. People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one.
DEPRESSION
After bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever. It’s important to understand that this depression is the appropriate response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point. Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. The first question to ask yourself is whether or not the situation you’re in is actually depressing. The loss of a loved one is a very depressing situation, and depression is a normal and appropriate response. To not experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual. When a loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one didn’t get better this time and is not coming back is understandably depressing. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.
ACCEPTANCE
Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually, we accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to live. We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves. Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.
Source Greif website
Depression
Anxiety