Episode 107
How to Talk to Your Kid About Going Back to School (or Leaving Home)
Transitions - Part 2
When my oldest went to college, there was a parent orientation in a separate lecture hall from the students. At one point, the speaker said that for some parents in the room, this transition was going to feel a little like being forced to retire from a job they loved.
I remember thinking, that's exactly what this feels like.
Except it isn't really retirement. Retirement implies that the job is over, the responsibilities are finished, and the door has closed. Parenting doesn't work that way. What actually happens is that your responsibilities begin to change shape.
That distinction matters, whether your child is starting middle school, walking into high school for the first time, or moving into a college dorm several hours away. Back-to-school transitions aren't just schedule changes. They're family transitions, and they affect more than the child carrying the backpack.
The size of the transition may be different, but the need for honest conversation is the same.
Not All Back-to-School Transitions Are the Same
We tend to put every school transition into the same general category: back to school. But there's a big difference between moving into the next grade at the same school and leaving home entirely.
A child returning to the same building with many of the same friends may be dealing with relatively small changes. There are new teachers, new expectations, and maybe a different classroom, but much of life still looks familiar.
Moving from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school is a larger transition. The physical environment changes, the expectations may change, and the social landscape can feel completely different. Suddenly there are new routines to learn, unfamiliar hallways to navigate, different peer groups, and more responsibility.
Then there's the much bigger jump: leaving home for college, boarding school, or another situation that takes a child out of the household. At that point, you aren't simply adjusting to a new school schedule. The whole family structure changes.
Recognizing the size of the transition helps you respond appropriately. A child heading into seventh grade may need a different kind of support than a college freshman, but both benefit from having someone acknowledge that change can feel uncomfortable even when it's exciting.
Why Kids Don't Always Tell You They're Nervous
One of the trickiest parts of a back-to-school transition is that kids don't always announce how they're feeling.
A tween is unlikely to sit down at the breakfast table and say, "I'm experiencing some anxiety about the social uncertainty of starting middle school."
A teenager may not tell you they're worried about finding their classes, eating lunch alone, managing a heavier workload, or fitting in with a new group. Sometimes they don't want to talk about it. Other times, they may not have fully identified the feeling themselves.
That's why the responsibility often falls to the parent to open the door.
You don't need a dramatic heart-to-heart. Sometimes it's enough to say that change can make adults and kids nervous, and that wanting things to feel familiar is normal. That simple acknowledgment gives them permission to have mixed feelings instead of assuming they're supposed to be completely excited and confident.
It also gives them a place to come back to later if something does feel difficult.
Talk About More Than the Logistics
Back-to-school season is incredibly good at turning parents into project managers.
There are supplies to buy, schedules to coordinate, forms to fill out, sports physicals to complete, transportation to arrange, clothes to find, dorm rooms to furnish, and about 47 passwords that apparently nobody remembers.
All of those things matter. They also make it easy for nearly every conversation about school to become logistical.
Did you get your schedule?
Do you have your supplies?
What time is practice?
Did you turn in that form?
What do you still need for your dorm?
The logistics are necessary, but they're not the same as asking, "How are you actually feeling about this?"
That question may not produce a beautifully reflective answer the first time you ask it. You might get "fine." You might get a shrug. You might get a look that suggests you have deeply inconvenienced someone by trying to have a conversation.
Ask anyway.
The goal isn't to force a child to talk. It's to make it clear that the emotional part of the transition is allowed to exist in your family.
Ask What They Need Before the Transition
One useful question to ask before the school year begins is: "Is there anything you'd really like to do before school starts?"
Keep your real-life limitations in mind. You may not have the time, money, or energy for a last-minute end-of-summer vacation, and that's okay.
Maybe what they really want is to have a couple of friends over the Saturday before school starts. Maybe they want to visit the school building one more time, buy one thing they're excited about, go to their favorite restaurant, or spend a quiet afternoon at home before the pace of the year picks up.
The activity itself isn't necessarily the important part. You're giving your child some agency during a transition they can't fully control.
That's useful at any age. Even adults tend to handle change better when we have some say in how we move through it.
When Your Child Leaves for College, Your Role Changes
The transition becomes more complicated when your child isn't simply going back to school. They're leaving home.
This is where that idea about being "forced to retire from a job you loved" resonates with so many parents. For years, much of parenting has involved direct involvement in daily life. You know what time they got home. You know whether there's food in the refrigerator. You know if they seem tired, annoyed, stressed, or unusually quiet.
Then suddenly, you don't know.
You're still the parent, but you have less information and far less control over what happens in their daily life. You can't see whether they ate breakfast or whether they stayed up too late. You don't necessarily know whether they're having a rough week unless they choose to tell you.
That loss of information can be uncomfortable, especially when you've spent years being responsible for their well-being.
But the parenting job isn't ending. The responsibilities are changing.
You're moving from managing much of their daily life to supporting them from a distance. That requires a different combination of availability, restraint, communication, and trust.
And one of the best ways to make that transition easier is to talk about communication before everybody starts making assumptions.
Talk About Communication Before They Leave
A friend once told me that he planned to call his college freshman every single day. My first reaction was that daily calls sounded like a lot.
Then I thought about it a little more and realized that the frequency itself wasn't really the issue. Maybe daily calls worked perfectly well for their family.
What matters is whether you're deciding together instead of each person quietly operating from a completely different expectation.
Before your child leaves, talk explicitly about what communication might look like. Do they prefer texting? Phone calls? Video calls? How often sounds reasonable as a starting point? Are there certain days or times that make more sense?
Your preferences count, too. This isn't about turning the entire decision over to your child. It's about treating communication as something the two of you are going to figure out together rather than assuming they'll call every night or assuming you'll hear from them whenever they feel like it.
You also don't need to get the plan exactly right before move-in day.
Agree on a starting point and then revisit it after a few weeks.
Schedules change. Comfort levels change. Your child may discover that Tuesday night is a terrible time to call because of a lab, club meeting, or roommate dinner. You may discover that hearing from them three times a week feels perfectly comfortable even though you originally imagined daily contact.
A flexible agreement is usually more useful than a rigid rule.
Less Communication Doesn't Automatically Mean Rejection
This can be one of the harder parts for parents.
In my experience, many kids want less communication than their parents initially imagine. That can sting a little, especially when you're the one left standing in a much quieter house.
But needing more distance isn't necessarily rejection. Often, it's a normal part of development.
A college freshman is trying to figure out how to manage life without the same level of parental involvement they've had before. They need some space to solve problems, make decisions, build friendships, manage their own schedule, and occasionally discover the consequences of forgetting something important.
That independence is part of what you've been preparing them for.
It doesn't mean they don't need you. It means they may need you differently.
Sometimes the hardest part of this stage of parenting is resisting the urge to interpret growing independence as emotional distance.
Different Kids May Need Different Things
One communication plan isn't going to work for every child, even within the same family.
One kid may happily call while walking across campus every afternoon. Another may send three texts a week and genuinely believe you're completely caught up on their life.
Neither is necessarily wrong.
This is another place where assumptions can create unnecessary tension. What worked with an older sibling may not work with the next child. What you wanted from your own parents when you were 18 may not be what your child wants from you now.
Try to approach each transition as its own relationship rather than relying entirely on precedent.
The question becomes less, "What is the correct amount of communication?" and more, "What helps us stay connected while also allowing this person to grow?"
That's a much more useful conversation.
The Transition Affects Parents, Too
There's a lot of understandable focus on helping kids manage school transitions, but parents go through a transition at the same time.
When a child starts middle school, your role may shift because they're expected to manage more on their own. When they start high school, they may spend more time with friends, activities, sports, and school responsibilities. When they leave for college, the daily parenting tasks that have occupied so much time and mental space may change dramatically.
You are allowed to notice that.
Acknowledging your own emotions doesn't mean making your child responsible for them. You can be excited for your child and still feel sad. You can know that independence is healthy and still miss having them around. You can be proud of the person they're becoming while also needing time to adjust to the fact that your own responsibilities are changing.
Those feelings can coexist.
In fact, being honest with yourself about the transition may make it easier to avoid asking your child to manage it for you.
How Do You Talk to Your Kid About Going Back to School?
Start with curiosity rather than interrogation.
Instead of asking only about schedules, supplies, classes, or logistics, ask how the transition feels. You might say, "You've got a pretty big change coming. How are you feeling about it?" or "Is there anything you're nervous about that we haven't talked about yet?"
You don't have to immediately solve whatever comes up. Sometimes your child needs information or practical help, but sometimes they simply need to know that uncertainty is normal.
You can also normalize the feeling without assuming they're struggling. Something as simple as, "It's normal to feel a little nervous when things change, even when you're excited," can open the door without putting words in their mouth.
Then let the conversation develop from there.
How Do You Cope When Your Child Leaves for College?
It can help to reframe the transition as a change in responsibilities rather than an ending.
You're still a parent. But instead of being involved in every piece of daily life, you're becoming someone who supports from a little farther away. You may have less information, fewer opportunities to intervene, and more moments when the most appropriate thing to do is trust.
That can be uncomfortable at first.
Creating a communication plan can provide some structure, but it's also worth building structure for yourself. If you've spent years organizing your days around school schedules, activities, transportation, meals, and your child's needs, their departure may leave both emotional and practical space in your life.
You don't have to immediately fill every inch of it. Give yourself permission to figure out what this version of your life looks like, too.
Back-to-School Transitions Are Relationship Transitions
Whether your child is moving up one grade or moving out of your house, there's more happening than a change on the school calendar.
Relationships are shifting.
The child who used to need you to walk them into school may now barely want you to slow the car down at drop-off. The teenager who once asked you to solve every problem may want to handle more on their own. The college student who lived down the hall may suddenly be hundreds of miles away and deciding when to call.
None of that means the relationship is disappearing.
It means the relationship has to grow, too.
The size of the jump may be different for every family and every child, but the need for an honest conversation doesn't go away. Ask how they're feeling. Talk about what they need. Be clear about what you need, too. And give yourselves permission to revisit the plan when reality inevitably looks a little different than you expected.
Because parenting through a transition isn't about getting everything right before the first day of school.
It's about staying connected while giving the relationship enough room to change.
Want a little more support as your priorities change?
Family transitions have a way of reshuffling priorities that once felt very clear. If you're trying to figure out where your own time and energy belong in a season that's changing, the free Prior 10 Assessment can help you take a closer look at what you're prioritizing now and what may need to shift.
Take the free Prior 10 Assessment: https://www.prior10.com
One good place to start today is to ask your child one question that has nothing to do with supplies, schedules, or logistics: "How are you feeling about this?"
Then give them room to answer.
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The information contained and documents referenced in the podcast “Your Priority Centered Life” are for entertainment, educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, professional medical or health treatment, diagnosis, or advice. We strongly encourage listeners to consult with medical providers or qualified mental health providers with issues and questions regarding any physical and/or mental health symptoms or concerns that they may have. Furthermore, the opinions and views expressed by podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates are not necessarily those of the podcast host. Dr. Alise Murray’s opinions and views are expressed in her individual capacity and are not to be construed as those of any of her podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates.