What Parents Would Trade Just To Skip the Chaos of September
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There’s no doubt about it: parents are stressed. You know those cutely chaotic school morning routines you see on TV, where everybody is sitting down to breakfast as the mom calmly packs the lunch before the kids walk off to school together? Yeah, it’s not like that at all at my house. My mornings are a mad scramble, literally pulling one reluctant kid out of bed, dealing with the tantrum of not having the right snacks, making sure everybody gets the right lunch, has their homework, finds their shoes, and on and on and on.
School has barely been in for two weeks, and I already have a 3rd grader who came home with the stomach bug and a 1st grader who cries at drop-off every day. It’s exhausting! Your situation may not look exactly the same as mine, but that doesn’t make you any less stressed. In fact, a recent survey found that parents would trade the most luxurious things just to have a month of peace during back-to-school time.
Parents Would Give Up a Lot to Skip September
Life 360, with the help of DKC Analytics, surveyed a sample of 1,000 US parents in July, with at least one child between the ages of 10 and 17 currently in school. They found that 83 percent of parents feeling moderate to high levels of stress this back-to-school season, with nearly half (47 percent) reporting feeling more anxiety this year than in recent years. Between school supplies shopping, managing school and activity schedules, prepping lunches, and more, it is exhausting. In fact, parents are so concerned, that 81 percent are losing sleep and 67 percent are distracted at work.
Some parents would go to great measures to make the month of September easier. In a shocking finding, 89 percent of parents would give up quiet evenings, morning coffee, or even a short vacation to make the first month of back-to-school run smoothly. As someone who lives for both quiet evenings and morning coffee — and would love a vacation! — this stat is staggering to me. It shows how seriously bad things have gotten lately.
The only advice I have is this: don’t give up. We wish we could skip to the practiced routine of next month (“Wake me up when September ends” has never been more meaningful), but all we can do is get through it. With time and consistency, things will get better for everyone like they do every year.
Life 360 Introduces New Feature
Since Life 360 is a location-sharing app, the company asked respondents if tools like Life 360 help improve family logistics in the survey, and 96 percent said that it did — with the majority stating it brings peace of mind, reduces the need to nag, and builds trust over time when they can easily check their tweens’ and teens’ locations through the app. To grant parents even more peace of mind, Life 360 announced a new feature called No Show Alerts, which will send a notification if your loved one doesn’t arrive at a designated location by a certain time.
It takes a few minutes to set up this feature — you have to set the location (like school) and the time your child needs to arrive by (say 9 a.m.). But once you do, you can create recurring reminders easily. Then you can take this one worry off your plate, knowing that your phone will alert you immediately if your child doesn’t arrive where they are supposed to on time.
Life 360 isn’t the only app trying to make things easier for parents. Recently, Snapchat released a feature called HomeSafe that will automatically alert trusted family members when you’ve arrived home after a drive.
With all the other logistics and planning of September, it would be nice to know that at least your kids are making it to homeroom or band practice on time. With one worry off your plate, you can focus your energy on other problems — like how to get your teens to actually put down their phones and go to bed on time!
Before you go, check out where your favorite celeb parents are sending their kids to college.