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IS YOUR CHILD SLEEP DEPRIVED?
Family First Laila Ali stays busy with home and career
FAST FORWARDIt’s never too soon to prep for college
A+ PICKS fashion and
supplies
39
confident, creative kidpreneurs
MEET 3
STEAM adds arts smarts
SPECIALK–12ISSUE
BACK SCHOOLFALL 2015
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8 Gear Up Discover the latest fashion trends as your kids head back to the classroom
12 Slick Supplies Stock up on glam, sharp and fun back-to-school tools
18 Fast Breakfasts Try these tips and recipes to pack your mornings with nutrition and flavor
22 Healthy Lunches Tray-bien! Nutritious changes find their way into school cafeterias
24 Lunch Gear These lunch containers will entice kids to eat
26 Homework Apps Fun online games can help with assignments
Stages 58 Preparing for the Future It’s never too soon to start career planning
Kindergarten
61 The New Classroom Today’s 5-year-olds get a mix of academics and social instruction
66 Reassuring Little Ones With some planning, the first day of school can be easy on everyone
Elementary
71 Homework Strategies How to help your young student develop good habits that will last a lifetime
76 The Bully Battle How to deal with the issue, whether your child is the victim or perpetrator
80 The Case for Cursive In this digital age, does handwriting still have cred?
Middle School 84 Wise Words Two students tell it like it is about the transition to middle school
86 Full STEAM Ahead Just add art for a more well-rounded education
High School 89 Dealing with Pressure How high-achieving students handle demands of family, school and peers
Health 92 Getting a Jump on Jitters Tips to help ease those first-day nerves
95 Managing Measles Stopping the spread of a highly contagious disease
Sticky Art
96 Tale of the Tapes Fun arts and craft ideas with washi and duct tape
up front departments
FALL 2015BACK SCHOOLto
Behind the scenes with
photographer Jack Gruber and
third-grader Mateo Chavez
4 BACK TO SCHOOL | FALL 2015 5
DIRECTORJeanette [email protected]
MANAGING EDITORMichelle Washington
CREATIVE DIRECTORJerald Council
CREATIVE MEDIA MANAGERChris Neff
EDITORSChris Garsson
Elizabeth NeusLori Santos
Amanda Shifflett
DESIGNERSKaren Loehr
Marlece LuskGina Toole Saunders
Lisa M. Zilka
INTERNSMiranda Pellicano
Alexa RogersHannah Van Sickle
CONTRIBUTING WRITERSKaren Asp, Gayle Bennett, Stacy Chandler, Hollie Deese, Nancy Dunham, Jack Duvall,
Maisy Fernandez, Chrystle Fiedler, Valerie Finholm, Kate Parham Kordsmeier, Katherine Reynolds Lewis, Janene Mascarella, Diana Lambdin Meyer, Nancy Mills, Jaime Netzer,
Peggy J. Noonan, Laine Schappert, Kristi Valentini, Debi Pittman Wilkey, Suzanne Wright
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORSJack Gruber, Doug Kapustin, Jay LaPrete, Dan MacMedan
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Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved herein, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or reproduced in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written consent of USA
TODAY. The editors and publisher are not responsible for any unsolicited materials.
PRINTED IN THE USA
This is a product of
ADVERTISING
PREMIUM PUBLICATION
FINANCEBILLING COORDINATOR
Julie Marco
STACY CHANDLER is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in the (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer and several regional publications, as well as the music magazine No Depression and many of USA TODAY’s magazines. She lives in Raleigh, N.C., with her husband and a daughter who’s about to start kindergarten.
KRISTI VALENTINI is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Redbook, MSN, Pregnancy & Newborn and several of USA TODAY’s magazines. She lives with her husband and two daughters near Detroit .
KATE PARHAM KORDSMEIER is an Atlanta-based freelance food writer and recipe developer for more than 100 publications. She is also a columnist for USA TODAY, the Atlanta Expert for About.com, and the author of the cookbook Atlanta Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the Big Peach. Kate lives with her husband and their two cats, Scout and Boo.
SUZANNE WRIGHT is a Cave Creek, Ariz.-based freelance writer who has contributed more than 450 food, travel and business stories to many publications, including Arizona Highways, Edible Baja, Elite Traveler, Golf for Women, National Geographic Traveler and WebMD. A former Navy brat, she’s an avid hiker who’s visited all 50 states and 50 countries.
VP, ADVERTISING Patrick Burke | (703) 854-5914
ACCOUNT DIRECTORJustine Goodwin | (703) 854-5444
contributors
Mateo, 8 ½, & Micah, 6
Audrey, 4 ½
Keith, 11
George, 13
Max, 8 ½
Annie, 5 ½, & Will, 2
4 BACK TO SCHOOL | FALL 2015 5
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atie Kirtland remembers pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper at Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the most elite high schools in the U.S.
“When it gets to be about midnight or one o’clock, you’re thinking, ‘I just want to go to bed,’” says Kirtland, now 25 and a public relations
professional based in Richmond, Va. “The worst feeling in the world is seeing the sun rise and realizing you’re not going to get any sleep.”
From her years at Exeter — a private boarding school in Exeter, N.H. — Kirtland
Great expectationsHow high-achieving students manage stress
BY KATHERINE REYNOLDS LEWIS
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WHAT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS — AND THEIR PARENTS —
CAN DO TO COMBAT THIS STRESS AND
PRESSURE
high school
remembers alternating between anxiety about upcoming academic challenges and exhaustion from completing assigned work. “I knew I wasn’t going to get straight A’s, but I knew I had to do well enough to make the people around me proud of what I had done.”
It’s a familiar experience for students at other high-achieving high schools, where many feel they have to earn perfect grades, become president of their favorite extracurricular club, play a varsity sport, excel at the arts and, oh, it wouldn’t hurt to build aqueducts in Africa or cure cancer while they’re at it.
“Students feel an intense unhealthy pressure to ‘succeed’ at all costs,” says Alexandra Robbins, Washington, D.C.-based author of The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. “Some of it is coming from parents, a lot of it is coming from the marketing of highly selective colleges and the narrowing definition of success that misleads students into thinking that prestige is the only way,” she says, adding that she spoke to students who suffered from depression simply because of the pressure to overachieve.
When looking for resources, parents and students are encouraged to keep in mind that contacting the school itself can be a good first step.
Melissa Mischke, Exeter’s dean of students, says the school is committed to providing a nurturing and sup-portive environment for its students to counteract the demands placed on them. In addition to teachers and advisers and academic support, Exeter has three full-time counselors and a dean of student health and wellness who support students through chal-lenging times.
“We have been looking carefully at pace-of-life issues for many years,” says Mischke. “We know that we always need to be thinking about how much pressure we as educators put on kids and this is going to be something that continues to evolve for us.”
1 Savor high school, in the moment. A college acceptance letter isn’t the goal of high school.
Students should spend their teen years learning all they can, enjoying extra-curricular activities and investing in relationships with family and friends.
“Whatever you learn in the class is more important than the grade. They can’t take the knowledge away from you,” says Carol Hoffman, 46, a Rockville, Md., mom of two whose son — Tyler, 15 — is in the highly com-petitive International Baccalaureate program at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville. “We’re trying to stay away from the mentality that you have to get the perfect grades and get into the Princetons and Harvards of the world. . . . If we encourage our children to do their best at their level for what they hope and want, there is less stress and anxiety.”
With this in mind, teens will choose extracurricular activities they enjoy, rather than only those they believe will “look good” on a college résumé.
“Too many people are having break-downs in college and their 20s because they don’t know who they are, because they’ve been living their life to get into a school rather than developing their identity,” author Alexandra Robbins says. “Forget about what other people are doing or thinking or expecting and just pursue your own interests and passions.”
2Keep your schedule reasonable. When Tyler started high school, he signed up for a slew of activi-
ties, only to find that he couldn’t keep up with his schoolwork as well. Since then, he’s pared back to the mock trial team, Boy Scouts and teaching piano and French to younger children.
Tyler occasionally feels a pang when he hears his friends talk about how busy they are with different commit-ments. “You almost want to be as busy as they are. In excess it can be a little toxic,” he says.
Rather than always maintaining a tight schedule, he prioritizes after-school play with neighborhood friends and cycling or hiking on the weekends. And he reminds himself that if he were at the local public school, he would be leading the pack, but feels it’s better to be challenged in a more competitive environment even if he ends up feeling just slightly better than average.
3 Seek support when needed. When Kirtland first arrived at Exeter, she felt reluctant to admit
when she needed help. “There’s this feigned confidence that you put out because everyone is so smart and seems to be doing well,” she recalls.
Not wanting to disappoint her parents also played a part, she says. “The thought of having to bring home a bad report card at the end of the term felt really bad. It’s not like they were overbearing or being tiger parents, but it was always in the back of my mind that if I did poorly, they would take me out and bring me back home.”
But once she hit a wall in a challeng-ing math class and realized she had to ask for help, she learned how impor-tant support was. “The adults around you are good people and want to help you and they’re not just trying to fail you out of the school,” she says, noting that it was her classmates’ willingness to ask for help on a tough concept or problem that made her comfortable admitting her own challenges.
Kirtland also relied on extracur-ricular activities — such as the junior varsity swim team and the “JV” orchestra — and friends to take her mind off academics.
“Coffee helped. Friends helped. Extracurriculars helped,” she says. “It’s recognizing that you’re in a special place and you really have to make the most of it.”
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