A Combination Lock Is the Best Sixth-Grade Prep I Know

A combination lock has a direction built into it, and hardly anyone tells a kid that part. On the standard padlock you spin right a few times to clear it and stop on the first number, then turn left past that number once and stop on the second, then go right again straight to the third. A child who has memorized three numbers and never been told the turns will stand at a locker in the second week of August with a line forming behind him, and the numbers won't help one bit.

I taught third grade for five years, where nobody had a locker, so I came to this late and from the parent side. What I've learned since is that the lock is the one worry on the list you can fully fix before the first bell. Most of the others you can only shrink.

How do you practice the locker before school starts?

Buy a lock at the drugstore this week, set your own combination or use the one printed on the package, and let him open it with his eyes shut, with a binder under one arm, with a backpack hanging off one shoulder, and with you standing a little too close. That last one matters more than it sounds. The fumbling that frightens a sixth grader happens with an audience, so practice with one.

Before you buy anything, find out whether his school uses lockers at all. Some don't, and some have built-in dials rather than padlocks, which is a different motion entirely. A call to the front office takes two minutes and saves you a lock that never leaves the junk drawer.

While you have the office on the phone, ask about the schedule, because a lot of middle schools have a pick-up day or an open house in the last week or two, and it's worth going even if it means rearranging a workday. Walk the schedule in order, period one to period seven, with the paper in his hand. Find the bathroom nearest each stretch of hall. Find where the lunch line starts. The Child Mind Institute lists forgetting the combination and not finding the locker among the most common middle school fears, and both of them shrink the moment a child has stood in the actual hallway.

Who is he going to sit with?

Every source I read agrees on this one: a familiar face in the building changes how the first weeks go. Understood.org puts it as familiar friends improving a child's academic and emotional adjustment. You don't have to arrange a party. Text one parent this week and propose an hour at the park or a bike ride, a kid he already half likes and sees on the same side of the building come August.

I watched this from the front of a classroom for years. The children who came through the door next to somebody they knew hung up their backpacks and got on with it, and the ones who came in alone spent the first ten minutes looking at the floor.

Then there's the question of what to say to a kid he doesn't know. Role-playing feels silly to everyone and works anyway. Take turns being the new kid. Practice saying your name and asking which table is open, and practice walking up to a teacher's desk and saying "I can't find room 214" in a voice that carries. Ten minutes, once, at the kitchen island. I wrote about the lunch-table question, the one where a child has two seconds to decide how much to explain, in Esther Isn't a Pep Talk for Eleven-Year-Olds, and if your kid has a particular fear like that one, the role-play is the place to rehearse it.

If his friends have phones, a lot of the sixth-grade seating plans get made in a group chat he may not be in. I don't have a tidy answer to that, but I did write down where we landed in Caleb Wants a Phone and Everyone Else Has One.

Give the worrying an hour and an end

An eleven-year-old who admits his fears at bedtime will keep admitting them, usually at 9:40 with the light off, and every parent I know has answered "but what if" questions until midnight. What worked better for me as a teacher and since is to name the fear back to him ("you're worried you'll forget the combination") and then give the worrying a window. Fifteen minutes after dinner. You listen, you say it back, you solve whatever is solvable on the spot, and then the window closes.

The locker has an answer, and so does "what if I can't find my class," which is a printed map and a friendly adult. "What if nobody likes me" doesn't have one, and the only thing you can do with it is name it, agree it's a reasonable thing to wonder, and let it sit. Keep a notepad by his bed for the 9:40 ones so that they have somewhere to go besides your ear. He writes it down and it goes into tomorrow's window.

Kids read us all day long, too. If you wince every time the word "middle school" comes up, he'll learn that the building is something to wince at.

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

Isaiah 41:13

That was said to a whole nation in a hard season, so I'm borrowing it, but the posture in it is the thing I'd borrow: the one saying "fear not" is the one holding on. A parent who is as scared as the child can't do that.

Start moving bedtime this week

We got home from the lake on Saturday and bedtimes have gone to pieces, so I'm doing this one too. School starts for us on the 19th, which gives nine days. Move bedtime and wake-up fifteen minutes earlier every couple of days until they match the school schedule, as the Kids Mental Health Foundation suggests. Four moves of fifteen minutes gets you a full hour by the weekend before. A few days out, run one real morning at school pace, shoes and breakfast and out the door, so that the first real morning isn't also the first rehearsal.

What the first evening should look like

The first day of school is tiring in a way that adults forget, even for a child who liked it. New faces, new rooms, nowhere to sit down and nobody to be himself around for seven hours. Then he gets home to the one person he doesn't have to hold it together for.

Expect it to come out. He may cry over something small or snap at a little sister or lie on the couch staring at the ceiling, and none of that means the day went badly, only that he's finally put it down.

Make dinner something easy that he picked, and hold off on homework if there is any and skip the interrogation. One question is plenty, and the better ones are small: what was lunch like, who was in your homeroom. If he wants to tell you everything he'll tell you everything, probably while you're loading the dishwasher.

Bed early.

An hour earlier than the schedule you've been building, if he'll allow it, because the second morning is harder than the first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I answer every "what if" my child asks?

No. Answer the ones with an answer and save the rest for the worry window, because answering all of them teaches him that every worry deserves an instant reply and he'll bring you a new one each time you finish.

What if he refuses to visit the school before it starts?

I'd go without a speech and just say you need to see where the office is and ask him to come along as the navigator, and keep it short. If he stays in the car, let him stay and ask if he'd like a photo of the front doors. Some kids can take in a building from the sidewalk first and the hallway later.

Is it normal to have stomachaches before school starts?

Common in the days right before the first one, and it usually fades once school is underway. If it's constant, or if he's skipping sleep and meals, call the pediatrician and the school counselor and don't wait to see how it goes.

How long until he settles in?

Most kids are comfortable within a couple of weeks. Worry usually peaks right before the first day, and the school year they imagined is almost always scarier than the one they get.

If two weeks go by and he still dreads the mornings or he's refusing to go in, call the school and ask for a gradual plan, such as shorter days at first or a check-in with the counselor, and the name of one adult he can walk to in the first week without needing a reason.

with love, Melissa