Make Your Child's Backpack FUNctional!

Here’s a riddle…

Question: What goes from home to school and back again and can be used to help your child get through their school day?

Answer: A BACKPACK

Outside of your child themselves, your child’s backpack is the only thing that goes from home into school and back again. This is not just a carrying case, but a great way to communicate between teachers, therapists, parents and caregivers.

Provide a small folder or 3-ring binder for the IEP team as a way to communicate to each of your child’s teachers. You can separate the folder by teacher or subject. Have the teacher record anything they feel is important to communicate to you and vice versa with you communicating with the teachers. Let your child in on the communication too, and allow them space to write their own feedback on how they are doing.

You can also get a lot of insight into what is going on at school by looking through your child’s backpack. I make a point to look through my kids backpacks to see what is and is not coming home. In one instance, I found a piece of paper with checks and x’s in my sons backpack only to find out he had a hard week and was on a behavioral chart. It’s also healthy for your child to clean his/her backpack to stay organized with homework and decrease the heavy load a backpack can create.

Keeping up with your child’s backpack may prove to be informative and lead you to increase communication with your child and their teachers. It can never hurt to have a few sensory tools to throw inside or hang on a backpack too. These look like regular key chains, but come in handy during test taking time, or when your child needs to increase their concentration and focus.

Don’t forget your child’s backpack should not be more than 10-15% of their body weight to decrease any chance of injury. If you are looking for a great way to improve your child's' communication skills, you can use the pull-talk which can attach to the backpack to assist in overall communication. Make your child’s backpack fun, but make it FUNCTIONAL too!

Let us know how you use your child's backpack to help them get through their school day?

Quick clip on wearing your backpack correctly from a doctor with Madison Chiropractic Solutions: