Ep 169: Back to School Transitions: Is Your Child’s Nervous System Ready?
Dr. Laura Hanson
In this Truth Bomb episode, I’m sharing crucial insights about how the back-to-school transition affects your child’s developing nervous system.
As kids head back to the classroom after shorter-than-ideal summer breaks, their bodies may be showing signs of stress through an unintegrated Moro reflex – the primitive startle response that should disappear by 4 months old.
Watch for these red flags:
Sleep disruptions or excessive sleeping
Difficulty focusing on homework
“Deer in headlights” moments
Changes in eating habits
Fight-or-flight responses to everyday situations
I’ll teach you how to support your child by creating device-free evenings, family dinners, and proper rest routines.
Ready for personalized guidance? Visit http://connectmybrain.com and use code “SEPT2025″ for $5 off our CMB membership. Let’s help your child thrive this school year!
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Full Transcript
Back-to-school transition and family routines 0:00
Hi, everybody. It's Dr. Laura with Truth Bombs. Welcome. This is the time I come in five minutes, give you something to think about. And we want you to reach out to connect my brain. Our kids right now are going back to school. A couple of truth bombs ago, I talked about they're getting sold on the idea of bulletproof backpacks. OK, so what does it mean to have a transition back We're supposed to have much longer summers. We don't get them. Kids are not really getting any kind of relaxation. And then they go back into the classroom and man, they start testing.
Everybody's observing them and the schools and teachers are actually getting ready to parent-teacher conferences with you. So I want you to be on the lookout. One, make sure your little one is getting proper rest. Shut the devices off when that sun goes down. That's it. We're all off of devices.
Moro reflex and startle response 1:01
Have dinner as a family. Talk about the day. Get to know what your child is going through. Be observant. for any kind of behaviors that can make you think, hey, I hope they're handling it okay. So when we think about going back to school and the word transition, the primitive reflex that we wanna keep in mind is the moro reflex. When your baby was a baby, any sudden thing in their environment created a startle response. Kind of looks like this. So there's a quick inhale, and then there is a pause, then a long exhale.
That's what's supposed to happen. But that's suppose to be integrated by four months. And that means that your school age kid should be beyond that startle response. Check it out. What causes any kind of either under arousal or over arouse?
Sleep, endurance, and nervous system signs 2:04
Are they able to go to bed? Do they stay asleep? Kids should not be waking up. They should be in deep sleep and it should really have to take a lot to wake them up in the middle of the night. wonder if they sleep too much. So it's not always too, much it could be too little. We want to remember that when we're thinking about neurology. What about their endurance? Can they handle things? Are they doing their chores? Are they able to play with their friends? Are the able start doing their homework and focus?
And then what about sympathetics? If that's a new word for you, think of that idea of fight or flight. When I get aroused and it can be over or under, there is going to be a sympathetic response. Fight or fight means I'm not getting as much blood to the front of my brain, executive function. it's all going to the back because there's only two messages fight or run and what are they doing and you could break down every symptom in that kind of a category now if you're noticing this They may be starting to get like deer in the headlights at the beginning of the school year.
Watching for school stress and behavior changes 3:34
They maybe using their peripheral vision to scan and be highly distracted. If you're noticing any types of things that you might say, wow, I'm wondering if you're handling things okay. Or you may even say what's going on with you? You are not being yourself right now. What about their eating habits? Look at every bit of it. Then, if we've started something new, we didn't have a really long break, How is it impacting your child? And if you want to do a deeper dive with me, just go over to connectmybrain.com, fill out a contact us page, and you and I can set up a call directly and
Connect with Dr. Laura and membership offer 4:21
we can go all of these things together. Make sure you check out our resources like how do you work with Me? We have a wonderful CMB membership. Mention September SEPT 2025 and you'll get a $5 coupon off of that membership. We look forward to working with you.
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