Back to School Basics: Safety is ALWAYS at the top of the list
Updated: Jul 28
Week 1 of the Back to School sprint. Four weeks until the first bell, and we’re starting with the list that every parent needs to make sure their kids have the supplies that aren't on the list.
You have the supply list handled. Two glue sticks, the exact folders, the water bottle that won’t leak in the backpack. You’ve managed the syllabus, the forms, the first-day outfit.
But there’s another list. The one no teacher sends home.
Over the next month, before that first bell, we’re getting your kids ready for more than the curriculum. We start with safety, taught by age, because a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old need very different things from you.
Preschool through second grade: you are the spokesperson
At this age, your child is not their own advocate. You are. So be loud, early, and clear with every adult who cares for them. I say the same thing to every teacher, coach, and caregiver: I do not consent to any one-on-one interaction between my child and an adult without my presence or my permission. It’s meant to sound firm. It sets a standard the adults around your child will remember.
At home, this is the age you build two things. The first is body safety. Teach the real words for body parts, teach that their body belongs to them, and teach the difference between a surprise and a secret. A surprise is a happy thing that eventually gets told, like a birthday gift. A secret that has to be kept from you, is never okay.
The second is narration. A child who can tell you what happened is a child who can be protected. So practice the five W’s every day: who, what, when, where, and why. Ask them to tell you one interesting thing about their day, and let them find the words. You’re training the muscle that one day tells you the thing that matters.
SKILL CHECK: Does your child know your full first and last name and phone number? Not “Mommy.” Your actual name, and two phone numbers, by heart.
Grades three through five: from your shadow to their own voice
You are still their advocate, but this is the age they start using their own voice, and they need real scripts to practice. Give them the words and rehearse them until they come easily: “I need to call my mom.” “No.” “I have to wait for my parents.” A child who has said the sentence a hundred times at the dinner table can say it in the moment it counts.
This is also where we tell them the truth about who to watch. More than nine in ten cases of child sexual abuse are committed by someone the child already knows, not a stranger in a van. So we stop teaching “stranger danger” and start teaching behavior. A tricky person is anyone, familiar or not, who asks them to break a rule, keep a secret from you, or come along without checking first.
Keep putting every adult on notice, same as before. But the job is shifting: it is becoming your child’s responsibility to call you when the adults don’t. That handoff is the whole point of this stage.
And here is the part most parents get wrong. There will be times they should have called and didn’t, because they forgot, or because an adult pushed back and they caved. Don’t let those moments slide, but don’t overreact or punish them either. This is a skill being built, not a rule being broken. Sit down and walk through it: ask what happened, name what they’ll do next time, and let them try again. And use the miss as your reason to circle back to the adults involved, reminding them, again, that notification and your involvement are required, not optional. Punishment teaches a kid to hide the miss. Practice, on both ends, teaches everyone that you’re paying attention.
Remember that every child is different. Readiness isn’t a birthday, it’s a set of skills.
SKILL CHECK: Can your child say “I need to call my mom” out loud without flinching, and do they understand that it’s now their job to call you when an adult doesn’t?
Grades six through eight: still children, no matter how grown they look
Middle school is where the ground shifts, and for Black children it shifts harder. This is the age the adults around them quietly start treating them like smaller adults instead of older children. Adultification was documented by Georgetown researchers years ago. Adults see Black kids as older, less innocent, and less in need of protection than their other classmates of the exact same age.
Your twelve-year-old is twelve. Push back on anyone who forgets it. Say it plainly to every adult in their world: this is MY child. Not a young adult who can handle it on their own. Not someone you can pull aside and sort out quietly. It is almost always easier for an adult to deal with a child directly than to involve that child’s parent, and the adults who would do your child harm are counting on exactly that. Take the option off the table. Make it clear that your involvement is not optional. It is required.
Then keep building the skills underneath and make it clear that this boundary extends to coaches, teachers, and any adult who mistakes your child’s maturity for permission.
This is also the age they start taking the lead in the exam room. Your child should be the one explaining their own symptoms, when they started, and what makes them better or worse. They should answer the doctor’s questions in their own words, and just as importantly, start learning to ask their own. You are still right there. But a child who can describe their own body is a child who can be heard by a system that too often talks over them. It’s health literacy and self-advocacy in the same breath, and it starts now.
SKILL CHECK: Does every adult in your child’s life know by name that you expect to be involved? And can your child speak for themselves in the exam room, explaining their own symptoms instead of looking to you to do it?
Grades nine through twelve: provide opportunities for them to lead, stay right behind them
By high school the foundation is laid, and it will be constantly tested. Your teenager may want to handle things on their own, and there will be corners of their life they’d rather you stay out of. That isn’t rebellion, it’s the assignment working. Your job shifts from modeling it for them, to teaching them how.
Make sure they understand the the chain of command. Show them how to raise a concern or a grievance the right way: who you go to first, how you put it in writing, how you escalate when the first answer isn’t good enough. Then let them practice on the low-stakes things, where the cost of fumbling is small. Let the first contact come from them. Asking a teacher for a deadline extension, emailing the office about an absence they know is coming, bringing a concern to the attention of a coach. Let them take the lead, knowing you are standing right behind them, ready to step in the moment they need you.
The safety net underneath it all stays the same. They can call you from anywhere, at any hour, and you will come, no questions asked in the moment. Help them name a few trusted adults who aren’t you, because there will be things they can’t bring to you first, and I would rather it be their aunt than the internet.
SKILL CHECK: Can your teen send the email, make the call, or raise the concern themselves? And do they know the difference between handling it and hiding it?
None of this is about fear. Fear makes kids freeze. This is about fluency, the kind that comes from saying it out loud at the dinner table until it’s boring. Safety isn’t a talk you have once. It’s a language you speak all year.
This post is the map. I created quiz for you to assess where your child actually stands. It’s FREE, it tells you whether they’re ready for the questions that aren’t on the syllabus, and it hands you the exact language to fill in the gaps. Take it now to give yourself plenty of time to reinforce the skills before they head back in the fall.
It’s week one of Back to School on the Blog, and this is the work behind Back to School Basics for Parents, dropping soon. My Truly Yours readers will have the first opportunity for a seat in the room. The weekly note is free and as always it’s, Truly Yours.
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