Today is the first day of school for kids in BC!

It’s an exciting day to be sure and even though my son is not yet old enough for kindergarten he is still experiencing some of the changes that come with this important day.

For one, his dad is a teacher so it’s the first day in over four months that we’ve had a set routine in the morning. That led to a bit of crying and stress for all this morning. But I’m taking it in stride over here as I’m getting better at coping with the tantrums.

A few of his daycare buddies have moved on to the big school and some new little people have been joining his class. We’ll see how the transition goes in the next few weeks.

He also has quite a few friends in our building who are off to Kindergarten so that will present a few more challenges along the way as we rustle up more kids his age to play with during the days he’s not at daycare.

All in all, I am grateful that our school year is finally back in full swing and look forward to hearing about how the kids and the teachers are adapting to the new environment at school. If you didn’t know, the teachers were locked out and on strike for months and it was looking pretty ugly with school still not back in session in the third week of September.

Overall I’m sure that the teachers are happy to be back, albeit with a contract that really doesn’t address the biggest issue of our school system here in BC, class size and composition issues and severe underfunding of specialist teachers, counsellors, the list goes on and on.

So teachers, as you settle in and move forward through the year please remember to take care of yourselves.

Here are a few tips I gathered off the internet.

I’m looking for tips for teachers to take better care of themselves this year. Send your ideas and I’ll put them together in a post! #bced

— Lee-Anne Ekland (@MomParadigm) September 19, 2014

@MomParadigm Breathe. You are only one person and you do the best you can with what you have. Remember to go home at a reasonable hour.#bced — Akijae (@akijae) September 21, 2014

@MomParadigm Self care- what do you love? A massage? A run? Tea? Visit with a friend? make time for you:)

— Kindergarten…K (@karenstrong7) September 21, 2014

@MomParadigm make a very conscious choice how much to work each day…it will vary — Kindergarten…K (@karenstrong7) September 21, 2014

@MomParadigm work as late as you need to at school but (try not to) take work home. Totally negates the home = sanctuary vibe. #impossible.

— Sherrine Francis (@sherrinefrancis) September 21, 2014

@MomParadigm Eat cake. Drink tea. Laugh a lot. — Tiffany Wilson (@sojustimagine) September 21, 2014

It’s clear from the type of responses I got that self-care is number one the minds of people for our teachers.

So please teacher, take good care of yourself. Do what you are awesome at but please, stop propping up our broken system by spending your own money and overworking.

Take care of you and your family.

Keep pouring your heart into educating your kids but stop pouring your own money into a system that has come to depend on you to do that. The public needs to see what happens to our education system when you stop.

For parents

If you are a parent, please let your teacher know that you are grateful for their service and if you can, spend a bit of time getting to know them. I know many teachers who would be grateful for a kind word or some support from you. They really do have the best interests of your kids at heart.

What would you like to say to your teachers?

Photo credit: Race car photos.