Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 274 | All the Back-to-School Feels (and Tips)

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Thank you to GoGURT for sponsoring today's episode! Try the new GoGURT protein we talked about in this episode, it’s amazing! ▶ https://bit.ly/3HCC0BY In today’s episode we got all in our “back to school” feels as we talked about our daughter starting kindergarten. Where is time going?! We also chatted about tips and tricks we’ve implemented over the years to remove some of the back to school chaos and create peaceful mornings before school drop- off. If you’re a parent or educator out there, we see you and know that the back to school season can be WILD. Hang in there, we’re all in this together :) Love you guys! Shawn & Andrew Beam Kids is now available online at https://www.shopbeam.com/COUPLETHINGS Take advantage of our exclusive discount of up to 40% off using code COUPLETHINGS Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en (00:00) our baby starting kindergarten and the transitions we are navigating   (01:14) how is fall already almost here?   (02:02) gogurt protein for the win   (02:25) comment of the day   (03:00) emotions as parents right now and all the new phases   (05:35) navigating “selfishness” as a parent and what works for us   (08:40) kindergarten just feels different… this transition is hitting hard   (11:18) giving our kids the best chance we can to nurture their treasures   (15:27) back to school traditions: ourselves vs. our kids now   (21:20) catching shadows at home   (23:00) getting back in the zone for school   (31:18) tips and tricks for school mornings   (39:00) be excited for your kids… cry when you get home   #GoGURTPartner #BacktoSchool #ShawnAndAndrewPods #Family Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. Today's a special one. Probably one we're going to get emotional about, but we are talking about back to school. It's nothing new to us because our kids have been going to a school of some sort for a few years. But it is a big one because Drew, our baby Drew, is going into kindergarten.

Dang. Kindergarten. That's crazy. Real school. Real hours. I can't just pull her out whenever anymore. It's going to be so different. So we're going to dedicate this entire episode to walking you guys through what we used to do during the back to school season as kids and how we are now doing that with our kids.

The summer transition, it's full of transitions. Andrew and I've been talking about this recently that it feels like a season right now, getting ready to back to school, of massive transitions and how we're handling them. So yes, get ready for some fun tidbits and hacks, but also probably. A lot of tears. It's going to be part nostalgia as Sean and I reflect on our back-to-school days. And then maybe some advice that we're going to walk through as well, that we need to abide by as well. Yes. So we're going to go through that.

I also just, I can't believe summer is such an interesting season because it's so fun. It's very intense time with the kids. And part of me is like ready for that season to be over. But then I'm looking around the corner at fall with back-to-school. I don't want it to be here though. I don't want it to be here. I know, but fall is so amazing and the kids are getting so excited.

We've been doing a bunch of things to get them excited for back to school. Fall is the mark of like fall sports and fall activities and Halloween and like there's so many things to look forward to. We have packed our summer to the brim with like travel and experiences as a family that have been so special.

It's been great. To where it's made us all very ready for the next thing and the next like routine time. start yeah i'm excited for this episode but first we want to say thank you to goger protein for sponsoring today's episode gogert protein has two times the protein compared to gogert original and it's our favorite after-school snack for back-to-school season we're going to share more about that and even pop some of these open ourselves so i'm excited about that our kids love them perfect for school lunches

after school snacks like any time of the day just throw them in your fridge and no mess we also have a comment of the day. This one's from Jackie Wilson, who says, you guys always amazed me. I love hearing about how things work or don't. You both bring so much to the table. That's how it should be. I will always be here for your content. In any events, I'll be a part of it if I can. Also from Aara Don Kay. I rarely comment, but you guys make me laugh. I see a lot of my husband and I's early marriage in you guys, but you're doing it better for sure. You guys are fun. Let's get into the episode for today. I'm excited. All right. So I'm going to start and talk Talk about the emotions that we're having as parents,

how we're feeling about sending the kids back to school after summer. Let me start. Okay. I have been all up in my feels about this for a while now. I have noticed the biggest shift yet in parenting and in Drew this fall, or like this summer. Say more. It's like, you notice big gross spurts in your kids, developmentally, emotion. physically all these things you even notice when they wake up in the morning you're like oh my gosh

you grew like you can tell but there is something about this summer going from a mom's day out preschool to like getting her uniform and like getting her introduction and going to orientation and how she spent her summer and her new friends and just like all these things where i have seen her go from a toddler to a kid i'm not going to get emotional i can't You never get emotional. It's always me. I get crying. It's different.

You can, like, give a little cry and, like, bring it back together. I can't. I got a good man cry? You got a good man and cry? It's like a single tear. But, like, you, like, pull it back together. I don't. Like, once I go off a cliff, I go off a cliff, and I'm, like, done for it.

I can't talk. I can't articulate things. I blubber. But I have seen this summer, she has become a young kid. And she has matured so much. And she has changed so much. Her interest, her hobbies, the way she talks. the way she carries herself, her questions,

her, like, curiosity, everything has changed. And it's just sparked in me this, like, blatantly obvious observation of it's a new phase. She does, she does feel like she's a new phase. It actually feels like we're in a new phase as a parent, not just with her, but all the kids are now a little more autonomous. so it's a little a little less hands-on for us whereas like now we're not always carrying a baby we're not always you know in five-minute increments changing a diaper or getting a bottle or getting food it's like you know we'll have 30-minute blocks of time which we haven't had for the past five years to sit down

and like talk or I don't know have friends it's just like a new face and they're they're kind of packing up doing their own thing as a kid Drew definitely has come to life personality-wise with her social relationships with her interests she's like um she's kind of settled into who she is a little bit um which is really really fun it's interesting because there's part of parenting that's selfish you know where all i want is for drew to need me to cuddle with me to be with me and that's like a selfish impulse i have as i look at this little mini me this adorable little amazing five real girl. And I can't always be selfish, though, because that stunts her development, her growth. And we've experienced this many times as parents, but it's like, you know, dropping your kid off

at Sunday school church for the first time. It's like a big thing. Taking them to mom's day out is a big thing. Having a babysitter come over for the first time is a big thing. There's like these moments where you're like, oh, but I don't want this. I also want to put an asterisk in here as we're talking about this this is our style everybody has their own style and it's like to each their own support all of it we went down you know the conversational rabbit hole of like what direction do we want to go with our kids do we want to homeschool do we want to keep them home do i want to be a stay-at-home mom you know all of these things it has now accumulated to where we're at which is our kids have gone to school they have socialized they're doing after school programs they're doing um sports but we we do it all

individually looking at each child and seeing yeah what best helps them foster their individual like personalities and and somehow god gave us the most socially charged children where they're just they're they're just begging for more yeah it's fun kindergarten definitely feels like the biggest moment we've had so far of having to detach and unvelcro ourselves from our little baby. I liked Mom's Day Out where it was like kind of like two and a half, maybe three and a half days a week of like short hourly spurts because it was like a, it was like nine to two. So nine to one 45, three days a week.

But I would never send them the fifth day or the fourth day and like whatever. This feels different because I'm like. Seven hour days. Yes. And also what I forgot is when you're enrolled in a school, like starting with kindergarten, you can't just miss days. No, you can't just not show up. The government's keeping track. Yeah.

Truancy, dude. Yeah. This is a real deal. So it's definitely more serious. But our, Sean and I's goal with our kids is to raise passionate, independently responsible, contributing little people, you know. And so part of this is like, all right, we have to prepare them. we can't just give way to our selfishness. So anyway, it's like, you know, even with something like food,

if they open a goger, they spill it everywhere, they're going to clean up the mess, you know, as opposed to there's a bit of selfishness where it's like, I need to be there and clean it up or it'll be faster if I clean it up. It's like, no, no, no, we're going to have to fight that urge, that selfishness of like, no, we can't always be there doing stuff for them. So anyway.

When it comes to you going to kindergarten now, I will say there has been a part of me that's been really reflective on parenting because it feels like such a huge transition and such like a just a new phase where I feel like I'm not going to have as much of her anymore and she's not going to be home as much as she was last year

and she just has more things to do and it's a weird reflective time for me to think did I miss it all already and maybe that never, goes away as a parent but I'm like that I spend enough time with her already and it's only going to get more intense and more time consuming and oh someone rocked me with this concept that when our kid turns 15 or 16 and gets their license yeah we'll have spent pretty much 90% of total time we'll ever spend with them in life up to that point okay and then once they

once they get that license they're going to be out with friends doing their own thing and surely so we're a third of the way through that age 15 and it is really sad it's like honestly I think I'm gonna try to go numb I'm gonna try to use that not for sadness but maybe to spark more presence more patience you know what I'm saying like let's just soak it in I don't know why but one thing that has stuck with me more than maybe anything we've ever said on this show was when we had professionals on the show

and they were talking about how important it is to give your kid eight hugs a day specifically eight and when I get down these black holes of am I good enough am I doing enough? Am I putting enough time in? I come back to

I don't know why eight hugs and it's just like whenever I see our kids I just hug them and I hold them and I kiss them because I even notice with Drew which is such this bittersweet thing as we're, I know this is back to school but we're going on rants.

She's getting into this phase where yeah, she wants to play with mommy and she wants to play with daddy and stuff but she also desperately just all day, every day wants to go to the neighbor's house and play with kids. And I have to fight this urge to be like, no, just stay home.

When in actuality that's so good. Like she wants social. and she wants to build her relationships. And so I'm like, okay, great, but just like give me a hug. Yeah. How would you say our kids have tended to do with school? Remarkably well. Yeah.

Our kids are very, very different. And they've dealt with school very differently. We've had our ups and downs. We've had our struggles with, like, socializing and, like, finding our place and whatever. But I will say our kids love school. they begged to go to school we don't you know have to we've never really had to deal with like that I don't want to go back they love academics they love learning they loved their teachers I think we're fortunate we've never had any kid who's absolutely thrown a tantrum over going to any kind of class

Sunday school or class or whatever which is nice but we've also kind of been strategic and introducing them to that early and often and then also strategic with our game plan if it doesn't go well I feel like you specifically have prepared us really well for like preparing them and preparing us for conversations of like oh this was really hard or I don't want to go back it's like no we we kind of know the game plan I have put a lot of time and a lot of effort into not only that but researching our schools having open dialogues with our teachers making sure that you know little things you're you're the first one to pick up so like pick your kids up from school so they know that

they're never going to be left there and like you're involved in the school and you're involved in the programs and you know their friends names and the parents names and I feel like the more I'm involved with my kids at their school, the more excited they are because they feel like it's not just somewhere they're being dropped off and mommy and daddy are leaving. But before school every year,

we have done a lot of like orientation things. We've gone to meet the teachers. We've seen the classrooms. We've done a lot of things to like warm them up so it's not just like ripping off a band-aid. You've done a phenomenal job in preparing our family for that and our kids. you. I appreciate, I know sometimes I give you slack for it, but you always have this background

soundtrack of like, oh, we need to be a part of this mom group chat or go to this event or there's this thing at school or whatever. And you've been doing it for two and a half years. Yeah. Shauna's been searching for a school for our kids for two and a half years, which feels ridiculous when Jed is six months at the time and Drew is like two and a half years old. But that's what was necessary given the city we live in and the options. we had so anyway thank you Sean yeah I of course it's something I've been very very passionate about and I've been very passionate about it because and I have we've talked about this before something we believe very strongly and when it comes to our kids is giving them the best chance

to succeed in life and I don't mean that by like becoming a celebrity or like making money or whatever but like being as true to the personality they were God-given and foster all of those like talents and treasures that they were that they were born with and I really think in today's world there's so many different options when it comes to schools and the styles and the the upbringings that you have to be really careful that you don't turn your little kid into someone else does that make sense yeah and with every school there were pros and cons and that I loved, and I just wanted to find the best place for them to be them and have their little personalities shine.

Which is hard, because there's ego as a parent, too, where you're like, oh, my kid is going to this school or whatever, you know, it's like, again, you have to fight that, but. I truly believe we have found the perfect school for our family. Me too. I'm pumped. All right, let's talk back to school tradition, Sean. Okay. Are there any traditions that you do or did to get back in the school mentality?

I'm thinking, we used to go to, we used to go clothes shopping and we would get to pick out our first day of school outfit. Mine was always all white, head to toe. What? All white, baby. All white, dude. Andrew. I used to have case with shoes that I love.

Okay. Or the old Adidas throwback. Oh, man. It was so exciting back to school. When you're going to get school supplies, I'm talking the markers and you get like the little more of the organizing boxes. Oh, yeah. that you would make the little bookmarks out of with the glue or whatever.

Oh, dude, I'm just walking out of memory of your plane. The binders and the... No, the binders can go kick rocks, to be honest. Those things, they last like two weeks, and then all of a sudden they're all out of whack with each other, the little piece of metal, the metal clips are all... I could see why yours would be. Mine were perfection.

The whole year, they lasted the whole year. Yes. No chance, dude. Babe, I was the most type A perfectionist child you will ever meet in your life. That's crazy. immaculate all year mine was just toast it was so suit I wonder why the all white outfit I mean inevitably spilled something on yeah okay so anyway did you guys do anything else so grown up we did the same exact thing we would go shopping for the first day of school outfit um I was allowed

to always like maybe get one other outfit just for later in the year or later that week or whatever it was just like the back to school shopping and then I'll never forget I always loved when you finally got your list of school supplies that you were that you had to go shop for um and going to what was it you know target walmart something and picking it all out and picking out what pencils you wanted and what color what was the pencil bag called i don't remember like it was like it was like a little zipper bag that clipped into your binder oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah all those things um your lunch were you a mechanical pencil or a static Pencil.

It's a mechanical pencil girl. Duh, duh, dude. It's been interesting just modern day, different style of school. That's no longer a thing, or it's not a thing at our school that we're going to, where

everybody has issued their school of supplies on the first day, and it's all the same, so they try to make that equal. But something that I caught a glimpse of this year in both of our kids is when we had to go uniform shopping and picking out you know we got to go to consignment sales and get stuff that other kids

were passing down and seeing the excitement on our kids faces you could feel it I remember feeling they were feeling the same thing we did back when we were kids jet walks around in his uniform every single day every single day and yeah he's pumped he's they have like their school shoes and everything they're you bought them more than one pair of shoes I think it was overkill We didn't get school supplies I think it was overkill It was definitely overkill

I also remember Now I'm just reflecting We always At the beginning of the year We'd go to like a little orientation And you'd have to I remember going to the administrative office You'd have to enroll

And my mom would always like Bring a checkbook And then we'd go over to Football, the football facility And we'd register for that And then we'd get our pads issued to us Oh my gosh Holy smokes

I haven't thought about this stuff Since I was eight years old So it's actually interesting. That's all coming up for our school really soon. We actually got to do our first they hosted a big party where all the kindergartners and pre-K kids got to get together and there were food trucks and all the new parents

and they got to meet each other. But we're going to another one in a week and that's where they get to find out. It's definitely a really cool like festival they put on of some kind but they find out who their teachers are and who their classmates are. That is so exciting when you're a kid. It is. Oh, the feels that you got back in the day. See, this is why I want to go to all of it.

Because I'm like, it might seem like nothing to us. And it might seem like nothing to parents. But don't ever forget how excited you were for those little things. And please celebrate that for your kids. That's good. Also, one of my favorite things now as an adult is our family group chat with my four siblings. Yeah. They'll all send first day of school pictures.

I love those so much Because you could see how excited the kids are in the picture And we take first day of school pictures We take last day We also take every day they go to school pictures And then I've made video montages of every day And it's like talking about making me want to cry They grew up so much in the day

Dang Dang I also love like Drew's picking out her outfits And it's just so fun to see how her style changes It's good stuff I did her own ponytail today And I was like, no, mom does the ponytail's, okay?

You're going to need, you have to still need me. Did you have the kids pick anything out special for the school year? Like backpacks, lunch boxes, pencil cases? We didn't this year. They both recently got brand new backpacks that they picked out, and that was for Christmas. So those will be our backpacks. They both came home after the party talking about these specific water bottles that all the kids had. They got to pick those out.

and their specific colors. They call them adult water bottles. Adult water bottles. Pretty cute. Yes. I'm sure something will, I know key chains are a big thing. That's what I'm getting the gist of. So I'm sure there will be little things,

but so far we're ready for school. We have our uniforms and our shoes. That was really the only thing that we picked out this year. We have to make a pact with each other because I'm thinking about the school experience. Things will happen to the kids at school that will only catch shadows.

of at home good or bad and so we have to have a real sensitive pickup on and real sensitive gauge on what those things are because it's like you might only get a little sneak peek of wait where did that come from there was already one babe really a kid came home from a camp and it was the school camp where we got to deal at the school cafeteria for the first time oh Oh, shoot. And? Kids didn't want one of our kids to sit at their table. Really?

Mm-hmm. All right. Okay. Said punch him in the throat. About to get ready to fight out here, bro. Oh. Okay. It's good to know.

Good to know. How do you not, as a parent, be like, punchman's throat? Honestly, that's what's interesting. Like, who your kids go to school with matters, obviously, like, so much. But you're really, there's a lot. a little like group parenting happening. Yeah. I was like, okay, how

those parents, parent this kid is going to affect how I parent my kid and what happens. And I, I'm not going to say I'm going to parent other people's kids, but I think I'll, I think I'll throw a correction in here and there,

you know, if necessary. I'll speak my mind. I'll have a word. I'll tap them on the shoulder. There's a hard conversation for me to have. It ended well. It ended well. Anyway.

Okay. Let's talk about getting back in the zone for school. Do you feel like We need to do anything to have our kids get mentally ready to be in the school routine, etc. I don't think about this too much. I used to. I used to be obsessed with this idea of like getting our kids prepared for school, making

sure you go over their skills, whatever the skills are. But it really shifted my perspective when we had a parent teacher conference last year. and it was about Jett, I think it was Jett's class and it was his age and I remember asking them a question about he's not interested in

writing or like learning his letters and numbers yet. I remember thinking to myself like I remember this class with Drew and aren't they supposed to know it and the teachers who are such amazing teachers brushed it off with no worry. They were like, listen, if you try to force him to do it, he's not going to like it, he's going to resent it, he's not going to want to learn it, and plus he's young. It's totally fine. He's perfect. And I remember thinking, oh, why do we obsess over this so much? Like, that's what the teachers are for. And if the teachers tell us this year that we need to be working on something more than another thing, then we'll work on it.

But I try to foster, you know, getting them in the zone and stuff by reading books and let's count a 30 for fun and like whatever it is. But I try not to like have school time at home. Yeah. I feel like our philosophy has been just engagement in whatever form they want as opposed to like forced engagement with a certain topic. I think that's worked out well so far. also I'm just not realizing

Sean and I keep our kids on a pretty good schedule we're pretty routine oriented but I'm realizing that this routine we've had in the morning where we have a later start is gonna change yeah we've been doing that for like two and a half years we're going bike rides we jump in the pool we do this whole thing

we don't start our days really until 9 or 10 a.m. I'm gonna cry this is sad in school drop off is it way earlier than that way early way earlier than that So I guess the only thing it'll change about the schedule we've had out of the summer and the schedule that they've been on in past quote-unquote school years is just going to come a little quicker. So we're going to have to get them out of bed, get them dressed, get them breakfast, get them packed, and then get them out the door.

We'll just have to have our days be more efficient so that by the time they come home, we're making up for all the playtime we used to have in the morning. Yeah. And I think we also try to talk to our kids not just because of school, but all the time about values. and expectations of behavior that we have of them. Respecting their classmates and their teachers. Yeah, yeah. Tightenous things. So hopefully that will carry over into preparing them for school.

What's that called executive functioning? Yeah. Like all of it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, we've had incidences too where like things break or something happens at camp or something happens at school. And we have very open dialogues with our kids of like, I'm talking to your teacher.

Your teacher told me about this. We're going to work on it. We're going to go back to school. We're going to say sorry to whatever the kid's name was and their parents. We try to make sure values never change at school and they're like equal at home. We'll do a whole episode on this too, but we are always harping on virtues and values. Our family values are faithfulness, generous stewardship. playfulness, curiosity, and togetherness.

And we have that on a piece of art in the playroom. We also have other, the fruits of the spirit there. And so, like, it's kind of an always on conversation, which I think has paid dividends. And in those moments where you don't know what to say, we just kind of point to those, which is great. And, yeah, we'll do a whole episode on how we came up with our family values. But that's been good.

and it gives you a reference point to say, hey, we don't do this because this is our expectation, as opposed to, no, we just don't do this. It's nice to have, like, the positive flip on it, too. Yeah. We also had to deal with a couple times of summer days where the kids didn't want to go back. Yeah.

How do you deal with those? The only thought I had about this was you can't just choose not to go because you don't want to go, especially with something like school. Like camp is a little bit different because camp, especially in the summer, is meant to just be an activity. And if we really aren't liking it, whether it's a soccer camp or whatever it is, then we'll have a conversation about that. I don't believe in forcing your kid to do something they absolutely hate. You know, when it comes to school, school is different because school is school and it's important.

The only gauge that I have with this is fatigue, if that makes sense. so if one of our kids wakes up and they are absolutely dragging and it's like they could go down for another six hours and sleep or whatever that's when regardless of what they're saying I as a parent I'm going to be like it might be worth staying home and sleeping today because nothing good is going to happen I feel you've done a great job too including the summer of like oh they said they don't want to go back you've kind of pinpointed the reason why and it's like oh because this person said something mean

and then you'll give the antidote of like hey well how would you feel about going back tomorrow and us dealing with the situation in this way so you've done a great job at like really searching for is this because they don't feel belong or like don't feel included or are they injured or are they tired you've done a great job of mapping that out something i learned years ago prior i mean before kids when i was coaching we've talked about this a lot i would do clinics with 500 kids aging from five to 18 and something i learned very quickly is kids don't want to tell you what's actually happening to them at all like it's something that they try to bottle up and they don't openly share and if you ask them what is going on they're not going to talk about it and so if you

pick up body language is a huge thing like you know if your kid's off and you know like if something is different and two asking a lot of like prompting questions that something make you sad today was there something you did that you didn't like what was your favorite thing and over the course of like 50 questions throughout a day don't bombard them with this you can pick up little hints and then the more if you pick up little hints and this is what I used to do and I would like give speeches and talk to kids and coach them you can pick up enough hints to kind of get the gist of something if you all of a sudden start divulging about your childhood or things that you've been through that kind of have to do with that it's almost like oh my gosh mommy this happened today

or someone said this but if you put them on the spot they're probably not going to you about it they always want to relate the only caveat i have to is we also try not to seed them with certain words so we leave our questions intentionally ambiguous we we don't try to ask leading questions like oh did this person whatever say and then give them the verbiage it's like oh yeah that's what happened when it really might not be that so but you have to like dude it's even like our kindergartner i'll be like i know within the course of the day they're going to go outside they're going to do an activity they're going to be in the cafeteria yeah, they're going to. So I'm like, okay, what'd you have for lunch today? You know? And you try to just

nitpick to pick up little little pieces of gold. Yeah. Paced together. Oh my gosh. All right. Well, on that note, because I feel like you do have unique experience. Let's give some tips and trips, not trips. Let's give some tips and tricks for parents to make school mornings much easier. Okay. So we've listed out a few here. Let's see. How many do we have? We have 11. Okay. Let's just like, tips and tricks. Lunches are always a hassle to try to do in the morning. So during your weekend,

try to prep some food. Wash and cut up veggies, put your snack corner together, put all of your lunchbox things in an easily accessible place so that if you are making lunches in the morning, you can kind of throw it in and not have to like fully meal prep every day.

That's right. I also think in addition to that, There's like two or three variations of lunches that you make for the kids. You just stick to the game plan. And that way you pretty much know do we have the ingredients to make that lunch or not. You can always always have them ready and be prepared with that. Something else we do at home, we have designated snack areas. So these are areas within like our fridge, our freezer, and our pantry where the kids have full access to.

They can go in, grab whatever they want. And we know that it's like parent approved, kid approved. They like it. things that they can grab on the go and they're hungry examples of fruit, veggies, dips, hummus, bars, bars,

pouches, a lot of pouches, a lot of gogurt. Our kids now are at an age where they can rip them open and eat them themselves, which they love. Did you grow up eating a gogert? Oh yeah, baby. Did you do the freezer hack? Tell me about the freezer hack. You didn't do the freezer hack? Just remind me what it is.

If you put it in the freezer, it's literally, it turns into like an ice cream. These are frozen right now. They're incredible. So your boy came through. Yes. Came through. They are incredible.

These also are the protein version of Gogert, which I love because it has two times more protein than just like the original. I'm always trying to, I've told you guys about this before. I've snuck protein into the kids pasta and the kids' smoothies. I try to sneak protein in anywhere. And I love that Gogert came out with the protein version. I learned this about myself a couple years ago. We're also doing this with the kids.

How great of a snack protein makes. Yes. It really makes you feel full. You know, we do this with things like meat sticks, carrots and hummus, apples, and peanut butter. But the gogurt protein has been great. Actually, I think I might pop one open right now. Go for it. Let's see how smoothie S these are.

But our kids love these gogerts. I love these gogerts. Bear is in love with them. Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's going to be nice. I told you. Perfect. You never did that?

I did do that. No, like as a kid. Yes, I did. Okay. Why do you think they're like this right now as I brought them up here? Other things we do, we try to do lunches at night. After you put your kids down, just make your lunch really quick, and then you don't have to worry about it in the morning. Something we also do that's really special to us.

I highly recommend it. No judgment if you can't. But we do dinner together every single night. there's no like jet gets to go eat dinner and then drew and then dad later and then mom like we all eat together if and i have to eat later we're still going to sit around the table as a family it's a great time to get to know like what happened during the day we do highs and lows um but it's just like really bonding as a family we also can i say one more thing i like about these no mess i know no mess you rip the tube open they're better than you remember Rip the tube open. That flavor is delicious. That's really good. Two times of protein, baby.

Anyway, the third tip is making... The fifth. We're on five. You just blitz through those like that? You were eating your go-gurt. I was having a moment with my snack. Yeah. Number five.

Number five. Okay. This will be easier because our kids only have a small batch of clothes they can wear to school, letting their school close out the night before I'm talking everything hair ties bows socks and shoes underwear all of it because we've been in the place where there's the morning panic yes and all of a sudden they thought they wanted to wear this but they're changing their mind and they're tired and they're hungry and it's just like it's a lot going on especially if you aren't

doing uniforms it's like do it at night then they feel good about it in the morning just like lay it out try to try to prepare everything before it's needed i would say is the uh the overarching theme there you want the six one yeah that's freaking good okay also this is something drew likes a lot more than jet just depends on your kid if they're visual learners having some sort of a chart drew has this really cool like chart um bulletin board type thing in her room where you can organize like her duties it helps them become more independent but it'll say like wake up brush your teeth go potty put your clothes on clean your room go downstairs and get breakfast like it allows them to kind of feel independent and feel like they're actually doing their own thing

yeah we've done different versions of this it started as just a chores chart so we had listed out all the different things they could they could do for chores and we put stickers on there and they get like a little snack. We've done it where it's like really nuanced or involved with like waking up and using the bathroom, things like that. But regardless of how you do it, it's good, I think, for them to start building that executive functioning. Number eight, set a realistic wake-up time to avoid oversleeping, snoozing, and allow plenty

of buffer time. Yeah. That is good. But also it feeds into number nine, which is like keep consistent. Having like a consistent schedule really helps little ones. Same time every day. I know some days they're going to sleep in or they're going to wake up early. But having a consistent schedule and like routine really kind of like helps them understand what's going to happen throughout the day.

And I think it's true that the more the parents are on a consistent schedule, the more the kids are able to be on a consistent schedule. This summer has for us not been schedule oriented and that's made it super hard for us to keep the kids on a routine. You can tell they've just been a lot more tired and had highs and lows, but it's part of the summer. Also, the routine just helps us to be more emotionally available and prepared. So, it's

good all around. Number 10. Stay calm. That's right. Stay calm. That is my biggest tip is I just feel like kids feed off energy. And when we start the morning off stressed

and rushing, it affects the kid's mood. And that's even before they start their school day, which is probably going to be the most stressful thing they do in the day. So, like, that's why all this preparation ahead of time helps you stay calm. You're like, none of it needs to be done on a crunch timeline. You know you have, like, you're building in a little buffer time if necessary. Making the breakfast the day before, again, the goger is an awesome option for that.

But just, like, having things prepared is really great. So stay cool, stay calm. You can do this and don't panic. Is there anything else you want to add for 11? As hard as it is, and I'm going to say this to you, the first day we dropped Drew off, be excited for your kids. Don't be the parent bawling your eyes out at drop off

where your kid thinks something's wrong or they're sad. It's so exciting for kids and make it be, like make it exciting for them. Yeah. Cry when you get home. but like be so excited for them that they can be excited for themselves. Yeah. I think that's really good.

I think it's really good. We have a couple songs we like to sing. I would say making anything a jingle would be a tip too that I have. For young ones. When it's a tough morning and we're in the car, we have a song. Don't sing it.

Don't be a great day today. Going to be a great day today. Okay. And regardless of how upset everybody is. you know there's a smirk a reluctant smirk yeah like this one it comes through so anyway we hope these tips help you in some way and maybe add some peace to the back to school chaos what an exciting time what an exciting phase of life um and if nobody has reminded you parents lately doing a great job keep up the good work you might not feel appreciated but boy the work you're doing

today we'll pay dividends years from now so keep heart keep going you got this nobody's perfect and your kid would much rather have your love and care i feel like in a perfectly curated lunchbox every day so keep things in perspective and prioritized what's that long the the line from the song a present father is better than a perfect dad have you heard this line no Give it a moment. Give it a moment. It's going to give you the feels. Present father is better than a perfect dad. Anyway, do you have any closing thoughts? I'm just excited. I hope everyone else is too.

I'm too. Happy back to school. Thanks for listening. That's all we got. In the comments below, please let us know what your favorite back-to-school hack is that you do to beat the chaos or tell us how you're feeling with your little one starting school again. And if you haven't already, please give the show a rating. Subscribe to it on whatever platform you're listening to. And that's all we got. I'm Sean. And I'm Andrew.

Until next time.