Kids are back at school soon, and – duh – they all need brain-dead stuff like a backpack, notebooks and pencils. But my kid is special, see. My kid is a snowflake. He’s got pencils, but he needs pizzazz.

So naturally, I’ve compiled a list of the top five things (there are more, dudes, but … attention span) my special little snowflake needs for back-to-school time. Your kid probably doesn’t need them because I’ve seen your kid. He’s OK, but he’s all boogery. I can tell from the look in his eye that he’s not a go-getter. You want a go-getter? Dude, you can’t handle a go-getter if you even hesitated to answer for a fraction of a second. This list isn’t for you, Mr. Mediocre.

My one-of-a-kind bag of awesome isn’t settling for the middle road. So here’s just some of the stuff I’ve got on his back-to-school wish list:

Back-to-School Need 1. Kid Uber / Kid Lyft

Because, bro, I’ve got my own awesome adventures to be on. I can’t be bothered to drive him to school AND pick him up. That’s an EVERY. DAY. THING. if you know me, you know I have a religious exemption from doing the same thing twice a week. My life is exciting, dynamic, Instagrammable and Pinteresting. Now, it’ll be weird for a different person to pick him up every day, but I’ve kicked down a couple of extra credits to make sure they have a sign with his name on it. That way, his school will be all “oh, that’s first-class right there.” S**t, yeah, it is. Thanks for noticing.

Need 2. A Kindergarten Registry

College dorm registries are a thing. And that’s cool, but it’s getting into registering too late in the game. I’ve been pounding pavement this week trying to get retailers to give me a kindergarten registry hub. There, my son can poke around their fine virtual establishments and add items without me standing next to him in a big-box retailer asking “How about THIS backpack? How about THIS one?” And dude, like I want to discuss with my son whether his favorite color this week is red or black or green. And shoes? Get out of here.

I’d rather let the kid just register for his supplies, and let grandma and grandpa take it up with Target and Amazon directly. Since my son can’t technically read, I’m going to have to ask the teacher to make the back-to-school supplies list all pictures. Just use clip art and sight words in Comic Sans if you have to. And email it to him directly, please and thanks.

Back-to-School Need 3. A Completely Digital Ink Education

Look, maybe you want your kids (and spoiler alert, you do) to trudge to yesteryear’s drum writing in notebooks, finger-painting and looking at globes, but not me. Honestly, finger-painting? Your kid comes home with some amateur rendition of a shark (and paint on his shirt) and you’ve got to keep it on the fridge until he comes home with another terrible rendition of something else. Give us all a break. Save it to your Camera Roll and let that be that. No more Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and 22 Pee-Chee folders rotting away in a backpack. No more pencil lead, crayon wax, paints and markers all over him. My son’s soft, immaculately porcelain skin should not be defiled with such sloppy “art.”

And notebooks? You’re going to make my child write something on a non-indexable, non-searchable, non-categorizable, non-editable sheet of paper? And then what? Go searching for the information later by flipping through pages? Nope. Do you know what’s indexable, searchable and forward-thinking? Tablets. I don’t even care if it’s an iPad or a Microsoft Surface or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Just give my kid an app into which he can dictate notes, another app for art, and another to see real-time maps of the world with traffic, weather conditions and polar vortex overlays available.

Globes? Are you serious? Don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours.

Need 4. A Domain

You (and you and you) clearly want your kids to grow up without an identity. Or worse, you want their identity to be mystupidkid2023, because that’s the last email name that’s going to be available when you finally come around. But not my son. Oh, no. I want him domained-up right now. I want school emails going to it. Tuition stuff should be going there. He should be managing his financial and socio-online reputation NOW so that when he’s a teenager, he won’t be worrying about starting from scratch – or worse, from whatever boner legacy I’ve left him. Terrible.

My son needs a domain, a Stackable newsletter, and a few accounts on social platforms, and he needs it now. Your kids are busy doing the hokey-pokey and turning themselves around, and my son’s surging ahead of the pack polishing off his curriculum vitae complete with an email address hailing from his own domain. God, your kids look like rookies. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.

Back-to-School Need 5. Online Major University-Accredited Kindergarten Courses

It’s the first week of being back to school and my son is already over your kids. Like, for real. Their problems are so petty. Joey’s got nut allergies. Jon can’t use scissors. Melinda has a weak bladder. Ugh. It’s s**t like this that slows down the educational process. So let’s step it up here and offer some major university-accredited kindergarten courses.

If my son’s got to learn how to tell time, you’d better believe I want that applied to his hard sciences general education requirements. And ain’t nobody handwriting anymore, so if he’s got to learn how to do it, he’d better be getting his official transfer-ready propers. And look, instead of dealing with Joey, Jon and Melinda, my son would rather just check in with the kindergarten teacher’s office hours once a week and do courses from his home office. Nothing personal. Actually, it is.

Editor’s Note: A version of this first appeared on 8 Bit Dad. Photo: © chas53 / Adobe Stock.

I wasn’t sure what to expect or do when I first became a parent of a school-age child. Now I’ve been “school parent” for some time, I think I have a handle on it. Here are some suggestions for parents who have recently started their own journey.

1. As soon as the kids come home from school, check their backpacks. Many times, kids don’t even think they have homework when they do. They’re not trying to get out of it, although some do try, they simply do not realize they have to turn something in the next day.
2. Fill out and sign papers right away. Don’t be that school parents who fools him/herself by thinking, “Oh, I’ll sign it later or turn it in by the deadline.” You might forget. I have. Then you’re scrambling through a giant stack of papers looking for that one small piece you need.
3. No screen time until their homework is done. The sooner they get it done the better.
4. Get involved in the PTA. Someone stepped down from their position during my son’s first year of school and I jumped in to fill the role. It was one of the best things I have ever done. Holding a PTA office helped me get to know the teachers, faculty and staff in ways that I wouldn’t have normally been able to do. And in return, they got to know me and my kids better.
5. Go on field trips. I know it is hard for a lot of parents to get out of work, but if you can, you should do it. Watching your children in a school setting with other kids is a lot of fun.
6. Don’t give your kids a sugary breakfast. On occasion, I break this rule, but if you do it on a consistent basis, you’re setting your kids up to have a huge crash in the second half of their day. And it isn’t healthy.
7. Let your kids play at the nearest playground after school. Playing there helps enforce the friendships they’re making during the school day. Obviously, you can’t do this every day, but try to do it at least once a week. You’ll also get to know your children’s friends and their parents.
8. Get the kids to tell you all about their day. Keep talking to them until they open up. One of my kids tells me everything and the other says only a few words. But pestering them with questions not only shows them you’re interested, but it also helps you identify potential issues like bullies, teacher problems, school difficulties, etc.
9. Once in a while, splurge for the cool supplies. I understand this can be difficult if you’re strapped for cash. But if you can, those local sports team pencils or the Barbie eraser can bring some enjoyment to their stationary positions in the classroom.  And if money isn’t an issue, send a few extra erasers or pencils so that they can spread the joy to their friends.
10. Try not to get too angry about issues. Yes, they are our children and everything that happens to them puts us on high alert. But take it easy at first and go into meetings with patience and understanding. If things continue, then pursue them with greater intensity.

A version of ‘school parent tips’ first appeared on One Good Dad. Photo: Element5 Digital on Unsplash

As a huge fan of reading, school book fairs get me hyped. I always looked forward to all the new books, talks and especially the giveaways. So when I was asked to volunteer for my sons’ book fair, there was no way I was saying no to it.

While there, I learned a few things along the way (such as making sure you set a time limit for working there!). I hope those lessons can help you as a volunteer and/or parent.

Kids love book fairs

Getting my kids to read is sometimes like pulling teeth. They are great at it but getting them to actually sit down and read in this era of digital devices isn’t easy. So I honestly thought that most kids wouldn’t even care about having book fairs at their school. Boy, was I wrong!

I watched my kids and others who say they hate reading walk in with huge smiles on their faces. They talk about the newest character in a series I didn’t even know existed. They give each other summaries of previous books they have read and I even witnessed kids recommending books to each other.

It felt like I was in a different world and it felt good. It felt good knowing that even though my kids never showed me how much they loved to read, they and their friends actually loved books! Seeing that excitement made my 2 hours fly by quicker than I ever expected!

Don’t be cheap … or forget the tax

As I walked around talking to the kid shoppers, I started to notice that some were really sad.

I immediately knew why. Kids were sad because their parents didn’t give them money or gave them way too little.

We parents know that most book fairs do not really offer a discount. Most fairs are held to help raise money for their school, so most books sell for their retail value. That sucks considering the deals online at stores like Amazon or all the free reading material around the web. So if you give your kids less than $5 for a book fair, you are guaranteeing they will not be able to buy a thing.

I get it, though. You don’t want to splurge on a book you can get cheaper elsewhere. However, this is an event geared toward your child, your child is the featured guest, and you don’t want them to feel like they aren’t part of it. I went to this book fair with $16 and left with zero all because some parents sent their kids with $2. Don’t be that person!

Pro Tip: Tax is real! Teach your kids that for every dollar they spend they should have a dime to go with it. So $2 equals 2 dimes, that’s enough for tax so your kids won’t look crazy at the front of the line. It also keeps others like me from going broke due to helping them.

They will buy garbage, get over it

Many parents swear by sending a list of books that their kids can buy at book fairs. That’s a great idea, but not one that I use often. I believe in letting my kids decide what they want to buy and owning that decision. I know that the chances of them actually buying a great book are low. They are with their friends and they will buy things that they feel are cool or that their friends are buying.

At this fair, I noticed a whole group of kids buying invisible ink. Every time I asked them why they all had the same general answer, they wanted to have fun with their friends writing hidden messages.

But wait isn’t this a book fair? Shouldn’t they be buying books so they can become the next best-selling authors themselves? And now you’re telling me it’s OK for them to buy junk?

I feel your pain, but yes — that’s exactly what I’m telling you.

A book fair is set up to showcase the great world of books. That junk they are buying is part of this great world and why they love it! Let them enjoy it!

Plus $5 or $10 won’t make or break you most of the time. Besides, I spent the whole entire afternoon playing with their invisible ink and created some dope memories with my kids because of it. You can’t beat that.

But don’t go broke at book fairs

This by far was the hardest lesson I had to learn. I’m a sucker! I can’t be around kids that are sad or don’t feel like they are a part of something big like a book fair. All I kept thinking was that some parents really sucked.

That’s wrong. You never want to judge a book by its cover so you never really know why a parent doesn’t give his/her child money for a book fair.

It doesn’t matter anyway. What matters are your pockets! It’s very easy to volunteer for a book fair and end up spending all of your own money helping out the kids that didn’t have enough.

I can’t help it so the only tip I have for this: come to work at school book fairs with as little money on you as possible. You can still be Santa with $5, kids forget the tax portion of a sale all the time. If you stick to only helping kids cover tax, $5 can go a long way.

I left there feeling like I didn’t help enough because I couldn’t help more kids buy stuff but I thanked myself later on for not carrying more money in my pockets. I would have gone broke and would probably never volunteer again if I had more cash on me!

A version of this first appeared on Cool4Dads. Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

This weekend marks the unofficial end of summer, and that means the season of returning back to school has begun. You’re probably knee-deep in it already, as New York City is kind of late to the game every year.

It’s finally time to say goodbye to leisurely mornings in which I don’t have to scream at my son to put his shoes on and then sprint to the bus stop. Of course, as my son enters the second grade, I have much bigger concerns than getting out of the house on time.

But first, let’s not pretend the kids going back to school doesn’t have its perks. For one thing, the kids are gone! They’re finally being attended to by someone else for the bulk of the day. Huzzah! Plus, they’re learning things! Although that’s a double-edged sword, as you’ll see:

Back To School Worries for You

• The Drop-off Line – The drop-off gauntlet has insanely complicated rules and insanely power-mad monitors. When combined, this  causes massive stress at best and road rage at worst, not to mention I hardly have time to do my makeup so I look like a hot mess in front of those asshole “together” moms who apparently have both Gwyneth Paltrow’s money and Gwyneth Paltrow’s vanity.
• Unvaccinated Kids – GET. YOUR. HEAD. OUT. OF. YOUR. ASS.
• Knowledge Is Power – The more information my son acquires, the more equipped he is to fight back against me and his mom, whether he suddenly knows when we’re lying, or he realizes I don’t actually know everything, or he learns how to make pipe bombs. Kids that know things are a huge hassle; the more he learns, the more formidable an opponent he becomes! Stupid kids are so much better!
• School Supplies – We’ve all seen the parents bemoaning the cost of school supplies, which, sure, it’s annoying. But I saw one mom talking about spending $300 per kid. Hahaha, yeah right. That sounds less like a BTS problem and more like a “I had to get my kids the best of everything” problem. My kid’s getting pre-chewed pencils and last year’s ratty R2-D2 backpack. I’m saving my money for all the beer I’ll be drinking while I try to help with homework.
• Bullies – Hopefully that ratty backpack won’t be an invitation to bullies, who inexplicably still exist (thanks, Trump!). I hope my son can dodge the bully bullet because I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about it.
• Common Core – I get Common Core. I understand the methodology behind it, and why it’s useful. But when I went to school, it wasn’t a thing, and I don’t know how it works, and therefore I am unable to help my kid with his homework. Which is good for me, and bad for him.
• Birthday Parties – The obligation parents have to invite every single kid in class to their kids’ birthdays is the worst. Not only do I not want to have to throw some elaborate birthday party for 50 people, I don’t want to be invited to every single birthday party that goes down from September to June. Stop being so polite! You’re ruining my life.
• Allergies – Terrifying.
• School Politics – Whether it’s arguments over bake sales or room supplies or birthday parties, controversy always springs up during the school year. Usually it’s because there are a few moms and dads with sticks up their asses. Ugh, parents are the worst. Here’s hoping I don’t need to shove anything else up there this year!

I haven’t even mentioned parent-teacher conferences or grades or field trips or sick days. And my kid is only a second grader! Something tells me my back to school list is going to get a lot longer in coming years.

A version of this first appeared on Dad and Buried. “Back to School” photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

One thing excited me most about the start of the academic year as a child: new school supplies.

Oh, the days of eager anticipation they created. I’d stare at the plastic coating on my pristine Mead Trapper Keeper, occasionally opening that then-cutting-edge Velcro closure with a rrrrrip that stirred visions of organizational and academic excellence to come.

I’m still surprised I didn’t get beat up more as a kid.

If you’re thinking that buying Junior shiny new school supplies psych up him or her for another year of our public education system failing to close the racial and socio-economically achievement gap . . . then you’ve already flunked! Peak school supply shopping season occurred weeks ago. The retail world shifted to Halloween costumes and candy back on August 13.

Well, maybe you can make do with what remains in the clearance bins. Here are some ideas:

School Supplies in Demand

BACKPACKS

The most essential of all school supplies is the backpack, known in parenting circles as “the black hole into which nothing of substance escapes.”

Notes from the teacher, book reports, warnings about plague outbreaks — at one time or another, someone will neatly place all of these items into your child’s backpack. Yet when anyone looks inside only the following will be found:

• rotted fruit
• Captain Underpants comic books
• several reams of crumpled loose-leaf sheets bearing drawings of, if you have a boy, flatulent dinosaurs or, for those with girls, incontinent puppies. (OK, that might actually be a rainbow instead of urine but it’s hard to tell. I blame our government’s lack of support for the arts.)

TIP: Avoid trendy styles. Your kid may beg for a One Direction pull-along in August, but come December, she’ll be dying for The Next Big Thing (Have you heard of them? They rock!). You’ll never go wrong buying items in solid colors or bearing geometric patterns. Also good are timeless cartoon characters, such as SpongeBob Squarepants, Scooby-Doo or Sarah Palin.

LUNCHBOXES

A panic broke out a few years back when someone found many popular soft vinyl lunchboxes contained lead even though the addition did a nice job of protecting passersby from the mercury found in most tuna fish sandwiches.

Parents met opposition from conservation groups when switching to plastic bags (wastes oil!) or paper ones (kills trees!). They responded by making their kids buy the cafeteria’s offerings. Then when American parents got a good look at the sludge served on most lunch trays, they shrugged and said, “Meh — what’s a little lead?”

TIP: Look for a lunchbox lined with nylon or a non-PVC material, such as reinforced concrete. As with backpacks, seek styles that never go out of fashion. My favorites are, again, classic cartoon characters. Nothing will satisfy a child more than opening an insulated bag plastered with the likeness of the Fox & Friends hosts and finding bologna.

HAND SANITIZER/BABY WIPES/PAPER TOWELS

If you don’t have a school-aged child, then right now you are scratching your head. So am I. Why are you reading this far down?

Cleaning supplies have been the rage in recent years, what with outbreaks of swine flu, avian flu and underfunded school supply budgets. You won’t find a shortage of any of these items in the store. However, you will tire of teachers’ weekly reminders (assuming they are not placed in your child’s backpack) of the need for your little one to bring in more of these items to deal with the germ-riddled, mouth-breathers they take off your hands for six hours a day.

TIP: Save money on these items, not to mention clothing, by outfitting your child in a hazmat suit and gas mask. Buy a size up to allow for growth during the school year.

TIP: Better yet, consider homeschooling.

Photo by chrismetcalfTV on Trend Hype / CC BY