Is your family tired and cranky now that the kids are back in school? We have advice from experts

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- It's a familiar scene in many households across the Commonwealth right now. Someone or several students are struggling to get up and out the door on time every day to make it to school.

Licensed Chesterfield County therapist Anna McChesney shared advice with 8News on how to work out the back-to-school kinks.

"Everyone needs to be patient with everyone else," McChesney said. "We are tired because we are all now waking up a lot earlier than we were before."

The first thing to note, she says, is that even if your child and family got off on the wrong foot, it's not too late to reset and adjust.

McChesney recommends parents first check in with themselves and not just assume their children are the only ones with a sleep problem. She says parents should take a moment to pause and reflect on their own emotions.

"'What am I experiencing right now?' Oh, I'm anxious or I'm angry or I'm irritable because I am tired.'" McChesney said, modeling the self-talk parents can do during that reflective moment. "The adult in the room needs to do that and model that first before expecting the child or the teenager to do that."

Because everyone in the house is often more tired, McChesney acknowledges that, as necessary as taking this moment is, it can also be tough for adults to do. But she stressed the importance of parents figuring out how to emotionally regulate themselves amid the chaos of the first days and weeks back to school.

McChesney also advises parents to really think about how their children may be different, both developmentally and personally this year compared to last year, and to be open to adjusting routines.

That could mean changing up the morning schedule or the nighttime routine. And the nighttime routine should be phone-free.

"Above all in routine is protecting bedtime," McChesney said. "That's kind of where sometimes the cellphones can come in or the peer pressure to stay up."

Her recommendation is for parents to insist on phones being in one central location overnight and not in their childrens' bedrooms.

"The cellphones go down, a place to put them and lights out, so that their brains can get the adequate rest that they need, so that they can be ready for whatever comes the next day," McChesney said.

Parents should also design bedtime keeping in mind that the amount of sleep kids need changes as they age.

According to sleep scientists and doctors, preschoolers should get up to 13 hours of sleep, pre-teens or tweens need between nine and 12 hours and teenagers do best with eight to 10 hours of quality shut-eye.