Back-to-school can be an exciting time, but preparing kids for a return to the classroom requires a lot of time — and money — from parents.
According to a new survey, moms and dads are increasingly worried about many aspects of back-to-school season — from ensuring that school requirements are met, affecting 49% of parents, to safety and security concerns for 46% of parents.
However, the No. 1 cause of back-to-school stress for 51% of parents is the cost of everything their kids need.
Parents estimate that they’ll spend an average of about $460 on school supplies. On top of that, they expect their children to lose around $175 worth of their belongings, including backpacks, pencil cases, calculators and textbooks — all never to be seen again.
Parents use up about an average of 17 hours per week just coordinating family schedules, according to results from the survey of 1,000 US parents with kids between the ages of 5 and 14.
That adds up to over two full workdays — and nearly $31,000 lost in working hours per year.
The survey, conducted by Life360, found that between the time they spend away from work and the school supplies they need to purchase, tens of thousands of dollars go down the drain each year getting their kids ready to go back to school.
Additionally, time is money, and aside from the time spent in carpool lines, commuting to work, and driving to and from school and extracurricular after-school activities, figuring out these scheduling conflicts takes up time itself.
“Back-to-school season can be a real challenge for parents. Balancing new schedules, calming kids’ back-to-school jitters, and managing work can be overwhelming,” parenting expert Erika Katz, author of “Coach Parenting,” said in a news release.
Family schedule coordination is difficult for 87% of parents, and a majority of those surveyed believed there are four major scheduling challenges in the back-to-school season: fitting in time for all activities (57%), keeping track of every detail (54%), finding work and family balance (52%) and managing last-minute changes (51%).
In fact, back-to-school prep was ranked as the highest-stress preparation time of the year (44%) — and 29% of parents even said this time of year causes more anxiety than holidays, birthdays, standardized testing, and sports and performance prep.
A majority of parents (68%) feel overwhelmed and burdened by just how many things they need to get done every day. Even things that are considered simple daily routines, such as waiting in a carpool line for pick-up — which averages about 16 minutes per day — become huge stressors to parents.
The pressure leads to 76% of parents obsessing over their children’s schedules and double-checking them multiple times per day.
The high-pressure situation has put many parents on the struggle bus, with many (60%) being reduced to tears and 16% admitting that they cry over it every year.
Perhaps that’s why a majority (89%) begin their back-to-school prep, thinking and actively planning for the school year, as early as the spring.