The Ministry of Social Development and Family, represented by the Family Development Department, organized a workshop on students' return to school on Thursday 17, presented by Dr. Musab Al-Gawash via Microsoft Teams, to educate parents on supporting their children at this stage.

Dr. Musab Al-Gawash presented this workshop, Doctor of Clinical Psychology. It aims to educate the family about the importance of preparing students at various levels of school about returning to school, starting with physical and psychological preparation for the school environment, discussing the challenges that the family may face, and the solutions provided to meet these challenges.

During this workshop, Dr. Musab Al-Gawash dealt with several axes, including the concept of preparing for schools, types of preparation for schools, the importance of preparing children for schools, the challenges facing the family about preparing for schools, various practical methods for preparing children for schools.

Dr. Musab Al-Gawash spoke about physical preparation, where he gave important advice to parents to organize the child's sleep times to prepare him for school, including waking the child up gradually, as it is possible to add an hour earlier every day to reach the required time in order for the child to get enough sleep so that you can wake him up early the next day.

With regard to psychological preparation, Dr. Al-Gawash stressed the importance of dialogue with the child about his concept of school, and correcting this concept so that it is realistic. It is also preferable to take the child to school before the start of the school year in order for the place to become familiar to him on the first day of school. Try to find friends for the child who share the same school or the same class with him.

With regard to the problems that older children face when they move to middle school or high school, Dr. Musab Al-Gawash explained that some students suffer from adjustment disorders to the new school, or they may be subjected to bullying, which leads to their feeling of alienation from school and a decrease in their academic performance.

He gave advice to parents, saying: "The mother or father must be present at the school gate at the end of the child's first school day to receive him. It is not permissible to assign this task to anyone else, especially during the early days."  

The Ministry of Social Development and Family, through the Family Development Department, seeks to develop the family, women and children, by raising awareness about the rights of these groups, and the challenges raised on the global, regional and local arena, through preparing and implementing national strategies related to the family and its members, and organizing conferences to discuss family issues.