Back to school: a calmer run-up — and a massage for the parents

The last week of August has a rhythm of its own. A supply list that grows by one more item every evening, queues in the bookshop, trainers that went small over the summer, fees to pay, chat groups that never stop buzzing, and that quiet question in the background: will my child settle in? The children go back to school — but the whole run-up, from the list to the early alarms, is carried by the parents.

At the Runway Massage studio in Vračar we see it every September: the first weeks of school fill up with parents who haven't had a chance to sit down in months. So this piece has two halves — how to make the back-to-school preparation calmer, and how to keep your body from paying for all of it.

Why the start of school wears the parent out most

For children the change is exciting and concrete: a new backpack, new friends, the first lesson. For parents the change is mental — and invisible. You are the one who remembers what's missing, who tracks the deadlines, who plans who collects whom and at what time, who holds three parallel schedules in their head at once.

The body reads that invisible load as constant alertness. Shoulders lift towards the ears and stay there, breathing turns shallow, and sleep gets clipped at both ends — later to bed, earlier up. After two or three such weeks the familiar picture arrives: a stiff neck, a tension headache that starts at the base of the skull, and a tiredness the weekend no longer erases.

The week before the first bell: a plan that lowers the tension

There is no preparation without some rush, but there is preparation without chaos. These few steps cut down the number of small fires in the first days:

• One list, in one place. Everything on one sheet or in one note on your phone — supplies, shoes, payments, paperwork. Ten items in one place weigh less than three items in five places.
• Shop in two rounds, not one. First what is certain (notebooks, stationery, shoes), and only after the first parents' meeting the rest. That alone skips half of the unnecessary shopping.
• Move sleep earlier in 15-minute steps. A week ahead, start shifting both the wake-up and the bedtime by a quarter of an hour a day. A two-hour jump in a single night is paid for by everyone in the house.
• Do a trial morning. Once before term starts, run the real routine: getting up, breakfast, dressing, the trip to school. Then you know how much time you actually need, not how much you think you need.
• Whatever can be done the night before. Backpack packed, clothes out, snack ready. Morning is the worst time to be making decisions.
• Split the jobs out loud. Who takes them, who collects them, who goes to the meeting — agreed in advance, not in the hallway on Wednesday morning.

Helping the child ease into the rhythm

Children don't respond to change with words but with behaviour: harder to fall asleep, more arguments over small things, no energy in the morning. Three things help most — a predictable schedule (the same time for dinner, bath and bed), fewer screens in the last hour before sleep, and a short conversation that isn't an interrogation: instead of "how was school", a question like "what was the funniest thing today" opens far more than a full interview.

And give them a week or two. The first week is almost never representative — neither for the child nor for you.

A backpack that doesn't bend the back

This is the detail that is easiest to overlook, and it matters a great deal to a child's back:

• Weight up to a tenth of the child's body weight. For a 30 kg child that's about 3 kg — anything above that changes their posture.
• Both straps, always. A backpack on one shoulder is the fastest route to asymmetry and neck pain.
• Heavier books against the back, straps tightened so the bag doesn't hang below the waist.
• A joint check on Sunday evening — what is genuinely needed tomorrow, and what has been travelling back and forth all week for no reason.

Where a parent's stress settles in the body

Organisational stress isn't abstract — it has addresses, and they are almost always the same:

• Neck and upper back: from constant alertness and a phone in hand; the shoulders stay raised even once you sit down.
• Jaw and temples: clenched teeth, often at night — hence the morning headache and the "tired face".
• Lower back: carrying bags, bending, and hours in the car in the pre-school traffic.
• Breathing: shallow and high in the chest, which keeps telling the body the danger is still on.

When all of that piles up, "I'll rest a bit once things settle" usually means: never. We wrote more about how the body signals it has had enough in the body tells you it needs a massage.

The morning while the children are at school — finally your slot

The biggest change September brings parents is that, after two months, they get their quiet mornings back. That is also the best time for a massage: the studio is at its calmest, you aren't rushing anywhere afterwards, and the body drops into relaxation most easily when it knows nothing is left hanging.

In practice: the hour and a half between the school drop-off and your first obligations is enough for a full treatment. Our clients usually book it for the first or second week of term — just as the routine starts working, while the tiredness from the preparations is still sitting in the shoulders.

Which massage for which kind of tiredness

• A full head, a tense body but no pain — Soul Harmony, gentle pressure and a rhythm that settles the nervous system.
• A stiff neck and shoulders after weeks of preparation — the DeStress back massage or, if the knot is older, Deep 1 with firmer pressure.
• Jaw clenching and tension headaches — the Serenity facial massage, which works exactly on the jaw, temples and forehead.
• The first free morning as a couple — a couples massage, two therapists at the same time and one hour without a phone.

If you're not sure what you need, tell your therapist what August looked like — the treatment adapts to you, not the other way round. On finding your way around the different types, we wrote a guide on how to choose the right massage, and the full price list is always on the site.

Let September be a fresh start for you too

School brings order back to the house — use it for yourself as well. One treatment will release the tension from the preparations, but the real difference comes from rhythm: a massage once a month, always in the same week, while the children are in class. We wrote about what "regular" actually means in how often to get a massage, and if you already come regularly, Runway membership takes 500 dinars off every massage.

And one more thing September tends to forget: the grandparents or the friend who helped you with the children deserve more than a thank-you. A gift voucher arrives by email instantly and never expires.

The children are ready for school. Let your back be ready for September.