It is hard to believe that another school year is upon us. As parents and as pediatric occupational therapists, we are busy trying to help all of “our” (both literally and figuratively) children prepare for school. This column will focus on backpack readiness. What seems like such a basic idea can drastically affect a child’s ability to become a successful student.

There are several issues to address regarding backpacks, or knapsacks. The first is safety. Each year the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) holds a Backpack Awareness Day. The goal of which is to help make sure that parents and children alike become more aware of the best way to use a backpack. According to the latest statistics published by the AOTA, over 79 million children are carrying backpacks, many of them are excessively heavy or worn incorrectly. Each year there are over 22,000 injuries included sprains, strains, shoulder dislocations and bone fractures as a result of incorrect backpack wearing. Many of these injuries can last well into adulthood.

Now that we have this frightening information, what can we do? 1) A backpack should weigh no more than 10 percent of a child’s body weight. So, if your child weighs 60 lbs, the pack should weigh 6 lbs. We will bet that if most of you readers weigh your children’s bags you will be horrified to learn that they weigh at least double that. 2) When loading your backpack, load the heaviest items closest to the body (in the back of the pack) and make sure that the supplies in the pack are fitted in well enough that they will not fly around inside the bag. 3) Make sure the straps on the backpack hold the pack close up onto your child. You don’t want them too tight, but they should be snug. And please encourage your child to use both shoulder straps and the waist belt. 4) Make sure that your child’s backpack is appropriately sized for his/her body. If your child’s backpack is regularly too heavy, consider going through the bag with your child and seeing what can be taken out to reduce weight.

This brings us to the next subject related to the backpack and starting the school year off right. Keeping our children organized is a great task, particularly if your child has difficulty with organization, has ADHD or SPD or any executive functioning difficulties. There are wonderful strategies for keeping your child organized and the backpack is a great place to start. Some ideas include color coding your child’s backpack by subject (e.g. red for social studies, blue for math, green for grammar, etc.); matching index cards, folders, highlighters and divider colors help this strategy. Teach your child to file each of his/her papers daily so that there are no stray papers flying around the pack. Each paper, homework assignment or memo should be placed in the proper colored folder or in a folder dedicated specifically for homework. There should be a sharpened pencil and eraser that remains in the knapsack and is always placed in a special pocket that can be accessed quickly and easily whenever needed. It is important to go through your child’s knapsack and teach your child to go through his/her knapsack at least once a month to make sure there are no extra papers flying around and that all work is in its proper place.

We would like to make this column be in an “Ask the Therapist” type of format. Please feel free to submit them to our email.

Alyssa Colton MA, OTR/L and Aviva Lipner MA, OTR/L are pediatric occupational therapists and owners of Kids’ Therapy Place, LLC and Kids’ Therapy Toy Store. They can be reached at [email protected].

By Alyssa Colton MA, OTR/L and Aviva Lipner MA, OTR/L