Ah, the dreaded start of the school year is already upon us. Thousands of school children are preparing to make the transition from a relaxed summer to a rigorous school schedule, and it is the parents who have the unenviable task to ensure that their children are energised, well-rested, de-wormed and eager to make the best of the new school year.

OBSERVER ONLINE has prepared a list of traditional back-to-school activities that parents undertake to shepherd their offspring into the ‘brave new world’ of a new academic year.

1. First, the dreaded ‘washout’ – This is a traditional Caribbean way of cleansing the body using herbs such as senna pods. It is seen as a necessary evil after young children have spent an idle summer consuming copious amounts of fruits, candy, sodas, chocolate bars and sugary drinks. Parents administer a laxative to rid the body of the harmful sugary chemicals, and to help de-worm their young charges.

2. In the penultimate week before school begins, one finds two competing schools of thought. Children are often trying to wring the last embers of joy out of a dying summer while parents are ratcheting back such activities. First, they forcefully begin by regularising their children’s sleeping patterns with early curfews (thank you BroGad), forcing them to go to bed as early as 7:00 pm and waking up when the rooster puts on his underpants at 6:00 am.

3. Parents grumble every year at the high cost of books and make the dreaded trek to the island’s bookstore to purchase textbooks. Hoping to preserve their investment, parents wrap textbooks to preserve their covers so that at the end of the school year they can be handed down to others or sold.

4. The annual trip to the dressmaker/tailor to take onerous measurements to ensure that their school uniforms are spic and span and well-pleated to start the academic year off with a bang.

5. Parents head off to downtown Kingston or major urban centres to buy brown or black school shoes, hunting the best, more durable deals, much to the chagrin of their kids who want more fashionable, name-brand choices.

6. One of the activities that cause the most consternation to children is the end of summer haircut where your mom or your dad instructs the barber to ‘chop it all off, give him a schoolas cut’ after which he gives you an army-type buzzcut that leaves your noggin too shiny a thing to resist slaps from your peers. Back in the day, girls would stock up on castor oil or coconut oil, and the more adventurous would use heated forks to lighten out their hair, hoping that their parents wouldn’t see and deliver a whipping.

7. The great poet Longfellow said that “the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts’, and as the children wind down after sun-filled days of playing, watching TV and playing video games, parents slash those ‘long, long thoughts’ and institute (oh horror of horrors) literature books. The dreaded literature book reading mandate has been carried down generation through generation.

8. A trip to the dentist to get those pearly whites OK after the sweet feast over the holidays. And some will take the trip to the family doctor or paediatrician to address any concerns and determine if they are “normal, age-appropriate issues or require further assessment.”

9. Goodbye Nintendo! After watching their children engage in marathon gaming sessions with friends all summer, parents begin to restrict them from playing video games towards the end of the holiday period before locking away the consoles until the next break in school.