August is one whirlwind of a month, as any parent of school-age kids knows. It’s technically still summer vacation for much of the U.S., but it doesn’t entirely feel like it because of the back-to-school shopping, preparation, and everything else that comes with the chaos. But Jenna Bush Hager, as a working mom of three, has totally nailed the mentality to have when it comes to the back-to-school season. And we can all learn a thing or two, because it’s so helpful.
The Today co-host, 42, talked with Motherly exclusively about spending quality time with her family this summer, and making memories with her husband, Henry and their three kids—Hal, 5, Poppy, 9, and Mila, 11.
“We still have a couple weeks here on the East coast, so we’re trying to just live in it,” Bush Hager says. “But one of the things that we do to prepare is just to have conversations around expectations around change, because it is a shift to go from the slowness of summer and some structure, but not crazy structure, and getting to be with family and friends and doing a little bit of traveling versus getting right back to the grind.”
She’s partnered with Kleenex to bring awareness about showing up for students and teachers in educational spaces and to provide them with the supplies needed to thrive. To mark a century of Kleenex, the company is giving back to the community by offering schools the opportunity to receive a $100K donation, with an additional $400K distributed among 100 other schools.
“I just thought it was awesome that their way of celebrating is to make sure they give back to the teachers,” Hager Bush explains. “You know, classrooms and schools are so important to the fabric of our culture. So I’m thrilled to partner with them and I hope that mothers and teachers and community leaders will nominate their schools, their teachers.”
With her son, Hal, going into pre-K and her oldest daughter, Mila, entering middle school, there are a lot of changes afoot in the Bush-Hager household. While it’s impossible to predict how your kid will adapt to these kind of transitions, parents can still help things along.
“We just try to talk with them about it and, and see how they feel,” she says. “And I think transitions for kids can be tricky. When my son asked when school was starting, he also said ‘I feel nervous.’ And I think it’s so important that he can say that without me trying to fix it.”
She explains that for her, part of being a mom is fighting the instinct to say reassure your child that there’s “nothing to worry about” and validate their feelings instead.
“I told him I totally get it. And that I felt nervous, too. And it’s normal to feel nervous before you go back to school. We try to keep an open communication.”
As for middle school, Bush Hager knows that this is the age bracket that gets a bad rap—especially for tween and teen girls. But that’s not always the guaranteed experience for every kid, and it shouldn’t be something families dwell on in a negative light.
“I don’t want to muddy her experience. Because who knows what her middle school experience will be like for her, you know?” she says. “I think it’s so typical to be like, ‘Oh, middle school’s the worst because we’ve all been there. But I want her to know that if she feels like some issues or problems pop up, she can come to us.”
Because that’s what we all want for our kids deep down, isn’t it? For them to feel like they can come to us for guidance or comfort or whatever their need is in the moment. Bush Hager says she and her husband try to build that type of relationship with each of their kids by spending quality family time together.
“We spend a lot of time together on the weekends as a family doing fun things that they wanna do,” she says. “Sometimes we travel, sometimes we stay home because there’s nowhere I’d rather be than with my kids on my couch.”
Ultimately, however, she wants her kids to know one thing no matter how old they are or what they’re going through in life.
“I want to be their safe landing pad.”
To nominate a deserving school for the Kleenex giveaway, visit kleenex100years.com now through August 26th. Entrants will be asked to respond to a two-part written prompt explaining why their school is deserving of the donations. Schools will be evaluated based on an objective set of criteria, and the selected schools will be those who exemplify Kleenex’s mission of providing students with resources to face everyday moments of vulnerability and thrive.
