A Back to School Letter to Your Child's New Teacher | Free Printable From a Child Therapist

Your child's new teacher will spend more waking hours with them this year than you will.

And right now, three weeks in, that teacher knows your child as a name on a roster and a kid who either does or doesn't put their hand up. They don't know that your child cried in the car this morning. They don't know that the bathroom is the scary part, or that last year's teacher used to give a two-minute warning before transitions and it changed everything, or that your kid will not ask for help out loud, ever, and will instead sit there getting more and more still.

You could email all of that. A lot of parents do, and it helps.

But there's a version that works better, and it isn't from you.

Download the Back to School Letter (free printable PDF)

I'm Hannah Ly, LMFT, a child therapist in San Jose and Redwood City and the founder of Your Therapy Nook. Every September I watch the same gap open up: the school sees a behavior, and the parent sees their child, and nobody has handed the teacher the thing that would connect the two. So I made a letter for your child to fill out and give to their teacher. It's free, it's one page, and it takes about ten minutes at the kitchen table.

What the letter is

It's a fill-in-the-blank letter, written for your child to complete in their own words and hand to their teacher. Print one for each teacher if they have more than one.

Your child finishes these lines:

• My name is ___. Last year I was in ___ grade at this school / a different school.
• I'm looking forward to ___
• I'm most nervous about ___
• Something that would be good for you to know about me is ___
• Last year what I liked about my teacher was ___
• These are some things that help me learn and spark my curiosity ___

Then they sign it. That's the whole thing.

Why it works better than an email from you

"I'm most nervous about" is the whole letter. That one line does something a parent email can't. It asks your child to name the challenge themselves, in their own words, in a low-stakes moment at your kitchen table instead of in the middle of a meltdown. Children are usually much more able to name a worry on paper, in advance, than they are in the moment when their body has already taken over. You will very likely learn something you didn't know.

It puts your child's words in front of the adult who needs them. A teacher who knows on day fifteen that a child is nervous about the bathroom, or about not knowing anyone at lunch, has something to work with. A teacher who finds out on day forty, after the child has run out of the room twice, is starting from behind.

"What I liked about my teacher last year" tells the teacher how to reach your kid. For one child that answer is "she was funny." For another it's "she let me sit near the door." Those are two completely different instruction manuals, and your child is the only person who can write either one.

It gives your child some authorship over a year that is mostly happening to them. September is a season of things being decided for children: this classroom, this teacher, this schedule, these kids. Filling out this letter is one of the few moments where your child gets to be the one telling an adult how it should go.

How to do it with your child

Do it at a calm time, not on a hard morning. A weekend afternoon or after dinner. This is not a task to add to the 7:40 rush.

Let them answer honestly, including the nervous part. If your child writes "I'm most nervous about lunch," do not talk them out of it, soften it, or suggest a better answer. The honest version is the useful version. Your job here is scribe, not editor.

Write for them if writing is the hard part. For a younger child, or a child who freezes at a blank line, you hold the pencil and they talk. It's still their letter.

Don't correct the spelling. Teachers are not grading this.

Read it before it goes. Not to change it, but because you're going to learn something. Then let your child hand it over themselves if they're willing. That handoff, a child giving an adult information about themselves on purpose, is a small good thing on its own.

What to do with what you learn

Sometimes the "I'm most nervous about" line answers a question you've been circling for weeks. If it does, the specific worry usually has a specific plan:

• If it's the goodbye: how to handle crying at school drop-off
• If it's recess, lunch, or friends: my child says no one plays with them at recess
• If it's the work itself: how to stop homework meltdowns
• If you're not sure whether any of this is normal: is my child's back to school anxiety normal?

And sometimes your child writes something that stops you. A worry much bigger than you knew about, or "I'm most nervous about nobody liking me," or a blank they won't fill in at all. That is worth paying attention to, and it is not a sign you missed something. It's a sign the letter did its job.

When to see a child therapist

A letter is a good tool. It is not therapy. If your child is four to six weeks into the year and the mornings are still hard, if the body is carrying it (stomachaches, sleep, appetite), if the school keeps calling, or if you're dreading mornings in a way that's starting to shape how you parent, that's bigger than a printable.

What that looks like here: a free 15-minute phone call with me, no intake forms, where I listen and tell you honestly whether we're the right fit. Then child therapy, which for younger kids is play therapy, where your child shows us what the challenge is without having to explain it, plus parent coaching with you every four weeks so it makes sense at home. The first session is not a drop-off, and I can't promise a timeline, but your child will have someone whose only job is to see them.

Talk to a child therapist in San Jose or Redwood City

If the letter told you something you weren't expecting, or you've been sitting with a worry since August, the next step is a free 15-minute phone call with me. I'll listen, ask about your kid, and tell you honestly whether Your Therapy Nook is the right fit. If we are, your child sees one of the child and teen therapists on our team at our San Jose or Redwood City office, with Spanish and weekend appointments available in San Jose.

About the Author, Hannah Ly - San Jose Child Therapist

Hannah Ly is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT #129711) and the founder and clinical director of Your Therapy Nook, a boutique child and teen therapy practice with offices in San Jose and Redwood City, CA. She is a child therapist, play therapist, and teen therapist, trained in Synergetic Play Therapy and Brainspotting, with a long background in adoption and foster care. Hannah does every family's first call herself, and every therapist on the team practices the way she does. Every family gets child-led play therapy or teen therapy plus parent coaching every four weeks.