School starts next week, and parents are frantically downloading school supply lists, fighting the mobs on the pen-and-pencil aisles and reading every article on Pinterest about how to pack the perfect lunch.

Having been there and done that, I thought I’d pass on a few back-to-school tips you might not read in a parenting magazine.

Only bought two tubes of glue instead of four? Don’t sweat it. These days, all school supplies get dumped into a big bin and the teacher doles them out during the year. This is to make sure everybody has an equal amount of supplies. It’s also to prevent children from sharpening their pencils all the way down to the eraser on the first day because they’re fascinated with the pencil sharpener.

So turning in two glue sticks instead of four will not be a big deal when the teacher is trying to keep little Susie from crying because she sees Lydia has the Paw Patrol lunchbox she wanted.

Your child will survive not having a pencil that writes with blue lead on one end and red lead on the other. They will survive not having the latest Despicable Me backpack and they will survive having a bag of grapes in their lunch instead of a bag of chips.

Lunchboxes are not only cool but they’re also useful. Your child will use said lunchbox as second base when one’s not available after school. They will also play “kick the lunchbox” on their way home in the afternoon or while waiting for you in the nightmare carpool line.

Paper lunch bags are wonderful unless your children are boys and require two sandwiches, two pieces of fruit, a Little Debbie Cake, two juice boxes and a bag of chips in their lunch every day.

Then you have to go to one of the huge box stores and buy a case of oversized lunch bags that will last you until your last child graduates from college.

It’s not just the kids who have to survive school.

So do parents.

You will survive the vicious drop-off and pick-up line. Here’s a tip – bring a book to read. Better yet, bring two. Listening to books on CD or playing the radio will simply drain your vehicle’s battery because you’re going to wait in that line a long time. A really long time.

Your child will volunteer you to be a chaperone on a field trip. Whatever it takes, beg your child to not sign you up for the zoo field trip.

A trip to the zoo sounds fun until you remember that those trips take place on a school bus that’s not air conditioned. A zoo visit requires you to walk at least five miles in humid 98-degree weather to look at smelly animals that are all sleeping.

Volunteer to be a class reader or decorate bulletin boards. Volunteer to sit in the dunking booth. Even volunteer to work in the carpool line.

Anything but the zoo.

Your child will make friends. Your child will be friendless. Your child will be happy to go to school and then a pack of wolves couldn’t drag them out of bed.

And you, mom and dad, will also have days where you fret incessantly about your child because you sent them to school when they were worried they wouldn’t make any friends, thought the teacher didn’t like them or were worried about a quiz.

You’ll worry they won’t have anybody to play with during recess or they’ll get hurt or they’ll get in trouble. The hardest part of sending children back to school is letting them spread their wings and fly when you’re not there to watch them soar or not there to catch them when they can’t seem to get off the ground.

Your job is to lovingly remind them there are good days and bad days. In life, one decides what kind of day to have, not the other way around. And as you tuck them in at night, be sure and listen to their school adventures and reassure them that even though they don’t have a Paw Patrol lunchbox, life is still pretty good.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.