FOR SOME children September can be the cruellest month. New faces, a new environment, a new routine, a new set of rules, a new teacher, a new set of clothes.

It can be the best of times or the worst of times for a child, depending on which way a parent approaches this great back to school migration.

For some young people, the mere idea of school can instill terror and fright into their hearts. "Thank you Adolf," said a young boy triumphantly after his school in England was bombed during the second World War, in the film Distant Voices, Still Lives.

A friend's younger sister used to fantasise about her school being burned to the ground - a catastrophe that would have made her summer holidays complete.

But once again schools have reopened and classrooms have begun to hum. It is a challenging time for children, and for parents also. And children pick up on the worries and anxieties of their parents.

Mary Killeen, president of the European Parents' Association, says "the first real wrench from the family and the influence of the home" is when the eldest child is starting school. It is a time when "parents feel cut off", she says. The sense of loneliness for them is very real. If parents were brought in and made to feel part of that process that it would enhance the whole experience.

Sarah Gormley, vice chairperson of the National Parents Council (Primary), says parents will worry about their children no matter what about whether their child's socks are white enough, whether the teacher will like them, whether they will eat their lunch . . .

They will worry all the more, she says, when their first child is going to school for the first time, because parents don't know what the situation is at that stage. She advises them to visit the school with the child, meet the teacher together, and let the child see there is a good relationship between you and the teacher. "It's important for the child to see that there's trust between you," she says. Parents should also familiarise themselves with the school's code of behaviour.

Parents can be very lonely when that first wrench occurs, she says. "Control that. Leave the child there, don't hang around - that makes the child feel anxious."

Increasingly, schools are holding class meetings early in the first term specifically for parents - to let them know broadly what will be expected of the children during the year, what the teacher's expectations will be and how much homework the children will get. This is very worthwhile, Gormley says, as this provides parents with a chance to meet other parents. In the past, she says, parents have felt isolated. As a result of these meetings, there is a feeling of comradeship.

Clare Shelly, who teachers first class in Scoil Ursula in Blackrock, Co Cork, says it takes about two months before children settle into school life and their new class after the summer holidays. She advises parents to give the teacher a chance on the first day or two, and not to rush her with a lot of information. Inundated with too many details about each individual child, quite probably she will not be able to retain everything.

Write any special details about your child down and give them to her; she will be able to peruse them at her leisure at a later stage. There will be plenty time for discussion after a week or so.

HER advice to parents is to be positive and not threatening about the children's return to school and to emphasise all the good things, for example, how they will be meeting all their friends again and making new ones too. It's good to start reading a few bedtime stories to children who will be returning to school as the holidays draw to a close.

She has found that this helps them re adjust to school and enhances homework performances later on. At that young age, she explains, young children have forgotten how to read after the summer.

"For the child who is afraid, make it easier by making sure that he has the books and the pencils so that he is not harassed by the teacher. It makes life easier for the child, having what he needs. It's just a case of planning. Put his name on his copy book all of those things help a child feel more secure in the class room."

Having the necessary equipment is good; however, she says, fancy rubbers, toppers etc, generally prove a distraction to the teacher and to the child and may end up having to be confiscated.

Anne Heneberry, principal of St James's Church of Ireland School, a one teacher school in Stradbally, Co Waterford, is in an ideal situation. She has never had a problem with "screaming or roaring" junior infants. The children are in and out of the school a lot because the community is so small and the school is used a lot by the community. "The children are very familiar with it, they play in the grounds, usually they are dying to get in.

"I always bring them in for two hours, three mornings, during the week before the summer holidays. They just love that. That's not possible in bigger schools but in my setup it is. The bigger ones pamper them, they get treated like royalty. At the end they cry because they aren't coming back for two months."

Her advice to parents is "not to make a big deal about going to school - don't say things like `tell Auntie Mary where you're going in September'. They get so wound up about it that way."