Back to School Survival Kit for Girls

If you’ve walked into Walmart or Target recently, I’m sure you’ve witnessed the abundance of school supplies taking over the shelves. From loose leaf paper, to colored folders, to crayons, and markers, the stores are making it very apparent that the first day of school is quickly approaching. While pencils and erasers are typical purchases to make when heading back to school, there are certain supplies that tend to go unnoticed but are still very important. As a former teacher, and a female myself, I wanted to share a great idea for a Back to School Survival Kit for Girls.

Before you start reading, I want to warn you that this post might get a bit awkward. Things tend to get a little uncomfortable when talking about female-specific topics, like dare I even say it,  getting your period. I’m well aware that this is a delicate subject, but it’s one that pretty much every female currently deals with, will deal with in the future, or once dealt with at some point in their lives. It’s a commonality we share as girls and women. Lucky us! Yes, that’s total sarcasm.

I’ve mentioned this quite a bit on the blog, but up until last school year, I was a full-time teacher. Although my last job was at a middle school, my degree and the majority of my teaching experience was at the elementary level. Specifically, I was a 4th-grade teacher and loved EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

Why is this relevant?

Here in the state of Florida, not sure if it’s like this everywhere else in the USA, we have to teach our 4th-grade students a unit called, Human Growth and Development. At the end of the unit, the boys and girls get split apart and receive gender-specific talks about personal hygiene and changes in their bodies. You did hear me right, by the way. Public schools are already having these talks with your 9 and 10-year-old kiddos. If you have children at this age and haven’t started with these conversations, you might want to start thinking about having them SOON.  

The school nurse is responsible for doing the “girl talk”, which includes a complete overview of the menstrual cycle and what it all entails. You should see the faces of these little girls when they hear all the fun things that will shortly be happening to their bodies. You just want to hug them all and feed them some chocolate ice cream!

Towards the end of this life-shattering talk, the school nurse would pull out a trifold display board with all the different types of feminine products on the market. Oh, joy! She would then proceed to go into detail and show the girls exactly how to use a pad from first opening it, all the way through to how to dispose of it. By this point, the girls are ready to climb under the table in embarrassment.

The uncomfortable conservation would always end with the school nurse encouraging the girls to go home and talk to their moms or female parental figures about these changes. She would also recommend they put together an emergency kit for those “just in case” moments.

Within the next few days following this talk, I would see girl after girl within my classroom carrying cute little pouches in their backpacks. They were so excited about them and would show them off to one another. Of course, they wanted me to see, too. It was pretty adorable to watch!

This may sound a little weird, but I really started to become obsessed with the concept of making an emergency “period” kit for girls. As a teacher and a parent, I realized that this simple idea did so much more than what meets the eye.

• For starters, it opened up the door for girls to be able to have this honest conversation with their moms or female parental figures.
• Instead of feeling like their bodies were gross, I watched these young girls embrace all these upcoming changes like champs.
• It brought commonality between the girls in the class, as well.
• And the most obvious benefit of these survival kits for girls was the fact that they had an emergency pack set up and ready for whenever they needed it.

Am I the only one “nerding out” over this concept?

Back to School Survival Kit for Girls

Don’t forget to fill out the form at the bottom of the page to get your free survival kit shopping list.

Feel free to add or delete any items to meet your needs. Notice that I didn’t include any Tylenol or Midol to the list. Schools tend to have rules against students taking pills on campus. You’ll want to find out about this before adding any to your child’s survival kit.

My Back to School Survival Kit for Girls is a must for females as young as 4th or 5th grade. The reality about this emergency “period” kit is that once you start needing one, you’ll end up wanting to carry one for at least another 40 years or so! It’s probably a smart idea to make one for yourself while you’re making one for your daughter. It could be a nice bonding experience.

I’m curious of your thoughts on this “survival kit for girls” idea. Have you done this with your own daughter yet? Did your mom do this with you when you were younger? Do you have your own emergency kit that you carry around in your purse? Let me know in the comments below!

Check out how I used similar pouches to organize my purse, here.

Want to remember this? Post this idea for a Back to School Survival Kit for Girls to your favorite Pinterest board!