I’m Bored . . . Plan a Successful School Holiday
The long school summers holidays are upon us! The kids are most likely giddy and excited that school’s out and the adults are most likely a little bit apprehensive about how to juggle everything whilst simultaneously entertaining your kids for six entire weeks!
Here are my five tips for setting your school holidays up for success:
Make a loose plan.
Sit down at the start of the holidays with the kids and a big bit of paper. Draw out a grid or calendar to represent the six weeks of time the children have off from school, and populate it with plans that you already have. Stop there! Don’t be tempted to get into adding more plans just yet, we will come to that! This activity is to share the fact that there is a structure to the holidays with your children, so that they understand what the holidays will look like overall. Structure and routine bring a lot of reassurance to kids, it provides predictability and removes uncertainty for them, plus it stops you having to answer ‘what are we doing today?’ endless times a week.
Wants and Needs
Next ask everyone in the family to write their own list of ‘wants and needs’: things that they want to do and things that they need to do or achieve. Discuss how it’s most important to ensure everyone’s ‘needs’ list gets ticked off and add them to the summer plan. Next look at the ‘wants’ lists and chat through about how it’s really important to have fun things to do too, but there’s a possibility that not everyone will be able to do everything on their list. Get your family members to prioritise their wants list and add these one-by-one into your summer plan.
Keep Balance
Look at each week and make sure that there is a balance of both activities and rest or downtime. Next, look at each day and ensure you also have opportunities to do and to just be. Getting this balance will help to ensure that your kids are more likely to be emotionally regulated and able to enjoy the holidays rather than feeling overwhelmed. Holidays bring a lot of boundary shifting: later nights, increased sugar intake, longer screen time. Don’t be mistaken, there’s no judgement here we all do this but it can be confusing for kids when suddenly they’re allowed to do or have things that we have previously been really strict about. So, let’s set us all up for success and explain that these changes are just for the holidays and plan in time to settle, and relax at home. Don’t underestimate the drain that socialising can have,
yes it’s fulfilling, but it’s also tiring, so having a play date should be book ended with chill time where possible.
Let Them Be Bored
This leads us on nicely to my penultimate tip and it is a goodie! Let them be bored. Yes, really and yes, I absolutely know how strong the push back from that will be in the beginning. Children don’t like to feel bored. It’s an uncomfortable sensation, but it’s also one that has the very purpose of motivating us to find new things to do. Allowing our children the time to become bored allows them to opportunity to learn new skills. Boredom breeds creativity, resilience, resourcefulness and problem-solving skills, which are all fantastic life skills to have. When they turn to you and say
‘I’m borrrrred’ and wait for you to fill the gap, just smile and say ‘I’m looking forward to finding out what you decide to do’. If you feel that this will be too much for your kids, Isuggest you sit down together and make a list of fun, free and easy things that theycan do without your input or supervision at home. Ideas to get you started are:watch a movie, do a puzzle, read a book, draw a picture, write a story, make a send acard to a friend, tidy your room (haha), play a boardgame, find a recipe that you’d like to make, listen to some music. Place the list on the fridge so that the kids can access it easily without coming to ask you.
Regulate Yourself
My final tip is to try to create moments of time to regulate yourself. One of the most difficult parts of the school holidays for the parents, is that there is a sudden loss of autonomy. Your routine is also out of the window and you have to consider your children in every logistical decision – you can’t just pop out to the shops without having to take everyone with you. Equally you may not be able to do the things that you typically do to emotionally regulate yourself, which can exacerbate that feeling of being trapped. So, if you can’t go for a run, pop to see a friend for a chat or go to the gym very easily during the school holidays I recommend that instead you try and:
Open the front door first thing in the morning and take ten deep breaths of fresh air.
SLOW DOWN. By rushing around, trying to get the washing on, clear up the dishes, dressing the kids etc etc, you’re sending signals to your body that you are in danger. Next time you put the kettle on, use those two or three minutes while you wait for it to boil to just pause. Notice that you are safe and savour the moment. Creating these moments to allow yourself to decompress a little and peppering them throughout your day will give you chance to catch your breath and regulate your own emotions, allowing you to respond and not react, to your kids.
The school holidays are long and can feel intense, but approaching them with a loose plan and managing the expectations of all the family can set you up to enjoying them more freely.
Suzie Robbins
Suzie Robbins is the founder of Resolve to Play and a behaviour consultant. Find out more about Resolve to Play or book a consultation Click to learn more
