Let’s face it, at this point, many of us parents are exhausted, juggling lots of competing demands and navigating the long summer holiday with kids at home.
Here are our five top survival tips:
- Have realistic expectations. Think about what activities feel manageable and realistic for you, pace yourself, budget and plan activities accordingly. With my own children we often come in from a big, exciting outing and they ask what they are doing next – expectation management FAIL! Low-key, ‘boring’ days at home and down time for everyone are important too! If you’re feeling burnt-out, think if there’s anyone you can ask for practical support, take short cuts to household chores and think about when you can rest.
- Let your children experience boredom! In this fast-paced world full of highly stimulating, dopamine-fuelling devices and kids’ need for instant gratification, we must teach them (and us) the art of tolerating boredom. Afterall, that’s when they develop other important life skills, like managing frustration, patience, problem-solving and creativity. It helps for us parents to validate and normalise how children feel without trying to rescue them – i.e. let them figure out their own ideas of things to do. For example, try saying “I understand you’re feeling bored and that’s okay. Lots of children feel bored on days at home. Why don’t you sit with me whilst you think of ideas for things to do.”
- Set limits and boundaries. You may also be juggling work and can’t engage with your children at a certain time or you may want to limit your children’s screen time, in which case, instilling boundaries is key. Children are more cooperative when they understand the reason behind limits you set and have a sense of control over the agreed arrangement. How can we do this? Listen to your children’s views about what feels reasonable, communicate transparently your own expectations around this and try to come up with a plan jointly with your children, such as when they can go on screens that day. The more responsibility and autonomy our children have over implementing the agreed plan, the better they will become over time at self-moderating their own screen usage. For example, if you agree they can have an hour on the IPAD throughout the day, perhaps they can decide when and how they use this time, such as 3 x 20minute sessions, 60 minutes in one go or 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. For younger children, you could make this fun by giving them 20 minute ‘tokens’ which they give you each time they use the device, representing this strategy in a concrete way so they can visually see how they are using up time.
- Connect and play. Whatever other responsibilities you’re juggling and whatever the ages of your children, try and make time to connect with your children each day and bring out the playfulness in each other. Ideally, you’d set aside 10 minutes of one-to-one quality time with each child, per day. This can be low-key and inexpensive. It may involve chatting about how their day has been, a quick game of cards, going for a walk, dancing to a song in the kitchen or cooking something together. Investing in connection time, fills up our children’s cup making it more manageable for them to accept those times when we aren’t able to attend to them (such as when having to make a work call), helping them to feel valued, connected and important. Research shows us that in turn, carving out small chunks of quality, child-led play each day also improves children’s behaviour, ability to follow instructions and self esteem.
- Practice self-care daily. The school holidays are a survival marathon not a sprint race and maintaining our own parental well-being is key. Try and prioritise one achievable thing just for you each day, however big or small that is realistic given other responsibilities you are juggling. Whilst pampering is lovely, it’s a misconception that self-care is all spas, yoga and mini breaks! It could be as simple as listening to a podcast whilst getting the children’s lunch ready, asking someone for help, declining an invitation that feels it would be too much for you or going to bed early to feel more rested for the next day.