The first week of the school holidays
This used to be one of my least favourite weeks of the holidays,
My youngest would have meltdowns nearly every day due to the change in routine!
Most children love been off school and so did he,
But
That doesn’t mean he was not overwhelmed with the change and the different dynamics within a 24 hour home environment compared to his normal school routines.
Over the years we tried many things including keeping routines as close to school as possible, written activity plans, school clubs and in the end Deschooling.
This was something we discovered when we first started to home educated and I wish I had known about it so much sooner!
Deschooling is when you basically decompress from all the pressures and routines that are in your day and find your own rhythm!
I think often that we look forward to spending the time with our children that we can get to the point of overbooking and overloading, especially in the first few weeks.
This then makes it harder in the last few weeks because you have done everything!
The truth is at the end of term children are often tired, overwhelmed, excited and completely in need of time to process the world changes around them.
So my advice for activities this week is to relax:
Let them be bored,
Find fun at home,
Play board games,
Build a den and watch movies
Just generally find the time to relax and chill out!
Decompress and find your family rhythm and have fun!
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