Returning to Routines

Needing a holiday after the holidays?

Has the flurry of holiday activities, the extra social time, travel, sleeping out of your own beds, juggling back to work and back to school prep, left you yearning for quality rest and routine?

This experience is not only felt by adults who organise and manage “all the things”, this can also be a very real experience for our kids.

Routines are great ways to build cues of safety and certainty, and are practical way to help us all reach the holiday finish line ready for school with possibly a little more calm, energy and confidence.

Simple ways to ease back into routines:

• Return to a consistent wake up, bed times

• Ready the meal plans and shopping lists or setup meal deliveries

• Choose not to restock the holiday treats

• Make agreements together about adjusting screen times and increasing tech free time

• Open up conversations together about school week routines and make it visible for everyone to see and come back to (Kmart have great A4 week planner note pads).

• Make a time to find and check that school shoes, hats and uniforms still fit in the week before school starts in case replacements or alterations are needed, and there is 1 less speed bump on your first school morning looking for a lost hat.