"I Don't Like MONDAYS"
- Karen
- Jan 28, 2020
- 3 min read
For our family, the weekend and holidays were always a lovely relaxing time; HOWEVER, the closer it got to Monday or the return to school, the more anxious Chelsea would become.
Once school was out for the weekend/holidays, Here we go again...tummy aches & tears she was back to her usual self and continued until about 1o’clock the day before school returned, becoming worse and worse by the hour. It took us a while to be those two steps ahead and change our Sunday afternoons in order to make it so much easier for us as a family. (Chelsea’s Anxiety is still bad on any given day, but without the added stress of school it could be a lot better manage)
We would keep afternoons simple with no expectations. Making sure any homework revision was completed on either Friday or Saturday was a MUST as doing anything last minute was ALWAYS asking for trouble and ended up as a complete disaster for both her and us!!
The hardest part was you wanted to keep her occupied, so she didn’t have time to think but also relaxed. So what can you do?
Going for a great dog walk was an excellent way to occupy the mind. Also, exercise helps to increase the serotonin levels, which helps increase Endorphins. So how does exercise help with Anxiety. A play at the park is always fun for all ages but the nearest one to us at the time was the school…..So, of course, we stayed away from that for obvious reasons!!! Cooking was always something we enjoyed doing together, and we could enjoy baking for the week ahead or egg muffins for breakfast time and get dinners prepped and ready. Personally, we found both were a great way to have a good talk with the girls as it’s in a relaxed environment, and eye contact does not always have to be made when talking!!.
~ For our school there are no school uniforms so one thing that was always important was to have clothes out the night before ~ believe me it saves so much time in the mornings as the decision making process for a girl can take a LONG time…and don’t forget includes the shoes in those choices!!
~ Make sure school bags are ready and packed with homework, pencil cases etc. One thing I soon learnt was NEVER totally believed what your child says when it comes to being organized “Have you put your pencil case in your school bag?”- "YES" may always be the reply, but it could also mean I put it close to my bag, or I was just given the answer they knew I wanted to hear!! So for your own sake double-check at some point. Ok so I know they need to be responsible for themselves, but when it comes to school, I want a smooth morning with no unnecessary upsets and worry. For a child with Anxiety, if the slightest thing goes wrong, the ENTIRE day can be a disaster.
Before you know it, the alarm goes off on Monday morning and it’s always essential to make sure the girls are up with enough time to be ready. As "yupp" that can ease the stress level for everyone. The girls share a bathroom…..they are lucky as when I was that age we had one bathroom for the ENTIRE family!! So the night before we would talk about who wanted to use it first, if someone needed to wash their hair etc it had to be done the night before.
Breakfast is essential “Yes, your Mum was always right,” but keeping it simple helps with the routine. I would have the choices already out, cereal, fruit maybe those eggs muffins we made on a Sunday or toast. Not too many options, of course, I don’t know about you, but our children like to feel that they choose and yes they did, but I made the first healthy choice for them they just had to choose from those options!!!!
Every school day, we keep the routine the same, so there are no surprises. Consistent parenting. Now with all this, it wasn’t always a smooth morning no matter how organized and ready you as a parent are, it’s the simplest thing that can set a child with Anxiety off so just remember you tried and there is always tomorrow xox You are NOT alone.
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