There are just a few days until September arrives, the month of the return to routine. Gone will be the summer months, without fixed schedules, no activities planned in detail, no homework & mldr; A few months in which we have been more flexible and we have allowed ourselves to “flow & rdquor; more, we have also allowed the little ones to do it.
Well, although returning to the routine may seem like martyrdom, all the experts emphasize the importance of routine in educating our children. The reason? The routine gives security by allowing us to know what will happen next.
At one of our events, family mentor Amaya de Miguel told us that there is a rule at home: they only eat sweets on Fridays. Apart from the benefits for physical health that eating sweets only one day a week brings, Amaya focused on the mental benefits for the whole family that this rule implies: “my children know, when we go down the street on a Monday , or by a supermarket on a Tuesday, that they cannot order sweets, because the day of sweets is Friday. And, this may seem silly, saves us a lot of upsets and tantrums & rdquor ;.The children come without an instruction manual.
In this sense they insist Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott and Stephen Glenn in the book Positive discipline from A to Z. “Establishing good routines helps parents develop long-term benefits in the family: security, a more relaxed environment, confidence and life skills,” they point out “Children have an opportunity to focus on the needs of the situation : do what needs to be done at all times. Children learn to be responsible for their own behavior, to feel capable and to cooperate in the family & rdquor ;. The authors assure that children “enjoy routines and respond favorably to them. The younger the child, the more comforting the routine & rdquor ;. And, furthermore, if we establish the routine well, the benefit for parents is clear: “Once a routine is established, this is the one that rules and parents do not need to continually demand help & rdquor ;.
The latter is essential. If our children internalize that Saturdays is the day we clean the house, that every day after dinner we brush our teeth and that dirty clothes are thrown into the laundry basket, They will end up turning the house rules into routines, and they will do them effortlessly, without complaint.
The importance of lists, and of teaming up
These experts recommend that we create with children, even two-year-old boys and girls, lists of activities necessary to complete a certain routine, for example, getting ready to go to school. And they think it is a good idea to let the children choose the order of each of the activities they have to complete (have breakfast, get dressed, pack the backpack, wash up & mldr;). This to-do list can be turned into a planning diary that we put on the wall of our sons or daughters’ room to remember the daily tasks and indicate which ones have been done and which ones remain pending. Nelsen, Lott and Glenn propose to create a routine wall with photos of our children doing the indicated tasks. Once the mural is done, the children will be more cooperative than if we tell them all the time what to do.
But Who makes these lists? Everyone. Yes, everyone, our children must have a voice and vote, otherwise, they will not feel involved and, therefore, they will not be effective. In positive discipline it is very important to reach agreements, take into account the son and daughter and kindness, but it is also important to be firm and follow through on what has been agreed. So if our son or daughter does not follow what was agreed in the list of tasks that we have prepared and ordered with them and that appears on the mural that we have created together, we will simply have to say to them, without sermons: “What do you put on the mural? What did we do together? Precisely the idea of teaming up and collaborating makes the routine take hold better.Do you accept the challenge?
September is a good time to set ourselves the challenge of return to the routine with enthusiasm, order, collaboration of the whole family and with kindness. And to make this return to routine a moment of negotiation, of teamwork to design the order of activities and the murals that we want to put up at home.
In addition to promote a good family climate, We will ensure that our children are more autonomous, learn to manage their time and we do not have to constantly remind them what to do.
So the grind, despite its bad press, has many benefits: it gives security and order, reduces anxiety, promotes cooperation and autonomy, can help reduce arguments & mldr; Nelsen, Lott and Glenn, however, warn us: routines may not work well the first time because “it is in human nature to resist change”.
Courage, September is a wonderful month, it allows us to start from scratch, choose to be what we want to be. Another thing is that we get it ?