Hello and welcome back to Simplicity Parenting the podcast with me, Kim John Payne. This is the third in the series of diary entries about how to help children and families with the increasing amount of time that they may be spending at at home. And, you know, some parents have said to me over the last couple of days since these podcasts have been rolling out that even if your child is not, you know, at home more because of school closing, these strategies that we've talked about are proving really, one mother said, golden.
That was lovely feedback because there still is obviously much heightened levels of anxiety. So she actually impressed on me that keep these podcasts rolling out, even if your kid is still at school, because this is really helping. So that was that was great.
And thank you for that feedback. In this, in this episode, I wanted to particularly talk about wrapping up like a lovely warm blanket of rhythm around a child. Again, if you've been practicing simplicity parenting, you'll know already the value of rhythm, even if you've been doing this in a in a modest way.
Rhythm signals to a child, all the daily rhythms, the things that just happen the same way each day, with, of course, small variations. But it signals to a child that all is well, that life is moving on, that life is predictable, safe, and secure. Now, can there be anything more powerful than that, in in the weeks and months ahead for a child, just just that, just to understand how that they are going at home to have this warm, predictable environment that they can relax into.
Now, this is particularly true if your child's still at school, or hearing, you know, news from the neighborhood kids, that with with our rhythms at home, then they are going to come into this safe harbor of of home life and be able to decompress from all the stuff that's going on around them, all the events that are being canceled, and so on and so on. They're going to feel you know what, there is one point of predictability in my life. And that's my home.
And they may, of course, not be able to say that out loud. But that's the experience inwardly when we provide rhythm. A couple of things that may be needed for rhythm.
One dad wrote in saying, the normal rhythms, the normal daily rhythms that they had on the weekend, were really helpful, but they had to kind of blend them with weekday rhythms. And basically, what he was saying was that when when their son, when their son's school closed, they got very little warning about it. But what they did, this was in a two parent home, a mom and a dad, is that they sat down that evening, and really mapped out what the week was going to look like.
So it blended a little bit more of a relaxed time in terms of having to get out and for them get in the car and get to school. So they had a few minutes up their sleeve in the morning. So that could be a little bit more leisurely.
But they had the day mapped out that they were going to do some schoolwork in the morning. The school, most schools will be sending home projects and keeping you in touch via email. Many schools are planning on doing that.
At my wife's school, all the teachers are now planning an online curriculum that they can keep sending out to parents. And I'm aware that a bunch of schools are actually doing that, that schools that are closing. And even if that hasn't arrived yet, there can be projects, there can be reading.
The morning part of the day, if your child's at home, is ideal, if you can keep up the school rhythm, because they'll already have that in their body clock. And to be able to keep the body clocks just moving along as they are, to be able to have that morning time for academic work, for learning work, is I think very important. To have a break mid-morning when recess would just normally be there and a snack, just like they would at school.
And then, you know, back into the saddle they go. And in the mid-morning time, they might do some painting or some artwork or some modelling or whatever it is that would feel normal and natural and doable to you. Then lunchtime, as normal, just pretty much at the same time they would at school.
And then in the afternoons, it's more activity time, riding bikes, if they're a bit older, playing basketball out in the driveway, if it's a need to move. They can't just be inside for weeks and weeks. And most health experts, unless something has really changed, tell us that it's really still okay to do that, to take a child on a bike ride is not a high risk thing to do.
Now, that may change. But right now, when I looked into that, that wasn't on the sort of the list of things not to do, you know, to not, one doesn't need to keep kids in the backyard, if you're in a suburban setting or inside the apartment, if you're in an urban setting. And that day, that daily rhythm, right through then the afternoon, just the rhythms that you would normally have, and you maybe even want to step it up a gear.
So then they come in, they have, you know, a little maybe a little afternoon snack to tide them over to suppertime, suppertime, you might want to just make sure suppertime is just that little bit more rhythmical than they normally are, you pay a little more attention to that. And then bedtimes, again, those rhythms that you've been practicing, and if you haven't had great bedtime rhythms, and all these rhythms that I'm talking about, well, now's the time, the perfect opportunity to really get those in place. Because after all this is over, and you've established those rhythms, many of them will be able to go on, when the children go back to school, they'll, they'll, you'll have them either newly in place, or more strongly in place.
So those rhythms will significantly help a child feel that all is well, that all is orderly, that it will signal to the nervous system of a child, that it doesn't have to stay activated, that they don't have to be hypervigilant, that the world is going on in an in a normal and orderly way. And it's not really the world, to be honest, it's their world, a child will be inwardly experiencing, my world is going on, as, as it always has. I'm not at school now.
And that's a really, really big change. But deep down, the child is experiencing those kinds of predictable rhythms. And in that way has a much greater chance of staying centered and calm.
Also, of course, in providing those rhythms for our children, we will be able to lean into that ourselves as adults. And that's only going to be good for us and our ability to be regulated. So our children can co-regulate with us.
So the rhythms are of benefit to everyone. Okay, hope that's helpful. Bye bye for now.
