Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me Kim John Payne. This week I wanted to focus on that critical time of transition from school to home, from kindergarten or daycare, but back into home. For the most part, that part of the day for our kids is very complicated.
It's stimulating, they've had to navigate a lot, you know, there's been all sorts of activities, transitions, all kinds of sensory stimulation to take on board. They've just been through a lot. Even if it was just kindergarten, they've been through a lot.
And a lot of what they're needing to do at that time, and this is, forgive me for saying the obvious, but is time to digest all that, time to process it all. And yet, so often after school, we as a society can just take kids straight into the next activity or we go from school and do a series of chores of picking stuff up and it's a busy time and it's hectic and boy do we pay the price for that later in the evening. And yet, sometimes it's missed, you know, we miss the fact that it was largely because our kids didn't get the decompression, didn't get the safety release valve of that after school time.
In the Simplicity Parenting book, I write about this whole piece around needing to balance calm with calming times, with stimulating times, with stimulation. And that the week should be, at best, balanced between C days, calm days, and S days, stimulating days, so that for every S day, if you get to the end of the day and write on the calendar S, as one mom did, she would then have a C day the next day. And both her and her slightly hyperactive husband, in her words, were able to come to a negotiation around that and our family life noticeably improved, right? But, the same is true for the days themselves, that there's, within the day, there are really sort of high velocity stimulating times for kids, which are just, that's fine, that's great, that's life, right? But also there needs to be calm points, there needs to be expansion out into really busy stuff and fun and goofy running around, and then calming points where it's quieter and a little bit more predictable.
Because often, the very stimulating points don't have much, all that much form to them. They're a bit wacko, goofy, it's recess at school, it's corridors, it's transitions, and there's not much predictability there. Whereas calm, when it's at its best, and this is a, I guess a tip to us all of sorts, is that when calm is at its best, there's little bits of ritual in it.
It's not just only laying on the sofa, although that's fine too. You often build a little bridge at the end of a school day through having simple little rituals. Rituals are the stepping stones across the transition from stimulation to calm.
It's the rituals that get us across that river without the kids really messing us around and it all being very, very hard. For example, picking the kids up from school or from kindergarten daycare, and one of the first things you can do when you see them, I know there was one mom who said to me she had simple little ritualized words she would use, and she would greet them in the same way each day. The children, they were quite little, they were kindergartners, and they would look forward to that greeting when she would just gather them both up and say to them, Welcome back, my darlings.
I actually asked her, what did she say? And it was, Welcome back, my darlings. It was a big hug, and I think that's another important point in transitions like this, is to make physical contact. It could be with older ones, a simple sort of walking down the path with an arm around a shoulder for a brief moment.
It could be with a teenager that it's just a touch on the shoulder, although an arm around a shoulder and a hug, even a side hug if it's in public. But it all counts, it all counts. And then into the car, and maybe there's a little snack box already prepared, and it just sits right there, which by the way is great, just get the blood sugar levels up.
And it's pretty similar, day after day, there's the snack box. And then as you drive home, just allow it to be quiet. Resist asking one of the most unfortunate questions, how was school today? It was like, good, and you think, oh dear.
Just be able to resist asking that, and let the story of the day just come out in its own time. And when it does, try to keep your conversation to two or three syllables, just uh-huh, oh, right, oh really, and then huh, oh my. So that you allow space for the child to unpack all the things that they're saying, and that way you'll hear a lot more actually, they'll unpack more because there's more space to put their things down, so to speak.
But also, if you stay inside yourself, in that quiet space, that kind of response like, oh, what then, really, she did, oh my, oh that's fun. Just simple little things like that, then what you're doing is being inwardly regulated, inwardly calm, and you're, again, helping your child over the stepping stones into that calmer space. Now if your child rides the bus home, same thing.
So when they get home, and you see them, or whenever it is that you first see them, just allow space, allow space, keep your comments to be brief, very engaged, and soft eyes, just looking with interest, but not overwhelming the child with too many questions, where there's not enough space for them. Now after you all arrive home, in whatever way, if it's in the bus, or the car, or if it's someone else, an extended family member, a babysitter who receives them, you might have to do some coaching up in how to receive them, but if it's on the bus, then it's more got to do with coming in quietly, having a snack, just allowing a quiet space, and then setting up a number of little simple, very, very simple little rituals. You know, they might, first of all, just go upstairs and get changed out of school clothes, or maybe not.
It's a putting of the shoes, side by side, on the rack, or wherever they belong. It's not just a coming in and throwing stuff away. Now, that's not just because of tidiness, it's because it's actually a ritual that says, now I am home.
Hanging up a coat on the hook, you know, the same hook that always that coat goes on, or that coat hanger, putting your shoes side by side, putting them into the cupboard, that is way more than just tidiness, although that's great too, but it's got to do with now I am home. Here is my transition into home. I mean, of course, it's not a point to get into great big arguments about, but if you're just quietly insistent that this is where this goes, and you help a child do it, you just Maybe they take their shoes off, if they're little, and they hand them to you, and you put them in the place.
It's something that you're doing together. It's not a cold, harsh chore, but there's that little ritual, this is how we come into the house. It's just as simple a ritual as I put the keys in that place, on that hook, or in that bowl, I put the car keys right there.
It's the things that you do like this that help a child ritualize and build those stepping stones, and maybe after they then have a little snack, have something to eat, maybe then there's some quiet time, or some free time. And then after that free time, then comes, and then, and then, and then. That kind of calm is, in terms of their overall day, it's a prime time to have calm after school, so that the busyness and the stimulation of school is counterbalanced with some calm after school.
And that way by, you know, later on in the evening, there might be another busy, there might be a play time, and a really active time again. Maybe a brother or sister comes home, dad comes home, or mom comes home and plays with the children. And there it is, you know, busy and laughter and lovely.
And then bedtime comes, and then there here is the contraction again, the quiet, calm, contracting back into a quieter place. So that the day isn't all S, stimulating. It's C as well.
And there's a movement between stimulation and calm. That way when the evening comes, it's, it has, it's been foreshadowed. There have been moments of calm earlier in the afternoon that foreshadow the calmness that comes in that evening.
And therefore the evenings just are that little bit, or some parents say a lot, easier to then transition into sleep so that bedtime isn't like, you know, a child forcing you to lay on the bed until they're asleep, like some hostage taking situation. That they realize that the stimulation can't go on and on and on and on. It's that the calming, by having calming earlier in the day, there's almost like a recognition that our days expand out into busyness, move back into calmness, and that sleep is a place of calm.
And can be accepted because that's the way we are as a family. It used to be people would ask me, when do you start, you know, getting your kids ready for bed? And I would always answer, oh, six a.m. And what I mean by that is if a day is balanced between calm and, calming and stimulating and those influences, a child is going to go to bed, go to sleep way, way easier. But I think a lot of that has its key in one of those key points, which is right after school.
Okay, that's helpful. Bye-bye.
