Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries. My name is Kim John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting and the Soul of Discipline, other books and the soon to be released Being at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst. So glad you could join us this week again.
This week's theme is about how to re-enter back into the flow of family life if you've been out for the day working without causing an uproar, without causing a disturbance that the kids can't easily recover from. This came from a conversation I was having with actually two or three different people over the recent months where this has been coming up and I was able to say to these parents a little bit about what others had found successful, what we'd figured out, and here's basically one way to re-enter back into family life and have it be a bit smoother really and have it go well. The answer is not really about the re-entry itself, I mean this one in this case was a mum was saying, you know when my husband walks back in the door the kids just go wacko, they start getting goofy, they start rolling around, they just don't handle it at all well and it was, you know, things were fairly settled and it just explodes or they become agitated or you know start running around.
And one of the things I was able to suggest and this came up a number of months ago with some parents and they found this really helpful is to back it on up, is to back it up so that when you're with your children and it's in the afternoon, if you're the first parent home and you've got the kids, is two things really, first of all rhythm and then secondly preview. The first is rhythm, really increase your afternoon rhythms, make it almost ritual like so that the kids get into a real slipstream of what they do in the afternoon. So for example they get home from daycare, kindergarten, school and have you know what happens first and then next and then what happens after that and have those two or three activities or two or three things that happen could be snack and then after that it could be some play time or outdoor time if the weather's cooperating and then after that it's, you know, and you have a whole, you have the rhythm almost ritualized.
Of course with some flexibility but make it as predictable as possible because in that way when dad re-enters home and that could even be at different times, like one group of parents I was working with, I was in a workshop, some of them were saying well it's not predictable when the second parent re-entering the home actually comes in, it can happen at all different times and that's all the more reason to have the afternoons be gently rhythmical and predictable because in that way when the second parent in a two-parent home enters back in, the kids are in a slipstream of their own activity. Now what's really important when the second parent home comes in is just to re-enter and not super engage with the kids but have his or her own ritual so that you come in, you hang up your coat, you put the keys in the container, you come on over, you get a, you know, whatever it is that you do, you come over to the kitchen, you get a drink of water, then you sit down and it's good if you can be somewhat proximal to the children but maybe you sit down and you look at a magazine or maybe you come on in and you start helping with the supper preparation or whatever it is, try to make, if you're the second parent home, your entry also fairly predictable and fairly rhythmical even if it's not done strictly on a timetabled schedule, you do the same sort of thing so your child will recognize that and you're almost paralleling so they're doing what they're doing and you're moving in alongside them. Now it's not to say you don't greet them, of course you do, that can be a part of the ritual as well but my recommendation is don't over engage with them, don't sort of right away start in on the roughhousing and, you know, and really hyper like, hi buddy, what are you doing and how's it all been and just keep it even keeled, move into what you're doing, be interested in what they're doing but keep it a little bit monosyllabic, keep it, well, maybe you can have two syllables but just keep it, oh, you know, I see, uh-huh, righty-oh, gosh, all right, that's interesting.
Well, that was three syllables. But you know what I mean, right? Just keep it affirmative but within yourself, gentle and flowing and let them get on with what they're getting on with, you get on with what you get on with because then you're setting a really nice trajectory for bedtime because you're not having to calm the kids on down again. The second hint, and this seems to have worked well, like very well actually, is when you've got, let's say with, you know, with everyone texts pretty much these days, that when the second parent home gets in the car or gets on the, you know, subway or whatever it is you're doing to get home, you give a brief text to the first parent home and say, okay, I'm on my way and they know that you're on your 20, 30, 40, whatever, however many minutes your commute is out, but give, if your commute is quicker than that and you live in the same town, then try to give about a 20 to 30 minute window before you arrive.
And when that happens, the first parent home can just start saying, oh, well, and if it's mom who's coming home second, say, you know, mama will just be walking down to the bus stop now. That's right. Yes, we've been to that bus stop.
And then just let it go. And then, you know, 10 minutes later to say, I wonder what mama is doing as she's looking out the window now. I wonder what she's seeing.
I wonder if she's seeing any of the daffodils that have come up, you know, if it's springtime or whatever, and just give a little bit of a picture, very brief, you know, as you can hear three to five seconds, just quick little picture two or three times about mama's journey so that the children are already starting to live in mom land, starting to incorporate it even before she walks in. And now when she walks in, if she just does whatever she's doing in a rhythmical and predictable way, you've got the best of both worlds. You've got rhythm, you've got predictability, and you've made a preview of what it is that that mother or father is doing on their way home.
So that so that the entry is much more just flowing in, just moving in alongside the children. And in that way, that not only that does the reentry go better, you have a sense of almost like flow. And that kind of flow is a lovely thing to feel when you get home.
Okay, hope that's helpful. Bye bye for now.
