Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kem Jon Paine. This week I wanted to talk about how we can help kids after they've been in a busy school day, the pick up time or the come home time. For many of us we pick kids up at school at the end of the day and for others of us they're arriving home on the bus.
But one of the things to remember is that they're coming off a really busy day. Now forgive me for saying the obvious but you know we've been getting on with what we've been getting on with so if they come home and one of the first questions we often ask kids is how was your day? Now we ask that or words to that effect in order just to greet them, connect with them. It's very normal, very understandable and it's lovely really but it's sometimes the worst question we can ask because all they're longing to do is just contract, is to close down, is to shut it down.
The school day has been full of activity, full of stimulation, their sympathetic nervous systems are just full on. They've been asked to respond, they've been asked to raise their hand, they've been asked to get involved in projects and whatever it is they've been they've been asked to be stimulated, aroused, responded, you're responding and so on. When they get in the car for example at the end of the day you just let them be and many of us are on to this but just let them be.
Have some food ready for them as many of us do, a little snack, a drink, maybe a book they can look at, maybe just something they can if they're very little, just something they can play with quietly. If they're older they just want to sit quietly and just and go into that sort of that connected quiet space where we know we're connecting with them but we do it almost silently. They get into the car and we say hello but but not too brightly just hello and and then let them and if they want to initiate a conversation then even even if they do want to do that keep your responses relatively small.
It's uh-huh oh gosh really oh that sounds hard huh oh dear oh my goodness that that sounds like fun. Those kinds of comments let them unpack and if they want to that's perfectly fine let them talk. Most kids won't want to talk.
Some of the more chatty ones will but even if they do keep it simple let them unpack, let the parasympathetic nervous system, the calming, cooling, digesting of the day, let that be the thing. Now some kids will do it silently as I mentioned also some kids will do it verbally but what's important is that we stay in our lane. We don't get involved, we don't you know begin a daily interview for pain and anguish and start checking out all the things that might have gone wrong and commenting and just stay quiet just and model that kind of quietness so that they can come back into themselves and just be a little bit more a bit or quite a bit more restful.
It's that kind of giving of space when space is needed is modeling something really rather important for kids and just allow them to sit with what they're sitting with and then if you you know you're driving along let's say you're in the car or you're at home you know and they've got off the bus and they've come inside but you know wherever the space is maybe we can do a little I Thought of You When. The I Thought of You When is another podcast you can look that up actually I think it's called I Thought of You When look back through the catalog but essentially what that is in a nutshell is that you just might the child's you know doing something your tweenager teenager you you know your 12 year olds are sitting on the sofa looking at a book or just staring into space and rather than try to ask them a question where they need to respond you might just want to say you know you know what Michael I Thought of You Today I Thought of You When I saw this really amazing motorcycle I don't know what it was but it wasn't super noisy but it looks so cool the paintwork on it I wasn't quick enough to take a photograph of it but I sure thought of you when I saw it yeah and just I Thought of You When for a little child it might have been oh I Thought of You Today When I actually saw a little baby wearing a cap just like the one that you wore when you were little reminded me so much of when you were a baby love yeah I Thought of You When I saw that now the child in this situation the tween or teen is not being asked to respond but you are building a connection bridge with them they know that you move through your day and that you thought of them they know they're home now in in the base camp of family and they know that that you you've been thinking with them but it also doesn't require them in any way to to respond and lastly the last thing I want to mention is the coming home time if it can be made as as much as possible rhythmical and predictable that you do the same thing every day when they get in the car every day when they get out the car and go into home it's the same little ritual it might be to the counter for a little snack it might be just they can go to their room and have free time it might be a myriad of different things but it's the same every single day is with give or take of course because you know we've got things going on but as much as possible make it rhythmical because all these things that I've mentioned get the evening off the late afternoon and particularly into the evening when there's transitions to dinner time and for your even homework time dinner time transitions then to to bedtime or bath time and then bedtime all these transitions will get off to a much much better trajectory if we give some decompression space some downtime and we have that safety release valve that that allows them to calm and soothe before the activity of the day start of the of the afternoon and the evening starts okay as always sure hope that was helpful bye-bye for now
