School holidays are exciting times. Your children might have plans to stay up late, or sleep in, but as a parent, you know that those plans aren’t always necessarily the best for them. It’s a good idea to keep their routine in place, but how do you keep a good routine at home during the school holidays? Here are some tips to help.
Bedtime
Keeping the bedtime routine is one of the most important things you can do during the school holidays. You don’t need to be so strict with the actual time of bedtime. If you want to put it off by half an hour or an hour, do that, whatever works best for your family. However, keep the structure in place. If your little one is used to brushing their teeth, reading a story and going to sleep, keep doing that so they don’t feel disrupted, or struggle to drift off if the actual time they’re going to bed is irregular.
Morning
Keep your morning routine as close to the school morning routine as possible. If you want to let them get up half an hour, or an hour later, that’s fine. Again, though, try to keep the routine that you already have. If your little one gets up, has breakfast, brushes their teeth, and gets dressed, keep that structure so that the rest of the day can be used however you’d like without little ones refusing to get dressed or forgetting important parts of their routine.
Mealtimes
Try to make a plan for when you are going to eat each day. These times don’t necessarily have to be the same times as your children would eat if they were at school but setting times can add some structure back into structureless holiday days. Mealtimes have to be at a time that suits the whole family, so think about your own daily schedule when you’re planning mealtimes.
Daily tasks
Depending on the age of your children, you could set them some daily tasks. These could be a mix of chores, and fun activities. Make a chart that shows your child exactly what it is they’re supposed to be doing and when. This can help give them a little productivity and reward throughout the holidays, and just keep them in the habit of having some small-scale responsibility outside of school.
Weekly plans
It can be helpful for children to see a visual plan of the week. You could also make a weekly routine. For example, Tuesday afternoons could be the day you go to the park, or maybe on Monday mornings, you all go swimming. Whatever way you want to plan your week, make sure that your children are involved, and can see where they’re going to be and when.
Don’t over-schedule
While a routine is important, don’t make it so busy that nobody has any time to relax. During school time, children are really busy. They need some time to just do nothing, use their devices, talk to their friends, or whatever it is they do to relax. Make sure that you give your children time to do that! This isn’t just important for your children, but it’s important for you too. Make sure that you have time to take care of yourself and relax.
Transition into a holiday routine
You should let yourself transition into the holiday routine. It will take a little time for you to figure out the best routines for your family. Don’t worry or be too hard on yourself if the first couple of weeks don’t go exactly to plan!
