Posted on 09/01/2016
With the school year just starting, it’s time to get back into a routine. (If you have kids younger than school age, check out this post about creating weekly rhythms that work for you.) Most of us have a hate/love relationship with routines, don’t we? We love them until they get old. Then they start feeling like a drudgery. Now, while school year routines are still fresh and new, is the time to plan for that day you know is coming, not long into the future, when they become, well, ho hum.
Routines Help Create Stability and Security
The first thing you need to do when you start to feel like you’re in a rut is to realize that, in general, routines are good. They’re good for you and for your kids, but especially for children and those with sensitive personalities, as routines can provide a sense of security that carries them through difficult days. Knowing what to expect feels dependable and safe - unlike so much in life. The key to reasonable flexibility — which is important, too — is that you have something to go back to after a special activity or exception to the rule.
Routines Still Leave Room for Spontaneity
Let’s say you always pick your child up on your way home from work, start dinner while they go to their room to drop off their bag and change clothes, and then begin homework at the table. When your spouse arrives home, you clear the table and sit down to eat together as a family. Sounds like a great routine. But today you pick up your child from school, and he’s had a rough day. Maybe he needs the security of routine, or maybe you can ask, “How about we pick up dinner on our way home tonight. What do you feel like having?” The more established your routine is — the more special this kind of exception will come across as being.
Routines Can Give Way to Silliness
Spontaneous exceptions are good, but planned exceptions are positive as well. Before monotony sets in, you can plan to spice it up a little, once in a while. Silly little plans like an eat-dessert-first night, themed dinner with music and decorations, or a new tradition as simple as Tuesday texting where you make an exception to the no-electronics-at-the-table rule but can only text others in your family. A little more involved, you can either reveal part of a page each morning or make a scavenger hunt for parts of a coded letter telling the kids about fun weekend plans to anticipate can make an otherwise run-of-the-mill week a little more exciting.
Another way to pre-plan for breaks from the everyday routines is by planning for monthly or seasonal traditions that are unique to your family and breathe life back into your hearts even before routines become dry and pressures start to build.
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