One of the most important things that you can do to make children feel safe is to establish as much of a routine in their lives as possible. Not only children, but adults feel the most secure when their lives are predictable. When adults provide environments that feel safe, children learn that they can trust others to take care of them and meet their needs, so they become free to relax and explore their world.
Many parents are now finding that their usual routine of getting ready for work and their children ready for school in the morning has been drastically changed. Instead of a very structured school day, children are finding themselves probably with their parents working from home.
Enter...Stage Right: Some type of schedule for about TWELVE hours at least FIVE days a week! Impossible?
No.
Some children, and a few adults who I know, do not yet fully understand the concept of time, so they do not order their lives by hours and minutes, but rather by the events. When events happen in the same order every day, children have a better understanding of their world, and therefore feel more secure. Being at school provides this by providing a regular schedule giving children a way to order and organize their lives. When children AND adults know what to expect, they become more confident in both themselves and the world around them. For the most part, know they will not be confronted with unfamiliar tasks for which they are unprepared,
Routines also help children develop self-control because they know they have to wait until a certain time to do a particular activity. A regular schedule fosters responsibility and independence because children will be able to perform more activities on their own if they have done the same activities many times before in the same environment.
A routine is especially important during particularly difficult times such as what we are all experiencing now. It’s probably safe to say that we are all undergoing a change in our routines which may cause varying degrees of apprehension, especially for young people.
During ‘normal’ times, we probably had specific morning, after school,
and bedtime routines. But what about now? When there is a routine in place, there can be little argument because the expectations for behavior are taken for granted. Therefore, a major benefit of establishing a Monday-Friday routine is that you will cut down on stress for yourself. Keeping to a routine may sound like an impossible task when you are overwhelmed with balancing a constantly changing schedule for multiple members of your household. However, even implementing the smallest routine can make a big difference.