Schoolholidays horror: freedom is fatal for holiday joy
Schoolholidays with its much celebrated sense of freedom is causing a lot of stress. Especially for the jugglers, mostly mums, who face an even greater responsibility than in normal circumstances: work, career, planning kids, domestic duties, ferrying, the holiday itself and more. The reason for the stress is that it is hard to be efficient when there is a lack of routine. As is part of the school summer holidays: no school routine, sports routine, or other.
On top of that, we throw the discipline out of the window, which means we have no structure, we are just floating. Sounds great, but losing the boundaries on different levels (food, time, sports, activities) we can find ourselves quite miserable.
‘I am used to meditate every morning. At 5.55 the alarm goes off, and I get into my spot to do my daily practice for half an hour. Having done that for the last 8 years, I know it is good for me. However, when the holidays arrive and we can get up later, I put the alarm later. Still planning to do my practice. And it doesn’t work! At 6 I am the only one awake. Regardless if it is holidays or not. Any later, I get disturbed by kids who are awake, events in the street or other stuff. I have learned my lesson. If I want to get my meditation in for the day, it has to be at 6.’
There are other examples.
Think of diet and fitness regimes. If you are in a routine to go for a run with your buddy every Monday morning at 10 and you let that slip, or can’t do it, because the children are around, you lose out on your stamina and fitness. If you let go of home cooking and meals together as a family, which helped you to stick to a diet, you will gain weight as a result of the loss of boundaries.
Why is having a routine so powerful?
We are holistic beings and once we have (unconsciously) programmed ourselves into a habit, it is easy to stick to it because both body and mind are lined up. An example: having the ritual of making the first cup of coffee, sitting down and going through the admin. The moment you smell the coffee, the association is there with admin and your mind will put itself in the right frame to tackle that task.
If we don’t have a routine and the discipline to stick to it, we easily become victims of circumstances and we are not in charge of what is happening.
The challenge of the holidays
As holidays are an exception, sort of, we happily let slip of the idea of routines. We just go with the flow, which sounds lovely, but usually results in fighting kids, stress all around, less fitness, no sense of achievement and more negative stuff. If you can think ahead of a routine for the holidays, then guaranteed the stress levels will be much lower.
‘He, who fails to plan, plans to fail.’ Winston Churchill
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