Top 10 Tips for Parents on How to Stay Calm During the Summer Holidays!

Wherever you are in the world, one thing is for sure it marks a break for children from the routine of school life. Parents look forward to a later and more relaxed start to the day. No more of hurry up mornings, get your shoes, take your lunch box, where is your water bottle routine.
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It's summer time! The heat is on in many parts of the world while many countries have a cold and wintery summer. Wherever you are in the world, one thing is for sure it marks a break for children from the routine of school life. Parents look forward to a later and more relaxed start to the day. No more of hurry up mornings, get your shoes, take your lunch box, where is your water bottle routine.

Families in general look forward to a more relaxed pace of life... it is as if your breathing has suddenly slowed down and you can take in more of your surroundings. However some parents look at the summer holidays as a long stretch of challenging times with children demanding to be entertained and parents themselves wanting the children to be "out of their hair."

Parents want to "outsource" the mindful occupation of their child to summer camps or places that can keep their child BUSY, fruitfully occupied, learning a skill, following a schedule and provide a safe environment. If you look more minutely it sounds quite similar to a school regimen without the homework and the report card.

Top 10 tips for Moms and Dads on how to stay calm during the summer holidays!

1) Move away from the word BUSY as a family. Please realize the new normal is NOT being BUSY and don't make it your family's norm. Busy is the most misused word causing stress, anxiety and a myriad of other physical and mental issues. Being busy is not normal, being relaxed and calm was normal and will always be normal.

2) Children have done a marathon academic year and they need this PAUSE. In yoga after every pose you are taught to pause. True healing takes place during the pause, so does true learning.

3) Remember your good OLD days on how you kept busy. No television, even if you owned a box it didn't provide 24/7 channels. You barely caught an hour a week and guess what you made it! Maybe its time to imagine your child might make it through too, just like you did!

4) BOREDOM is a BLESSING. Allowing your child to be bored will help him to think outside the box! Give the space and allow him the luxury of boredom, the luxury of doing nothing and being nothing, nirvana is attained like that...

5) ENCOURAGE EXPERMENTATION. Boredom breeds creativity leading to experimentation. Allow them to make their own soap bubbles, make a mess and then let them clear after that. You might have the next great inventor in your family. Remember inventors can be a crazy, eccentric and messy bunch who need you to look the other way.

6) You don't have to play the traffic policeman all the time. Holidays are for you to go off duty too! You have been guiding the home traffic for a full marathon year, they know the way around, let them have a few bumps along the way, life's lessons are hidden away in those bumps.

7) Do not compare your ACTIVITIES. I can still understand comparing schools and curriculums to a certain extent -- but summer activities? This is the time to be yourself, let your hair down and completely drop your guard and BE with your child on YOUR terms. Don't get swayed in by other parents activity schedule for their child or another family's five star holiday plans. Secure your territory parents and keep PEER pressure OUT.

8) Research around summer learning loss. Your child apparently loses one month of learning during the summer. Hmmm... could be as I wont challenge research... so how did you turn out for not studying through every summer holiday? All research need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

9) CHILL PARENTS! It is not your duty to be entertaining those little ones. Leave them to their devices -- give them a CHANCE -- let them lose -- turn away -- don't listen to their whines -- and I promise you they will rise to the occasion and surprise you.

10) FAMILY TIME! Moms and dads -- those hyper active, messy, whiny, trickling nose ones are not going to be little for long. These long stretches of summer with vast time with them to pack them off into scheduled activities will be gone before you know it. SAVOR YOUR TIME with them, hold them close to you, play together, break some rules, travel, watch late night movies, eat popcorn and lick the melting chocolate off the wrapper.

SMILE - LOVE - STAY HAPPY - CUDDLE - HUG - HAVE FUN!!

Sunaina Vohra
Youth & Family Life Coach
Athena Life Coaching
www.athenalifecoaching.com
FB: Athena Coaching Solutions
e: sunainaathena@gmail.com

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