Post-vacation syndrome is an emotional response of the child to the arrival of school with its imposed duties and stressful routines. Making good use of time reduces anxiety and improves family harmony.
Post-vacation syndrome in children is a transitory state of mind that affects adaptation to routines, including those of school life. It can be natural after a splendid and fun vacation, yet it only occurs in less than 8% of the little ones.
The expectation of getting up early to go to classes after spending hours doing what they like the most is scary. The truth is that children and their enormous capacity for adaptation manage to overcome the obstacle without major problems. However, it is worth giving them a hand.
Causes of post-vacation syndrome
If children reject the imposition of routines at first, much of the responsibility falls on the parents. These are the fundamental actors in the control of the elements that make up the family’s day-to-day life.
A percentage will be attributable to the personality of the child. Another will correspond to the structure of the family, the style of the parents, school conflicts, health problems or bullying, as stressors. Older people must be careful to rule out some of these signs, given the difficulty of children to explain what is happening to them.
We regularly see the consequences, but not the causes, which become multiple and complex. One way to discard is to have the assurance that you have done your best in maintaining harmonic guidelines, standards and conditions.
How to help a child overcome post-vacation syndrome?
As in many other conflict situations, communication is the key to starting the path to a solution. Breaking the silence, ostracism and crossing the wall that raise bad mood and anxiety results in a balm that relieves tension. Getting there is not easy.
Faced with the signs of post-vacation syndrome in children (they present irritation and serious refusals to practice the routine regime) do not force or recriminate them. Let’s share in the responsibilities that lie ahead in the new school term. More if they have changed schools.
The signs of post-vacation syndrome are not always obvious. Adults must learn to detect it.
Investigate the causes
Finding out the factors that are causing the disorder is a first step on the road to overcoming post-vacation syndrome in children. Review the hours of rest, play and responsibilities, and act in the event that they overlap.
If, when reviewing the interior of the family, no major setbacks are noticed, perhaps the cause is outside. The child will have difficulty reaching the words if they affect him personally. We have to direct questions about classmates and teachers, about the day at school, getting them to act out or draw school scenes. Any expression mechanism is valid.
Accompaniment
On vacation the adults have spent most of the time with the children. The separation that the term of the same brings will not be well received.
Finding a way to accompany them, to take them to school and to stay a while and say goodbye are ways of creating bridges, threads and networks. This ensures that the transitions are not abrupt.
Provide confidence and security
Parents have a perspective on problems nuanced by experience. Children who feel unprotected assume that the unpleasant situation is total and without exit. You have to find a way to solve together.
Know the environment
Parents should pay attention to the environment in which children move and interact. It works for the surroundings and beyond the home, including neighbors, friends, and school.
The latter should be visited frequently by adults, who should try to establish conversations with management, teachers, and caregivers. From these talks, states of consciousness, ways of thinking and criteria are deduced.
Adults should try to get to the bottom of relationships that could affect little ones. It is not about overprotection, but about knowing and recognizing that safety and trust in school is a social and collective construction.
How to prevent post-vacation syndrome in children?
As you want to organize and plan, the strategic thing is the forecast. The school calendars are scheduled in advance; Let’s take advantage of this so that the agenda includes delays and unforeseen events. And let’s adjust to it with the enthusiasm of buying time from time.
A series of actions that have to do with the autonomous and personal management of schedules are proposed below. However, they must be adjusted to tastes and needs, as attached to work and social obligations.
Prepare with the child the tools
Days in advance, parents can engage children in the task of lining and identifying their new supplies. The smell of paper and the vivid colors of inks and stickers are always exciting. Preparing the backpack and rectifying it is a previous routine capable of inducing the best wishes.
Preparing the school backpack is a way to adapt slowly to the new period that is coming.
From one day to the next, no
Sharp jumps are not easily tolerable. If they came from sleeping late, going back to school early is traumatic. In advance you have to adjust the hands of the clock and get closer and closer to bedtime.
Preparation also encompasses topics and assignments. Refreshing concepts and dynamics, sidelining the content of attractive, natural or geographical subjects prepares the impulse of children to school. The idea is to condition, fertilizing the land.
Communicate good cheer
If worries and stress are reflected and transmitted, the same happens with good cheer. Life is complicated, but we must protect children.
It is not putting them in a bubble. But to understand that the emotional intelligence of the family is established on the basis of alliances and support networks that facilitate its development.
The unity of the home, between its close members and those from beyond, bases its success on the fluidity of communications that embrace and celebrate transitions, changes and the overcoming of stages. The child needs to feel part, integrated and recognized.
Planning is designing freedom
Adults are called to organize their days well, otherwise unnecessary pressure will introduce discomfort factors into the lives of children. For example, haste denotes immaturity and is a trigger of stress that radiates from the elders to the children. Similarly, procrastinating accumulates tasks that sooner or later will lead to despair.
But if there is organization, parents will have plans and routines that include fun and relaxation. Children need it like breathing. Post-vacation syndrome is nothing more than a symptom that the feeling of freedom is about to be lost.
It is essential to schedule tours, set routes and itineraries, set dates for them. Together, organize the preparations during the week, in order to make the most of the days off.
