Kornmehl
Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl
Pesach explorations
This week we started our learning around the festival of Passover and all the wonderful traditions, stories, characters, songs, food and creative experiences. We tell the story of Pesach using animation, song, music, props and costumes and invite the children to take on roles in the story. Re-enacting the story in this way helps to bring it to life and allows the children time to process the details and make sense of it.
The children have started learning a variety of wonderful songs that include: When Moses was, one morning when Pharaoh awoke in his bed, Bang bang bang, Dayeinu, Listen, King Pharaoh, how did Moses cross the Red Sea, Ma Nishtana and Who knows one.
We have been making our own visual representations of wild animals and frogs, Seder plates using different mediums and making baby Moses in the basket.
All the children will be participating in a Pesach Seder in the Pre-school on Thursday 2 April 2020. This event is for the children only.
Afternoon meltdowns
Now that we are well and truly into the school year, you may have noticed that the novelty of going to school each day has started to wear off for your child.
School is full of structure, rules, new and challenging activities and interactions with peers and teachers. Children are expected to stay calm, follow instructions and maintain their concentration, so it’s no wonder that many parents face the dreaded after school meltdown when they finally have the chance to let it all out at home.
Below are some strategies to better understand your child’s feelings and to try and prevent them from happening in the first place:
Supporting self-regulation
The self-regulation required to maintain composure over a full school day can be both emotionally and physically draining to young children. This self-regulation requires them to understand and manage their own behaviours by controlling both their impulses and their emotions. There are so many impulsive actions and words, that a child wants to do and say over the course of a school day but refrained themselves instead. Additionally, there are also so many mixed emotions they felt, but didn’t let out.
They wanted to cry when a classmate laughed at their drawing, yell out an answer during class, eat their lunch at 9.30 am, make a house out of unifix cubes instead of using them for counting, climb the trees at recess, and most of all they wanted to lay down when they were supposed to be sitting up.
Basically, by the time they meet their parents at the end of the school day, they don’t have any emotional energy left in the tank. All the energy that they did have was used up by being ‘good’ all day and now they are completely and utterly exhausted.
By contrast, a home is a place for most children, where they can behave without judgement, be spontaneous, express their emotions, have more freedom, be creative, and feel safe and secure. A home is where they can be their ‘true selves’ and once they are there, children finally have a safe space to let out all their bottled-up emotions. They haven’t seen their parents all day long and finally have the people they trust most in the world to collapse into a heap with and still be loved unconditionally.
Parents get to see the best, and the very worst of their children, and the aftermath of a hectic school day is certainly no exception. While this behaviour is normal, parents can still put many measures into place to minimise the effect and prevent an after-school meltdown:
1. Save questions for later
Parents are always enthusiastic to hear how their child’s day went at school, but timing is everything! They have just spent a full day at school, and now they are being drilled for more information and expected to answer question after question. Sometimes that’s all just too much. Find the time that works best for your child, it doesn’t always have to be as soon as you see them. Let them unwind first and wait until they are ready to talk.
2. Early dinner
Most children are generally ravenous by the time they get home from school. Sometimes they have been so engrossed in playing that they have forgotten to eat their lunch. Don’t be afraid to give them their full dinner as early as 3:30 pm or 4:00 pm. You will be surprised by how much their demeanour can change after a full meal. It doesn’t have to affect the family dinner either – they can still eat a bowl of porridge or fruit salad when the family sits down to dinner at a later time.
3. Early shower or bath
Having water run over the body or being submerged in a tub full of water, can have a calming effect on any child who is in the most negative mood imaginable. There are no set rules about what time they should have a bath, so if it works, why not do it?
4. Rest or move?
After a long day at school, some children just need to rest, while others need to move and burn off some energy. Everyone is different, so find out what works for your child. If they need rest, organise some quiet time on the couch with a book or a puzzle. If they need to move, stop at the park or beach to let them run around freely.
5. Reconsider after school and weekend activities
If you have busy afternoons and weekends where you are rushing from one activity to the next, it may be time to reconsider whether they are worth pursuing right now. The rushing and busyness of additional activities can often add an extra burden to an already overstretched and overstimulated child.
6. Connection activity
Sometimes a one-on-one connection activity with a parent or loved one, is all that is needed to fill up the emotional tank again. A ten-minute quiet game with no phone, screens or interruptions can be something you both look forward to when getting home from school.
7. Unstructured play
Play and laughter are an amazing way to help release pent up emotions. Even though they have playtime at school, it is still bound by rules, structure, and expectations. Find a place where they can run around freely, direct their own play, be creative, and most importantly be themselves.
8. Take a mental health day
Taking care of our mental health is an important lesson for children to learn in relation to their overall physical health and emotional wellbeing. Everyone, even children sometimes experience feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted or mentally and emotionally fatigued. Taking a day off, occasionally to acknowledge this can really help to rest, recover, and re-energise.
9. Talk to the teacher
While it is normal for children to feel the need to release their emotions after the school day, there may also be something happening at school that is triggering the meltdowns. Talk to your child’s teacher to get a better picture of their day.
10. Talk to your child
If your child is unravelling immediately upon getting home, they are most likely internalising their feelings during the day and have just learnt to put off their reaction, rather than dealing with the problem when it occurs. Talk to your child about the things that have upset them during the day and how they can calm down and let it go while in the moment.
Sometimes even after careful planning and gentle parenting, the meltdowns can still occur. Children at all stages of development can have bad days, be overwhelmed, over stimulated and emotionally exhausted after school. What helps to calm one child, might not necessarily help to calm another; sometimes it is just a case of trial and error.
The only certainty in early childhood, however, is that children crave calmness, especially from their parents. If a child is in complete meltdown mode, the afternoon will always go much smoother if the parent keeps their cool and is the calm in their chaos. When parents get angry, it only adds to the child’s emotional turmoil, and there is no one left to help sooth their overstimulated nervous system or be the voice of reason for their little minds. Just like when the oxygen masks drop in an airline emergency, the parent must save themselves first, in order to save their child.
During an after-school meltdown, you must calm yourself first, before you are fit to calm your child. It’s not always easy to be calm and composed in these situations, but sometimes that will be all you can do and sometimes that will be the only thing you can do.
Happy Birthday
We wish a very happy birthday to Joanne Woods, our special educator, as well as to Zola Foster-Smaller (5) and Arlo Berger (4). We hope you all had a lovely day.
