By Jetara Ross
With increasing levels of anxiety occurring in children, one of the most important things a parent can do is to make them feel safe by establishing routines and boundaries.
Children feel the most secure when their lives are predictable. Predictable environments make children feel safe by teaching them that they can trust others to take care of them and meet their needs, making them less anxious and free to relax and enjoy their world. When events happen in the same order every day, children have a better understanding of their world, know what to expect, and become more confident in both themselves and the world around them. They know that they will not be confronted with unfamiliar tasks for which they are unprepared, thus reducing their anxiety levels.
Routines also allow children to make predictions about the future and helps them establish self-control because they know that they have to wait until a certain time to do a particular activity. This fosters responsibility and independence because children will feel confident in the tasks that they have mastered many times before in the same environment.
Routines have many benefits:
1. They help eliminate power struggles, between the parent and the child – the activity becomes a normal part of what they do at a particular time of the day.
2. Routines help children learn to take responsibility of their own activities, for example, packing their school bag, without constant reminders. Children love feeling in charge of themselves and this feeling increases their sense of competence. Children who feel in control of themselves, have less need to be defiant.
3. They help parents connect with their children by building moments to connect into their schedule.
Starting a routine in your home can be simple:
1. Plan at least one meal per day with your family. This way, you can start a routine that allows children to take responsibility, such as setting the table.
2. Have a bedtime ritual and associate certain activities with going to sleep. Make sure that bedtime preparation always occurs in the same order, and along the way, ask your child questions as to what is next, such as, “What do we do after we take a bath? Put our pajamas on? Read a book?” Prepare your child along the way by introducing time segments to the transitions, for example, “When the big hand gets to the 12, it will be time to run the bath.”
3. Make use of colourful pictures to indicate the routine and place them in your child’s room. This will allow your child to look at the pictures and identify what step comes next.
4. While you should stick to your routine as far as possible, do not be too rigid. Children need to learn how to be flexible and deal with the changes that life brings. If there happens to be an interruption to the routine, inform your child and prepare them for the change. You can say something like this: “I know that we usually bath at 6 o’clock, but today we are going to bath at 5 o’clock because you have to go to granny at 6 o’clock today. Tomorrow we will go back to our usual schedule.”
Be aware that setting new routines require adjustments, however, you need to be firm. At first, your child will try and have you break the routine, but remember that you are the parent and that children need consistency and boundaries at all times.
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