February - March 2003 Edition

Taking Advantage of Down Time   by Mrs. Ann Lustgarten, Fifth Grade Teacher at the Radburn School Now that the winter winds have begun to howl and another log gets tossed on the fire, it’s time to cozy in with our families. Many of the team sports are on hiatus and are not ready to begin again. What can we do with all this free time? It’s a great time to get our families re-organized; that’s assuming we were ever really organized in the first place. We’re home early. Dinner is finished and we’re all together. One of the best thing families can do is to establish and reinforce some routines which might have slipped during our busier fall and holiday times. It’s so easy to ‘order a pizza’ and grab a meal in a catch-as-catch-can manner. It’s easy to rush here and there. It’s easy to push the bedtime limits. It’s not unusual to see a family at the mall at 8 or 9 during the holiday season, pushing small children, half-asleep, in a stroller. Older students, who should be home, curled up with a favorite book, are whining and crying and pulling on their parent’s sleeves to go home. Recently, a young mother was observed telling her child that if he cried ‘one more time’ she would take him out of the mall and right home. The very same mother was seen, a half an hour later, with the same whining child, and proffering the same threat – obviously not abided by. He had tried to tell her but she didn’t listen. Young children need to have a routine they can count on. Very little children, need dinner, a bath, some quiet playtime, a story and a kiss good-night. Older children can benefit from a similar routine, perhaps with a book read-aloud together before the light goes out. A family board game night, which allows for some give-and-take conversation, opens the lines of communication, too. Too often our youngsters are arriving in the classroom with too little sleep. Bedtimes are too often pushed back to watch a favorite TV show. (And speaking of TV shows, maybe parents should watch, too, to observe some of the ‘relaxed’ content). Sleepy children often don’t wake early enough to start the day with a healthy breakfast, so they drag through the day. It becomes a vicious cycle. So now is the time, when other schedules are not pulling as strongly, to settle in, look again at our routines. Let’s make sure our children feel secure in their families.   See Mrs. Lustgarten's Previous Columns Achoo:  What to Do With A Sick Child   (December 2002) Scheduling After-School Activities  (October 2002) Back To School  (August 2002) Summer With the Kids  (June 2002) PTA/PTO Involvement  (April 2002) Telling The Teacher  (February 2002)