The After-school Reboot
Seasoned school parents will be all too familiar with the problem we’re working through at the moment: the dreaded after-school meltdowns.
Your child jumps into the car, hurls her bag onto the seat, and says she’s had a good day. The car trip home seems fine, but it’s as though crossing the threshold to your home triggers a sudden outpouring of emotion. Your child is weeping, screaming, stomping and sobbing as you try to figure out exactly what went wrong. After all, didn’t they just finish telling you they’d had a good day?
The good news is that they probably weren’t lying; they really did have a good day at school. But attending school requires a certain amount of work for the child in the form of self-regulation. Put simply, by the time they get home they have completely run out of good behaviour for the day! However, the rest of the day doesn’t need to be a write-off. If you find yourself in a cycle of rushing the kids out the door in the morning and then fast-tracking them to bed in the evening just to avoid dealing with their meltdowns, there are plenty of things you can do to smooth things out for everyone. So why are these meltdowns happening in the first place, and what can we do to prevent them?
“Little kids, big emotions” is how Dan Siegel, paediatric behavioural psychologist, summarises the experience of being a child. When kids “flip their lid” they are not being naughty, they are actually feeling completely dysregulated on a physiological level. Their behaviour is literally out of control. Their little bodies and brains are worn out from learning, listening, following rules, negotiating with friends, and trying not to get in trouble all day. By the end of the day, their brains are so tired that their senses can incorrectly perceive even the smallest annoyance as a life-threatening risk, causing them to react disproportionately. This is the moment we see as a meltdown: you did something simple like ask them to take off their shoes, and they exploded in a torrent of emotion. Punishment doesn’t work for children in this state because they are not choosing to melt down, which means they can’t choose to correct their behaviour either. Their bodies have taken over control.
As adults, we build in little rituals to help ourselves wind down at the end of a work day. Things like listening to a podcast or phoning a friend on the way home, or kicking off our shoes and having a cup of tea as soon as we’ve walked through the door. But without clear input from the helpful adults in their lives, most kids will struggle to develop their own soothing routines.
Before you stress out at the idea of a “routine,” bear with me. I’m not going to enforce a strictly timed schedule on you (or your volatile child!). Routines actually have nothing to do with timing. Think of the word “routine” as being more like “shape” or “pattern” – a familiar sequence that helps signify the arrival of rest and emotional safety. In fact, the word “routine” originates from the word “route” meaning a road. So creating a routine is like clearing a “little path” for yourself or your child to walk as a safe road towards rest. After a little while, they won’t need you to hold their hand and walk them down this little path. They will be able to do it themselves! You can create your own sequence that takes into account all your child’s needs (and perhaps also your own) by exploring key areas in which your child might need some support. These may include sensory, social, physical or creative activities.
We are going to cover these areas in depth over the rest of this article series, but before we go anywhere near those, the first thing you need to establish is ensuring you meet your child’s basic physical needs.
The first and most important of these are your child’s basic physical needs. First, you’ll need to set up the physical path into the house. What needs to happen as they walk in the door? A short, repeatable phrase always comes in handy when setting up routines for kids. With my kids we say “Shoes, socks, lunchbox” to help them put everything away as soon as they’re home. This saves me having to tidy up after they’re all in bed, or discovering a rotting lunchbox the next morning. On an afternoon where we come straight home after school, we say “Shoes, socks, lunchbox, toilet check then food!” and on a busy afternoon with activities where we’re not home until after 5pm, we say “Shoes, socks, lunchbox, shower, dinner, teeth!” This little rhyme serves as a checklist for them to work through so they can move on to free time (or get into bed) as soon as possible, without much input from me. Initially you can create a visual checklist and stick it on the fridge, and then cut back to just the verbal checklist once they are used to the process. This will take time and repetition, so be patient with them.
Once you’ve made it inside the building, you can work on their body’s needs. It will be much easier for your child’s brain and body to calm down if their simplest needs are met early on: food, water, toileting, and temperature. Have some afternoon tea ready to go, top up their water bottle and encourage them to have a drink, ask them to go to the toilet before they get distracted by play. Children with additional sensory needs may need to prioritise getting into comfy clothing and removing socks and shoes, especially after tolerating these things for the full school day. I generally let my kids stay in their uniforms until they change into pyjamas for the night, which helps me by reducing how many outfits they go through in a day! It’s also important to check that they are wearing appropriate clothing; lots of kids get so busy playing that they don’t notice themselves warming up and think to remove their jumper. It sounds simple, but being at a comfortable temperature can make a big difference to their mood.
The more you can have ready to go at pick-up time, the better, as their patience will not be plentiful this time of day and meeting these predictable needs early can help prevent meltdowns from happening in the first place. Nutritious, home-made snacks are great but don’t be afraid to grab a packet of bikkies or swing by the bakery on the way home. Sometimes convenience wins over everything else!
Here is the most important rule when taking care of your child’s needs: Don’t forget to treat yourself like a person too. That means making sure you have had enough food and water throughout the day, and have given yourself a little break just before picking them up or after you’ve settled them in back home. You won’t be able to support them well if you’ve ignored your own needs all day. Also remember to give yourself grace in this process. Some afternoons you’ll run out of time to grab everything, or something will come up as soon as you’ve walked in the door and you won’t have the capacity to guide them through their afternoon routine. That’s completely okay, they will get the hang of it eventually and so will you!
If you are struggling with cranky kids in the afternoon, please be assured that you are not alone! A calm afternoon is possible, it just takes some simple strategies for soothing their tired brains and bodies after a long day of school. We are here to help you make simple, manageable changes to help keep the chaos at bay. You’ve got this.
