Speaker 1day one of the holidays you'd actually planned something nice a relaxed morning maybe a trip out no alarm no rush and by 9 45 it is already off the rails meltdown before breakfast was finished i'm bored 12 minutes after the screen went off and the argument about nothing somehow became an argument about everything and you're standing there thinking six weeks of this i want you to know the first week is always the hardest and there are three things you can do right now to get through it so this is the how not to screw up your kids podcast the bucket mp3 episodes i'm your host dr mary hann so pour yourself a cuppa find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation this episode is about how to survive the first week of the school holidays and what to actually do when your child's bucket is full before lunchtime now if you listen to thursday's episode this is the companion the daily reality version the you know what your life actually looks like on a day-to-day basis and what you need me to give you to help you through that because understanding why anxious children struggle in the holidays is genuinely useful and that is the thursday episode but at some point it's going to be a tuesday or a thursday morning afternoon and someone in your home is on the floor over a cereal bowl and you need to you need something to actually do now here's the thing to hold on to to keep your sanity to let you know that you're not going to be able to survive the first week of the school holidays you know that you are not alone in this so your child's bucket fills fast and faster than normal in that first week of the school holidays all the things that were quietly keeping it from overflowing the routine the predictability knowing what comes next the automatic social scaffolding of school they're all gone and the bucket fills up with the discomfort of all of that absence so full bucket equals meltdowns explosions tears about nothing velcro behavior refusing to engage with anything that you suggest so the work that i would encourage you to frame when you think about what this first week of that school holidays is going to look like and is as you're currently listening to it is not about keeping our children entertained and it's not about giving them an instagram worthy summer it's emptying the bucket before it ends and it's not about giving them an overflows and then keeping it at a manageable level and i'm going to share three tools to help you do that before we dive into the tools i want to remind you about the bucket itself some of you who've been listening to the podcast for some time will be super familiar with the bucket analogy i use it all of the time we have a whole episode on a monday dedicated to it because i find that it is the best analogy to explain the bucket itself and i'm going to share three tools to help you do that explain to a child of any age even our older teens what might be going on for them because it then becomes a super practical thing that they can understand and then look to find ways that they can then empty it if you are new to this or you really could just do with a recap or you want your child to understand the analogy by me explaining it to them then the how not to screw up your kids podcast on youtube the channel there has a visual a video basically of me explaining the bucket emptying and the bucket resource in itself using a glass bucket that i or glass jar bucket that i have used with young people and actually it talks you through the responses of children that have been that have used that in a particular conference and so you may well find that as a really useful thing for yourself but also for your children because it's a super helpful way of of being able to do that and so i'm going to share three tools to help you do that being able to see that and the other thing that i would note is that what's important to remember and to understand is that the proportions with which things which happen during the day fill your child's bucket are never universal so two children could experience exactly the same day the same events happen to them but one's bucket will overflow and the others the other is barely above halfway because of course each interaction each experience each outcome affects them differently and so it's really important that we help them understand the difference between those so that's just context so a recap for those of you who are really familiar with it but also a bit of an introduction for those who don't so let's dive into the three tools and tool one is name the state not the behavior so when your child is in the middle of a first week meltdown a second week third week fourth week whatever week it is but it's likely to happen a lot in week one they're crying about something that doesn't make sense they're explosive about something small they're refusing to engage our instinct is typically to address the behavior to talk them down maybe to explain why the thing that they're upset about isn't actually a problem now that doesn't work when the bucket is full because the brain is flooded and it can't take information in what it needs first is to feel recognized remember that when we've got a flooded brain and our children are in overwhelm they're thinking with their back primitive brain emotional brain when really we're when we're trying to appeal to their logical problem solving brain which is at the front so instead of addressing the behavior what's more helpful is if we name the state the emotional state that lies underneath it so if we're trying to appeal to their logical problem solving brain so for example we don't say stop crying there's nothing to cry about or you were fine five minutes ago i don't understand what happened instead what we might want to say and this is why i put the context about the bucket is that your bucket is really full right now isn't it this week's a lot i think your body is having a hard time adjusting to the change that makes sense let's just be here for a minute you don't need to explain it i can see it's hard yeah so we're not conceding that the cereal bowl that we talked about earlier on the floor and that argument you know we're not conceding that that was valid but what we're doing is we're in we're naming the emotional reality for your child that lies underneath it and the moment that our children feel seen when we do that the moment that they feel that someone names their actual experience the bucket starts to empty a little and their guard comes down and they're like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and now we can actually get somewhere in terms of having a conversation so we can use the bucket language directly with our children when they know it which is why i think it's really powerful to have that conversation you know is your bucket feeling pretty full and younger children often respond to this really well it's it's concrete it's non-blaming and it gives them a way to communicate their state without having to find the words for a feeling they don't fully understand yet and i would really like to see that conversation and i would really like to see that conversation and i would really like to see that conversation and i would really encourage you to think about ways that you can provide your children with a visual practical scaffold and understanding of that bucket whether it's a glass jar whether it's a clear plastic jar whether it's a actual bucket whether you use scrunched up paper to show as things go in whether you use ping pong balls as i've done before or whether you just use water as a way of demonstrating how the bucket feels it doesn't matter but the more a child understands that concept and that analogy in a practical physical putting things in taking things out the easier it is in those moments to use that kind of language because it's not a language that gets us into that trap of saying you know take a deep breath calm down which often ends up becoming inflammatory and has the exact opposite effect of what we desire so tool one name the state not the behavior tool two create one predictable moment so you don't need a schedule i said this on thursday and i mean it a rigid schedule will collapse and then you'll have the anxiety of the broken routine on top of everything else but you do need to do something and i feel that the beauty of the summer holidays in lots of ways is to provide that lack of structure to allow our children to tap into their curiosity and their imagination and to allow our children to tap into their curiosity and their imagination and being able to sit with a certain element of discomfort about not having their day entirely planned out so i think it's really helpful but i think where we can create a certain sense of predictability it's super super helpful so it's like one moment at the same time every day for that first week and you may find that you keep that going or add in a couple more but it doesn't have to be elaborate this is not about some sophisticated complicated thing it doesn't need to involve leaving the house and it doesn't need to involve leaving the house it could just simply be you have a hot chocolate together at 8 30 a.m you know a 15 minute walk after lunch a family card game before dinner one episode of something on the sofa together. It's one thing that's the same each day that your child can find on their schedule for that day and think, that's mine, I know that's coming. And for an anxious child, having one predictable moment in an otherwise unstructured day, which creates its own overwhelm and anxiety, can be the difference between cope and collapse. So we're not filling the whole day, we're just giving it a sort of a centre of gravity. Everything else can kind of orbit loosely around that one anchor. And I would certainly encourage you to tell them in advance, that to me would be the optimal. So for example, we don't have anything planned for the morning, but at lunch, we're going to do our walk like yesterday, and the afternoon is free. You're giving them enough of a map to stop their nervous system from treating the whole day. As unknown territory. So that is tool number two. Tool number three, lower your own expectations. Of course, this one is for you. And it is the hardest one. You know, the first week of the holidays is not, in my view, the week for adventures. It's not the week to catch up with everything you plan to do during the term. And it's not the week that we really want to be channelling the parent who is patient and creative. And it's not the week that we really want to be present in the way that we'd like to be, because the first week is an adjustment week for your child's nervous system. And honestly, for yours too. And adjustment weeks are messy. And that's not a failure. It's just what adjustment looks like. And let's remember that our children have just finished a term that will have been marked by a phenomenal number of events. There'll be a sports day. There'll be a moving up day. There'll be a meeting new teachers. There'll be transitions. There'll be school play, school sports. You name it, there will be a multitude of date-specific events that your child has been navigating for days, if not weeks, in the build-up to the end of term. They are exhausted. And so that first week of the summer holidays is naturally going to be an adjustment as they're transitioning away from those early morning starts and that exhaustion. And of course, if you're listening to the podcast episode in the year that it was recorded in the UK, and let's face it, all over the world, we've had a pretty hot summer. Those last few weeks of school term for some schools have involved school closures, but have been really challenging. And that is exhausting. And so of course, that first week is going to be an adjustment period. So what does this actually mean practically? For me, this is genuinely what it means. If you get through the day without a major crisis, that's a win. If your child spent more time on screens than you'd like, that's okay this week. If you didn't do the outdoor thing, the craft project, the quality time you'd imagined, it doesn't matter. The first week is about landing and adjusting, not performing. And here's the thing. The pressure you put on yourself in week one actually makes week one harder. And because anxious children are incredibly attuned, in fact, I would argue children generally are incredibly attuned to our emotional state, when we're frustrated that the day isn't going to plan, they feel it. And when we're disappointed that the activity flopped or didn't quite pan out the way that we thought it would, they feel that too. Our nervous system is regulating our children's nervous system. So the calmer we can be about the chaos of that adjustment of that first week, the less chaotic it will actually be. So lower the bar for them and for yourself. Week two will be easier. Week three, easier still. By week four, you might even enjoy it. Now, as you know, I always say this, do not try to do all three things at once, all of these tools at once. Just pick one. If you're in the middle of the first week meltdown right now, or have just been before you started listening to this podcast, start with tool one. Just name the state, put the arguing aside, your bucket is really full, isn't it? See what that does. That's enough. That's actually a lot. Now my give this week is already in the free resource library, drmaryhand.com forward slash library. It's a holiday rhythm card, a simple one page sheet, one page template for building a loose, remember I'm saying loose because it's one anchor, daily routine with your children. So I'm just going to leave it there. I'm going to leave it at that. I'm just going to leave it there. It's short, printable, stick it on your fridge, genuinely useful in that first week. And on Thursday, I'm talking about highly sensitive children, whether what you're seeing is anxiety, neurodivergence, or just who your child is, and how to tell the difference. If you've ever been told your child is too sensitive, or you've wondered yourself, then this episode is going to be for you too. And if this episode has been helpful, please, please leave a rating or review. It makes an enormous difference in helping other parents find the podcast. And if you know someone deep in that first week chaos right now, send this to them. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you on Thursday. Until next time, the first week of the holidays is the hardest. That's not a failure, that's adjustment. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you on Thursday.
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