Growing at Home - Structure & Routine
We hope you are all staying safe and healthy! All of us at CSG are now working from home, probably like many of you. We encourage you to focus on caring for family right now, but we know that overnight, many of you went from parents to parent/teacher/home chef/janitor and it can be overwhelming! We are here to help! We know all about keeping kids in one place for a while and we want to share some of what we've learned.
So, how can you keep your kids learning, growing, and not driving you crazy? Well the most important thing we do at camp is create schedules, share those schedules, and make them visible for everyone! Here's why this is so important:
Kids thrive on routine, schedules, and knowing what to expect. Aha! Parenting lists a few benefits of implementing routines with your children.
Routines eliminate power struggles and helps them cooperate– You don’t have to tell them what to do all the time, because they know what they are supposed to do for that time of the day. When they say, "I don't know what to do!" you get to gently point them to the schedule. It's teaching self direction and it's fun :)
Routines help kids learn to take charge of their own activities– They get to be independent as they brush their teeth, do their chores, start their homework, etc. By having a schedule and sticking to it you're helping them to continue learning outside the classroom.
They get to look forward to the things they enjoy -Another great life skill to learn! First we do our work (chores, education time, quiet time) then we get to do the fun times! Teaching delayed rewards is more great learning.
Schedules help them fall asleep more easily at bedtime -DO NOT LET YOUR SCHOOL AGED KIDS NAP!Unless you want to hang out at 4am! A routine helps young bodies to stay in a circadian rhythm and sleep better.
Schedules allow parents to maintain consistency and build in special moments- Relax parent.Long days with kids can be tedious and boring! But with a solid schedule you can release some anxiety and spend time preparing for the more fun stuff like an outing (not around people!) or a fun home craft project (we'll be sending you some of those!).
Visual Schedules
We use visual schedules at camp for everything! Visual schedules are extremely useful because they allow kids to check the schedule on their own and manage their time, since we all know that kids have no concept of how time passes! Visual schedules make transitions easier when they can see the expectation. If you have to make a change, you can change it on the schedule, which encourages your child to be flexible.
Schedule Template
Many of you have had the opportunity to speak with our amazing Inclusion Coordinator, Amber Ferguson.Attached is a schedule template from Amber, that you can use to help implement routine with your kids.You can make changes to specify the needs of your family or add new items to be checked off.
We hope this is helpful as you plan for the unexpected. We will be sending out more tips, tricks, and fun things soon. Please let us know if we can assist your family in any way.