How to Tame the End-of-the-School-Year Blues
I am a mom of two daughters who grew up watching High School Musical on replay. A favorite scene occurs in the second movie when the the wall clock is ticking down. The bell rings. All the children jump up and run for the doors because summer has begun! The movie shows all the happy faces and the elated students jumping up and down with joy for the start of summer break. What the movie does not show is the angst and the bigger feelings that arise when a change occurs like the end of a school year. Can our brains hold multiple feelings at the same time? Can our children be excited for summer break and sad to leave their teachers and routines? The answer is yes! What do we do with the mixed up feelings that surface at this time of year? The end-of-the-school-year blues do really exist for many children. How can parents help guide their children when the up and down emotions surface?
Not only is this time of year a fluctuating season for the children, but also for the parents as well. New schedules bring challenges for all. Most of us feel more comfortable during times of predictability. When a change of routine occurs, our brains tend to want to bring balance back into the picture. Change can cause several feelings to surface like fear or confusion. When I think of reinstating harmony into our brains, I like to use a canoe going down a river as a good visual. Ideally, we want the boat to go down with ease in the middle of the river where it is a bit more calm. Along the left shoreline, a row of trees straightly lines the bank lending to more organized water. To the right side, rocks and branches stick out of the water creating some rapids and uneven water. Our boat (or brain) naturally will gravitate toward one side or the other depending on our level of flexible thinking. Meaning, if we are more balanced, then we will be more flexible and not be drawn to the sides or rigidity or chaos. We will be able to balance our canoe closer to the middle, the more harmonious part of the river. How does this translate into real life? How can we keep our boat away from the rigid side with all the trees in a neat row or from the chaotic side with the rougher water?
The answer is with intention. During this time of year, it does take some extra effort to be able to balance our boat. The big feelings come rushing in just as fast as we are are twirling into a new schedule for the summer break. There are three areas that I will highlight to help us to tame the end-of-the-school-year blues. One, focus on the feelings to help the shame spiral from taking over. Two, practice mindfulness activities to help balance the various emotions. Three, use affirming language with yourself and with your children to help all to feel a sense of belonging. Let’s break down each of these a bit more.
Focus - When I think of the word, “focus”, I think of having a clear vision of what is in front of me. Dan Siegel’s and Tina Payne Bryson’s coined phrase, “Name It to Tame It.”, has become a staple in my language as a parent and as a therapist with my clients of all ages. We are also familiar with the idea of when our parental “mama bear” or “papa bear” reactive brains kick in. As parents, we do not like to see our children in uncomfortable situations. At this time of year, our children tend to show big emotions, whether more dramatic, more grumpy, harder to please, harder to distract, etc. They are tired and so are we as parents. What we often do is redirect our child quickly so the feelings don’t escalate to produce a downstairs tantrum. That kind of meltdown is when our emotional center of our brain in the mid-brain (“downstairs” area) takes over the drivers seat of the car. We may find ourselves saying, “Oh, it will be fun this summer! Don’t worry about it. You are going to have a great time at camp with all your buddies.” Those all could be true statements, but I wonder what would happen if we as parents first focused on our big feelings that arise when our child is out of balance? Then, we could help teach them that focusing on big feelings will help to curb the power that the negative emotions tend to have over us. Ultimately, focusing on our feelings and not always redirecting can also halt the shame spiral from starting. Our brains become more integrated as the upstairs (prefrontal cortex region) begins to regulate our emotional downstairs region. We then see a clear vision of the why behind the big emotions rather than the fear that kicks in which pulls our boat over to the sides of the inflexible waters.
Practice Mindfulness Activities - In order for our brains to integrate and our boat to balance more in the center of the river, we must do some intentional activities. When these types of methods become more of a regular part of our day, we will then not shy away from not only our big feelings but from our children’s as well. We will then be able to parent from a more proactive place rather than a reactive one. My go-to activities include using our 5 senses, deep breathing and movement, and doing some type of journaling.
5 Senses Activity - This is a simple and quick activity that can be done anywhere, anytime. Simply ask yourself these questions, “What are three things I see? What are three things I touch? What are three things I hear? What are three things I taste? What are three things I smell?” I often tell younger children to just do the first three if they don’t really smell or taste much. You may have to ask yourself these questions a few times before you feel you are bringing your canoe back to the balanced center of the river. Neurologically, messages come into the brain through our 5 senses into the thalamus in the mid-brain area. So, when we focus on the senses, then we are helping to steer the message to our prefrontal cortex region of our midbrain area. Then, our brains can balance the big feelings more clearly.
Deep Breathing and Movement - Breathwork and movement are essential to calming our central nervous system. The vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in our brain, goes from our brain to our gut. It is activated by deep breathing and by moving our bodies. This nerve is essential in helping us to regulate or balance our emotions. Yoga and deep breathing are keys to activating the vagus nerve. There are many guides to help to take a proper deep breath, such as rainbow breathing, square breathing, and 5-point star breathing. Another I like to teach is 4, 7, 8 breathing. This particular breathing method helps your body’s parasympathetic nervous system to activate to help to calm the sympathetic nervous system. There are 5 steps to the 4, 7, 8 method:
Find a comfortable spot to sit.
Exhale with a whooshing sound through your mouth.
Close your lips, inhaling silently through your nose as you count to four in your head.
Hold your breath for seven seconds.
Breathe out through your mouth for eight seconds.
Repeat several times.
Journaling - There are many forms of journaling. I encourage one that fits your lifestyle. Whether it is using your camera, your pencil, or your voice, all will help to clear your headspace so you can focus on your feelings and use other mindfulness activities as well. Here are a few ideas for you to choose from when it comes to journaling:
Writing - poetry, short stories, letters, notes, songs.
Voice Journaling - open a new note on your device and tap the microphone and speak your thoughts. The device will record your voice similar to voice texting.
Photo Journaling - take pictures and put them in to a paper journal or a file on your phone.
Art Journaling - sketches, doodles, magazine clippings.
3. Use Affirming Language - What exactly is affirming language? It is a way of communicating support for an individual so they feel seen and heard. We all have two buckets that ideally need to be filled each day. The first is that we are seen and heard. The second is that we feel positive power or empowered. When our first bucket is filled then we will be able to then fill our second. That is the same with parenting our children. I often say we cannot build a sandcastle with dry sand. We have to have some water in our bucket so we can fill another’s bucket. First, we must use affirming language with ourselves. Taming the inner critic lies that we tell ourselves is key to being kind to ourselves. Second, we can use positive affirmative statements with our children. I do believe this style of parenting can help to tame the meltdowns from occurring or at least lessen the intensity of them. When the child comes in from school and they are feeling the stress of the end-of-the-school-year blues kicking in, we can use our affirming language. Here is an example.
Child: [He or she comes in from school and is starting to whine and not want to listen.] “I don’t want to go to practice today! I don’t like anyone on my team. I stink at baseball!”
Parent: “I see and hear that you are feeling really tired and mad about going to practice. I get it. Hmmm, it is so hard at this time of year. I wonder if there is a way we can solve this together?”
Child: “Yes! Don’t make me go to baseball! I want to play on my Ipad!”
Parent: “Yes, that certainly is an option. I wonder if we can maybe get a snack and have some downtime to relax and then you may feel better about going?”
Child: “Okay, will you sit with me and color for a few minutes? Then, I will go get my uniform on.”
Parent: “Sounds like a great plan! I am glad we could figure this out together.”
You may be reading this and thinking, “Wow, I wish all of my afternoons went that smoothly!” I know this is not always reality, but I do want to encourage for you to intentionally try to use affirming language. By saying the words, “see and hear”, the child’s seen and heard bucket will begin to become filled up little by little. Then, the follow up statement of can we “solve this together" empowers them to not feel alone with their big feelings. The child and parent are using their flexible thinking skills to balance their canoes together and bring in harmonious energy into the home.
Change is hard. With every change comes a loss. The closing of a school year is full of endings and beginnings. Even when a change is exciting, there is still some loss to be felt. Leaving the familiar routine of going to school every morning at the same time is actually a bigger shift on our brains that we realize. Our body clock has to adjust. This is really harder on parents most of the time than even for children. Even though camps will begin and a new schedule will start, it takes time to adjust. If you notice bigger feelings and larger reactions at this time of year, that is completely normal and expected. This is more of a reason to be intentional and focus on naming the feelings, to practice mindfulness activities, and to use affirming language. All of these three areas when used consistently will help us to bring our boat back to a more homeostasis state allowing us to feel more integrated and balanced.
