‘Keeping kids calm will avoid tantrums’
AS the excitement of the season becomes too much for some, a psychotherapist working with schools around the country says staying calm is key to everyone’s mental health.
Buddy Bench Ireland co-ordinator Michelle O’brien said it’s important for parents to stay calm and not wind their children up – as tempting as it might be to do so.
She added: “Often at Christmas, we’re rushing around trying to get all the things for our kids and we forget the most vital component is them.
“A lot of people are tired and emotional at this time and it’s not just the grown-ups – the children also go through every emotion imaginable.
“We can read them better than anyone else, so we should avoid what we know pushes their buttons.” Life skills Encouraging children to solve problems for themselves is especially important over the emotional holiday period and the extra time off can give families the time to do this.
Ms O’brien, who helps Buddy Bench bring positive mental health programmes to 40,000 children in 260 schools and preschools throughout the country said: “I’m a child of the 80s and an awful lot of my peers would say we had nothing then, so we’re never going to let our children go through that.
“But now we’ve instigated this awful situation where we gave them everything they could ever want and more – so much so now kids don’t even know what to write on a Santa note because there’s nothing they want.”
For children who have everything they want, helping them develop life skills is key.
This can mean encouraging them to ask for something themselves if you’re out having a meal, or encouraging them to come up with a solution themselves when they argue with each other. I’m bored After the initial excitement of the time off, many children begin to miss the routine of school and inevitably begin to complain they are bored.
But giving the children the opportunity to come up with games and activities on their own can be one of the magical parts of Christmas.
Ms O’brien said: “We micromanage their lives and their free time, filling it with swimming lessons and camogie and football.
“But it’s so good to give them the chance to amuse themselves and not to organise their lives from morning to night and to give them the chance to come up with ideas themselves.
“I think we try to steal their magic a little bit when we try and orchestrate absolutely everything. Everything is so planned to the enth degree – and it’s all done out of love – but it leaves no room for error and no room for their input.” Along with workshops, the Buddy Bench initiative, founded in in 2016 by Judith Ashton and Sam Synnott, provides schools with colourfully decorated seats.
When children are lonely during break time they can sit on the bench signalling to other children they would like to play with someone.