We feel a certain impatience rising for a few days, with the approach of the summer holidays... Two months without lessons, without school, without crèche for some!
But as this excitement builds, another emotion can appear: the apprehension of separation. Indeed, if the end of the school year is for many synonymous with rest, games, sun, sea and swimming pool, it is also a strong moment of multiple separations, which can generate fear on the part of children – and parents. How do you deal with this apprehension? How can we anticipate these separations and ensure that they go as well as possible? We give you some keys.
Separation with girlfriends and friends from school or nursery
First of all, we must keep in mind that the notion of time is not the same for a child as for an adult. On the scale of your child's life, two months is an eternity! He or she has just spent ten months with the same people almost every day; his educators, his mistresses, his comrades… his daily life was well established, the same people every day, the same points of reference every day. Leaving this familiar environment can worry him and generate behaviors that challenge you.
It is not rare that at the end of the year indeed, the children are particularly nervous.ses, turbulent.es, that they or they cry easily... Of course, the fatigue of the year does not help not, but that's not always the only reason. Helping him anticipate this separation could bring him to calm down.
There are several possibilities for this:
- Talk to him about when you were little, about the emotions that went through you then, about those that still go through you today when you have to leave someone you love for a while. Nothing better than sharing your own emotions to reassure your child.
- Reassure him about the start of the school year; he or she will find his or her friends, even if it is only in the playground. And if your child changes schools, remind him or her that he or she will still be able to be in contact with his or her classmates from last year; it is not a final separation!
- Remind him of his last school year, and therefore of the last summer vacation that preceded it: he.she had been able to manage his emotions very well and in the end, everything had gone well.
- If verbalization is difficult, use Pipouette to help him verbalize, or to depict the sadness due to separations, using the sadness face. Do not deny or minimize his emotion, it is completely legitimate!
- Suggest that they make drawings, bracelets, or any other small creation that their friends can take with them on vacation. This allows you to keep a physical link even when you don't see each other 🙂
Separation from parents during the holidays
- Make a timeline or calendar to see how many days are left before departure, and how many days you will be apart. It is often difficult for young children to find their bearings in time, and seeing it visually helps to soothe a lot of anxieties and put the time that remains and the time that passes into perspective.
- Talk about your feelings, tell your child that you too are affected, that it makes you “weird”, but also that you are proud of him or her and of their independence.
- Reassure him about what he will experience with people other than you, about what it will bring him or her, about what he or she will do, be positive! Also imagine with your child all that he or she will have to tell you on his or her return!
- Slip small notes or attentions into his suitcase that he will find while unpacking his belongings and which will allow him to think of you... and to know that you are thinking of him in return!
- Fill his luggage and his pockets with doses of love... literally and figuratively! Our Pipouette love-dose mini faces have been specifically designed for those times when parting is a little too difficult. We slip one in the child's pocket, one in his own pocket and voila, voila 🙂
