So, it appears that we have 4-5 weeks left of this school term before the Easter Holidays so I just wanted to flag this up to all parents reading this blog or anyone else associated with schools and colleges. If you are NOT a parent, please don’t dismiss as I am also looking at how blocks of time break down throughout our year and although your block may not be governed by school holidays, I’m sure there will be other markers i.e your own time off or holidays.
It seems fairly obvious when you look at it logically, but it’s something that comes up time and time again and that is the pressure school holidays can put on parents and I don’t mean the actual facilitating of activities for said children but more about the tasks, the goals, the things that parents are trying to achieve during term time.
School holidays seem to creep up on us. All of a sudden, we have to navigate around childcare or activities that are planned. We struggle with the balance of work and doing what we still need to do with the overwhelming guilt we feel of not being “present” or “available” 24/7 during that holiday period. The guilt thing is another topic for another time, what I want to look at here is the Easter deadline for the want of a better word.
If Easter is 6 weeks away, if that means school ends in 5 weeks time, what do you need to achieve over the next 5-6 weeks to allow you to take a little breather and press the reset button over the bank holiday weekend (I appreciate that there are those that will be working that weekend too but bear with me?)
What do you need to put in place? Are there childcare issues that need to be addressed now? What are your priorities at work? Are there things that need to be done by Easter that with a bit of careful planning now could be achieved? Are you self employed? Can you juggle some time now to free up a bit of extra time around the bank holiday?
Are there things at home that you want or need to do? Could you break these things down into a task a week? 5 weeks, 5 tasks, maybe a less stressful Easter break?
Is the Easter Holiday a time you usually do something with family and friends? Does that still work for you? Does it put extra pressure on you? Are you better off dealing with that now before the invitation is issued and you are caught on the spot and feel you have to say yes?
What I’m really saying is it’s all about the planning, it’s all about the “bits size chunks”. Rather than looking at an overwhelming bigger picture, concentrate on the next 5-6 weeks, see what you can achieve, take a breather (if you can) press the reset button and get ready to go again for the summer term!
Don’t put off the planning, take 5 minutes today and look at the next few weeks in the lead up until Easter, you can make a big difference to your anxiety levels which let’s face it, right now with everything else going on in the world, could do with all they help they can!
