Children need to follow a routine to feel safe and calm in their environment. A routine establishes schedules, but also repetitive habits help to build an emotional balance, which provides them with an important mechanism for their education and for the construction of their personality.
Children’s fear of the unknown includes everything from a suspicious new vegetable to a major change in their life. Unfortunately, children are confronted with change daily, which is a growth opportunity, but also stressful.
Routines aren't only for babies and toddlers. As your child enters the primary grades, her life is full of baffling and sometimes scary new experiences. The repetition of everyday acts form habits and the repetition of habits form virtues.
What are habits and routines for children?
The routine is a personal habit established by convenience and that does not allow modification, that is, it is inflexible; For example, hang the robe on the hanger before leaving class.
The habit is a stable mechanism that creates skills and that we can also use for different situations: for example, fasten. Habits are attitudes, forms of behavior or behaviors that involve behavioral patterns and learning. Well-acquired and used habit allows us to face everyday events "
Habits and routines provide a very important mechanism of constancy and regularity and, therefore, they are fundamental for both family and school life.
Benefits of habits and routines in children and babies
To feel safe a child needs to acquire habits.
Children do not know the order of things when they are born, so adults must teach them to organize their lives through stable schedules associated with routines, that is, through activities that are done every day in the same way.
They repeat rituals that help the child assimilating an internal scheme that turns his world into a predictable place and, therefore, safe.
Food, sleep, and hygiene are the first habits that children have to learn. "The daily routine is for children what walls are for a house, it gives borders and dimension to life, routine gives a sense of security, established routine gives a sense of order from which freedom is born." (R.Driekurs)
A good established routine help children develop self-discipline.
Children, like the rest of us, handle change best if it is expected and occurs in the context of a familiar routine.
However, won’t too much structure dull or kill our sense of spontaneity and creativity?
Sure, if it's imposed without sensitivity. There are times when rules are made to be broken, like staying up late to see an eclipse, or eating a piece of pizza while watching tv one Saturday afternoon. But even the most creative artists start by mastering the conventions of the past, and find the pinnacle of their expression in working within the confines of specific rules.
There's no reason structure has to be oppressive. Think of it as your friend, offering the little routines and traditions that make life both easier and cozier. Not only will your kids soak up the security, but they will also internalize the ability to structure their own lives.
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