Tips for Enjoying a Stress-Free Half-Term Break

You’ve barely packed away the last of the fairy lights and wrestled with the glut of bloated January bills and, just as you come up for air, half-term. Really, so soon?! BACP counsellor Margaret Ward-Martin, founder of The Grace Project, looks at how to make the most of the half-term ‘break’ for both parents and children.

For some, the half-term break means slower mornings, less pressure, and marginally less chaos, while for others, it’s a time of increased stress trying to ensure safe childcare and finding money they don’t have or panicking at the hours to be filled when they’re running on empty. We can love our children and be decent humans and still find the prospect of hypervigilance at the boundless energy, the sibling stand-offs, and shrieks that shred nerves, less than appealing.

It’s important to recognize the stress parenting can put on relationships, so work out your own exit strategy and agree on a plan – one example might be to not argue in front of the children and then stick to it. Shouting profoundly affects the nervous system of children, so it is best avoided.

It’s a mammoth task explaining to children that YouTube families who throw flour around the kitchen and giggle at the cute, sugar-coated dog – ARE NOT REAL. These people get paid, and they will use the money to get others to clean up the industrial-scale mess!

If any or all of this resonates with you, here are a few suggestions on how to manage the half term break:

• Free stuff: The library is a great place to start. You will find out about free events and workshops for children in your local area. Local community hubs and religious/church organizations can be extremely supportive and may signpost you to more help. 
• Meal deals: What’s not to love? Add a bus or train ride, a walk, a playground visit or soft play and you have a low-cost day out. 
• Honesty: Children often understand more than we credit them with. Use age-appropriate language to explain your feelings about finances and suggest manageable alternatives, like a movie night together. Your calmness will be appreciated, even if not right away. If co-parenting, focus on your wellbeing amid stressors. Steadiness is essential; refrain from shouting your frustrations. Remember, it’s a child’s job to demand and provide moments of comic relief.
• Get out: Just go somewhere public. We are less likely to lose our cool with an audience around. This helps us moderate our behavior and offers stress relief. Find a museum, park, or shopping centre; during half-term, many centres provide child-friendly activities.
• Work out what’s yours: It’s usually when we have children that we think about how we were raised. You have the chance to make your child feel safe and loved and if this wasn’t your experience you may have work to do. Now’s that time.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously: If the children are being particularly annoying and kicking each other under the table or laughing so much that they break wind – join in (not the kicking part or even the wind bit), listen to them, have a laugh and let stuff go. It really doesn’t matter if there’s tomato sauce on the door handle or a spilt milk smell. It’s not ideal but not worth losing your rag over. It’s not. Let it go.
• Screen time: Limit screen time. Yours – not your offspring’s. I’m not going to bog you down with more – far too late – lectures, on the dangers of online worlds – that ship’s long sailed. Keep it simple. Put away your phone and ask your child to do the same. Protect that time.
• Ask for help: If you need support, ask, and commend yourself for being brave enough to do so. Ask your health visitor or GP; libraries are brilliant starting points; ask the nursery or school for activity camps or group outings they know of. If you have family or friends, ask them for a couple of hours of help. That is, of course, if this is not an additional stressor. 

Margaret comments: “Shortly after I had my first child, I sought help from a “parenting expert.” They gave me a book. A book? I didn’t need a book; I needed a bath and matching socks. I needed reassurance. You probably need some reassurance. Parenting is the hardest job in the world and for some reason, as old as time, we think we should know how to parent. There is a whole industry profiting from the sense of inadequacy that comes with parenthood. The punitive messaging “not walking yet?”: “you really should be doing (a/b/c) by now;” “Really? I love baby yoga!”

Try to mute the “shoulds” and focus on doing your best, even if those around you think you can do better. Do you and the best you can do in the circumstances you are living through.

Not less than best but your best as if you had a six-figure salary, company car, expense account, and 24-hour staff support. Parenting is hard work, and all parents get one chance, so get fit for the job; eat to keep yourself well, hydrate, and rest as much as possible. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

This half term, lean in, be exhausted, and be honest. Ask your children to show respect and be kind to you and each other and to give you a break. Tell them when you’ve had enough and have a sit down, maybe in another room if they are old enough, or ask another adult, if possible, to sit with them. When you get it wrong, say “sorry.” Model taking responsibility for your actions. Your children will get it. They will learn this important skill.

In these moments, look at your children, knowing it’s not going to last. This time will pass. Please don’t waste these important years. Have some fun.

Take a breath in angry moments and ask yourself – is what I want to say worth the hurt it will cause? I suggest – no. And before you know it, these little energy balls and sullen teens will be grown up, bags packed for somewhere across an ocean, college, university, to start their own family or work. And you will be left asking – so soon?