After wonderful weekends away and holidays with some of my favourite people and much needed time away from the business, I often find it difficult to ‘transition’ back into business mode. Whilst I really need these breaks, stopping completely is always scary because I know that when I have to return I’ll find it difficult to get started again and feel overwhelmed and anxious for the first 24 hours.
The feeling of doing nothing at all while I am away is lingering and blissfully overpowering because they are normally safe and easy places where my brain can just relax, no pressures and I am much more in control of what I am doing. I’m sharing this with you because I bet ALL of you can relate to the feeling when you are back from a holiday or something you have loved doing and then have to come back to reality? It’s not a nice feeling and some of us cope better than others and some find it’s easier to transition than others, and as adults we develop resilience and strategies and ways to cope. Children and young people find this more tricky because they don’t have the experience to draw on, especially if they have some kind of trauma in their past, or are experiencing a learning difference or have a neurodiverse profile.
TRANSITION is a word used in education – the BIG one being transition from primary to secondary school, or the move from one year to another. There are actually LOADS of daily transitions, leaving home to get to school, between lessons, between teachers, between break and lunchtime. All these seemingly everyday tiny transitions can build up to create what, from the outsider, can look like a meltdown, or temper tantrum or emotionally challenging situation, often seen as ‘behavioural!’ It’s actually just a reaction to stress and someone communicating they are overwhelmed and anxious and don’t know where to start or how to communicate that they don’t have any strategies to support them in getting started. Often these transition are mentioned more and supported proactively if a pupil has a learning difference, because for a whole host of reasons they find this moving from one state to another more challenging and FIGHT or FLIGHT kicks in quicker!
So my message to you is… if you can relate to this back from holiday feeling… you can relate to how a child feels when they don’t seem to be ‘coping with school!’
Hopefully this will help you understand their reactions a little more and support you in putting some strategies in place to help them move from one activity to another more effortlessly.
Need help… drop me a DM and I can send you the link to book a consultation!
In the meantime, I’m happy because I have ticked the first thing off my list this morning… VISIBILITY and social Media presence because when we feel in a state of overwhelm our natural reaction is to make ourselves invisible ‘FREEZE!’ and hope no one notices us… great for keeping me safe… not so great in the business world!