Have you noticed that your child often asks, “ What are we doing today/ tomorrow? ” ? Sometimes we are so busy making sure our daily plans and responsibilities are sorted that we can forget to take time to explain it to our children.
The reality is that sometimes plans change and we can’t always prevent that but wherever possible helping our children to preview their days is so helpful to them, it is really soothing to their nervous systems and is a great strategy for helping them prepare for their school days.
You can use ‘The Story of Tomorrow’ with younger children right up to age 9/10 they really benefit from you describing the key steps in their day pictorially, a little like describing a scene from a film. Mention things they can conjure in their minds for example “we will all sit and have breakfast together and you will have your blue egg cup and your juice”, “We will go to school in my car tomorrow and we will listen to your favourite song”.
If your routine is going to be different you can describe those differences, again using images much like a reel of a movie scene e.g., “you are going to be picked up by Tom’s Mum, that’s right she wears that red coat, and they have a green car”. You can involve them in the story by asking one or two questions like “what do you like to do when you first get in the classroom?” and have them describe where they may go/sit etc.
Just describing a few key points in the story of tomorrow is enough, they may become overwhelmed if you go into too much detail or too far ahead, you will soon see what works best for your child.
I have completed training with Kim John-Payne, MD from Simplicity Parenting, he has a wonderful podcast series and in this 10-minute episode he focuses on the topic of the ‘story of tomorrow’. Check it out if you would like to know more about doing this with your child:
