This morning I took my husband and ds10 to an early morning train headed for the airport. They’ll be going to the US and will be away for a week. Ds10 has been so excited about this trip that he could hardly bear waking up each morning and hearing that it still wasn’t the day to leave.

To help him prepare for the trip and help him be aware of time, we made a calendar chart taped to the fridge. Every morning as soon as he woke up, before doing anything else he marked that day off with an X. Except today – he didn’t even think of marking today off since he was ready to go!

My husband made a separate chart for ds6, who naturally wanted one just like his big brother! We’re planning to have special time together and I’m looking forward to having this time with him. We talked about what he’d like to do, and he requested to go to the store together, and to a zoo that we visited recently. So we’re going to do that! I’m also thinking of taking him to a therapeutic donkey sanctuary that I was once invited to by the owner, if we can make the timing work. When it comes to children, less is more – I’ll wait until the day we have something planned to tell him about other plans.

Our six year old is very connected to ds10 and my husband, and we don’t anticipate it will be easy for him to be without them both at the same time. In order to help him have a sense of how much time is left until they come back, my husband took an idea from my daughter-in-law, and prepared five balloons (one for each day they won’t be here, not including the day they leave and come back). In each blown up balloon is a candy. They are taped to the fridge, and each day we’ll pop a balloon together.

Consistency is very important to children, and when there’s a change for them, helping create predictability and stability with something like a simple chart and balloon strategy helps them to feel secure and more easily emotionally navigate the changes they are experiencing.

You can create charts and routines for regular days; you don’t have to wait for a special event. Kids feel more secure knowing what is going to happen when, what follows what, what time meals will be, and what will be served for dinner. When our children were younger, our daily schedule, chore chart and weekly meal plan were always displayed on the front of our fridge.

As our children have gotten older and there are less people to keep on the same schedule, this has been less necessary and those charts have faded away. However, with the potential changes coming up for our family, posting a daily schedule and weekly meal plan will likely be making a comeback very soon.

Avivah