Just imagine one day you wake up and put the milk up for boiling and suddenly you see that you left the door open and your dog ran away. You run behind the dog, fetch it and bring it back only to see that the milk you kept for boiling has spilled all over the kitchen! While cleaning it, you remember that you have an assignment to do, but then you hear construction noises in front of your house. When such unpredictable things happen in life, it is normal for anyone to get anxious and irritated, especially when one has not maintained a daily routine.
Similarly, unpredictability affects children too. If they don’t know the next activity that they must perform, it will be natural for them to feel anxious when a new task is put in front of them. What comes next is chasing kids, calming them down, and forcing them to do tasks that are crucial for them or that they actually enjoy doing. But if kids have a daily routine, they won’t feel uncomfortable shifting from one task to another. Hence neither parents nor kids have to deal with the anxiety and tantrums that follow unpredictability.
Why a daily routine is important for children?
Read on to know more about why maintaining a daily routine is important for your child.
1. Teaches kids organization skills
Following a daily routine teaches children organization skills at an early age.
Routines are basically various tasks and activities arranged in a specified order within a specific interval of the time period. When children follow routines, they learn to complete tasks in a specified time with efficiency. They learn to divide and organize the work over the given time span and thus become disciplined.
2. Helps children save energy and be productive
If your children don’t follow a fixed schedule, you have to run behind them to feed them, make them do homework, tuck them in bed, prevent them from using phones, and more. In all this, a huge amount of energy is wasted, which makes you and your child tired and less productive.
But if there is a fixed routine, children prepare themselves for the next activity without you having to run behind them every time. They perform the task sequence-wise and find the whole process peaceful and fun since there is no one pestering them. By following a daily routine, children save energy and stay productive.
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3. Makes children independent
Spoon-feeding children and performing half of their tasks doesn’t help them in any way. When children have fixed routines where they already know the sequence of tasks they are supposed to perform, they simply perform them as their responsibility. With daily routines, children learn to do things on their own without much of your intervention. They become independent and self-reliant and gain confidence which further helps children develop their personalities.
4. Establishes good habits
If the routine demands children to play and exercise every morning, they would develop a love for games and might become good at sports. If the routine is that you read a novel to them during bedtime, children will develop the habit of reading novels. If the routine asks children to help you in preparing food, they would grow up into great spouses who would normalize helping their partners with household work. Routine teaches them the importance of performing a task daily, which in turn establishes good habits. Good habits learnt at young age help in the long run.
Conclusion: Daily routine is important for children
As anything unknown or unpredictable is scary for adults, so it is for children. Routines thus become very important to provide stability, calmness, patience, and security to children. It helps them become self-reliant and develop good habits. It soothes the family environment where there is no more chasing and yelling. It builds children’s personalities and strengthens family bonds.
