Wednesday Well Being Message 9.9.20
The Importance of Routine
Leisa Randall
Principal Educational Psychologist
In last week’s Wednesday Well Being bulletin, I wrote about uncertainty and how we deal with it. The area of focus for today’s Well Being bulletin is the importance of establishing routine.
Routines are important to humans. We need them as babies and developing young people in order to help us make sense of the world, to learn to trust what is happening in the world and to feel secure with others. Some people may have found they developed new routines during lockdown which quickly became the way they lived their lives. There is a process of mourning for what has been lost which might be manifested in lamenting the queues at the supermarket, or the mandatory wearing of face masks in shops, and simultaneously, an adaptation to and adoption of a new way of life.
When children do not have routine, or clear, consistent and contingent care-giving their developing brains find it hard to deal with the unpredictability. This can result in attachment disorders. I am interested in the importance of routine as a psychologist, an educator and also as a parent. We had a new routine as a family during lockdown which was to play a board game together after dinner each night. This has resulted in me learning a lot about Warhammer (youngest 15 year old) and revisiting the joys of Snakes and Ladders (eldest 16 year old).
As a primary school teacher, I was always fascinated by the process of establishing a class identity and new routines and rituals for each new class at the start of a session or a new term, or a new week, or a new day. I can’t remember the all of the content of the curriculum I taught my Year 2/3 class now, some 20 years later, but I can recall some of the routines the children and I established together to work, think and play as a class team. They were simple things like a simple consistent greeting at the door of the classroom each day on arrival, and a process for moving furniture when the pupils were doing specific tasks. When I observe classes as an Educational Psychologist, I often see original and unique traditions that allow teachers and pupils to interact in a whole class way which convey reliability, safety and trust.
This reminds me of a school I knew well overseas, where the Head teacher stood at the entrance of the building every morning to shake hands and say good morning to each and every pupil as they arrived. Shaking hands is no longer in our toolbox of social interaction skills because of COVID, unfortunately, and we have to find other ways to convey those messages of welcome, trust, connectivity and support. A smile is a much underrated non-verbal which does this well. If you are familiar with Zoom or TEAMs meetings you may have become aware of the ‘resting face’ of yourself or of colleagues. Not everyone’s ‘resting face’ is a smile. It’s worth being aware of your own ‘resting face’ so you can make sure you are regularly and frequently ‘dosing‘ those around you with frequent non-verbal messages to convey warmth and welcome, such as a simple smile.
Coming back to school, rediscovering routine and structure, connecting with others in classes and finding a new ‘groove’ for Monday-to Friday life will be especially important to children and young people this session. Routine can be healing and helpful in and of itself. We have a chance to establish new routines, and create new traditions with each new class. Routine tells us and others ‘You are safe’. And this question is the big important one that children subconsciously ask themselves all the time. They may not know why or be able to express it but feeling unsafe will impact their physiology and their behaviour. Routine makes children feel secure. Even my teenage boys notice and comment, if I don’t say the same thing (‘Another Happy Day Tomorrow’) when they go to bed each night.
What routines do you have in your life in the morning, at bedtime? How do these support you and tell you what you have to do next, how do they signal that you are safe, that things are within your control?
What routines have you established for and with your students. Are the routines consistently applied? Are pupils clear about them? If they forget them, why do they forget? Some routines can be invisible and taken for granted e.g. partner makes cup of tea each morning which tells you it’s time to get up.
Routine is important as it generates in us a knowledge of what to expect, a predictability which allows us to develop trust of the world and of others. Without it we can feel insecure and unsafe within the environment and with others. This is especially the case in learning environments because learning is a risky business, particularly if you are an adolescent growing through the sometimes torturous process of identity formation. You have to get things wrong, often publicly. You have to learn from your mistakes and redo things, you have to admit there are things you don’t understand and ask for help over and over again. I had a Chemistry teacher who patiently revisited dynamic equilibrium for me more than 20 times way back in 1982, never once making me feel more stupid or incompetent than I already felt about not being able to retain the concept. Learning is risky, and learners are constantly being assessed as a normal and natural part of teaching. It has to happen, so we need to make it happen in a safe environment with adults we can trust. Routine promotes that.
With routine, we can encourage young people to develop their sense of personal agency. This is as important a predictor of successful recovery as connectedness and relationships. Personal agency, in my view, is a much under-rated notion. It has perhaps been overshadowed by the drive for promoting self-esteem.