Well, the Christmas break is over, I hope you had a nice holiday period. Now it's time to get back to our daily routine, in this month of January.

How well are you coping with the holidays ending? I have to admit I usually find it a bit hard, especially when, like this year, there´s been a trip to Spain involved. Travelling disrupts our rhythms big time; this is very obvious with children, and it may not be that obvious with adults, but that doesn't mean we're not affected. Granting ourselves an adaptation period can help a lot.

And that´s where the word from this post´s title comes into play: re-education. Let me explain.

My three daughters were born in Ireland, and with both sides of their family being from Spain, they´ve spend all their lives travelling regularly for holidays, since they were babies. They´re real pros at this stage! Leaving aside the two years of the pandemic, every summer except one we´ve travelled to Spain for several weeks during the summer break, and we´ve spent many Christmases over there too, usually splitting our time between Cáceres and León. Now that they´re older, everything is much easier (Irene is 17 years old, Alicia is 14, and Eva, 9), but especially when they were little, their routines, timetables, meals, etc. just went out of control. .And it couldn´t be any other way: on the one hand, they were not at home, they were in different places doing different things, with different (usually fewer) rules, and on the other hand, they had lots of attention, cuddles and presents from grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins... So as a result, as days went by, things got messier, and their behaviour inevitably started getting worse and worse.

Then, once back home in Dublin, we used to start what their dad and I called "the re-education period": a few days to re-establish our house rules and get the girls to adapt to their routine again, which often ended up costing them a few tantrums and a handful of visits to the "thinking spot".

As I said, things are much better now that the girls have grown up; the level of re-education needed is nowhere near where it used to be. But there´s still a need for an adaptation period, and unfortunately, sometimes I forget about it and then bump into it head first, like this weekend for example... I realized not only Eva needed a bit of re-education; I needed it too.

Re-education to change from the Christmassy vibes to the seriousness and discipline of January. From the quietness of family time, walks around the city´s old quarter and good meals already prepared and served to the daily hustle of working, organizing around the house, preparing meals, and trying to carve out time for exercise, social life and personal projects. From "holiday" mode to "always on the go" mode.

Just thinking about it all stresses me out, and makes me want to procrastinate. I know from experience there´s no way I can get even close to achieving the number of things my head says I have to do. So I set the intention to be patient with myself and prioritize what´s important, including taking care of myself, because if I don´t take care of myself, I won´t have energy left to do any of the other things on my list.

What about you? Do you need re-education? What can help you in this transition? How can you make it easier for yourself?