Preparing your 4-7 Year old for their return to school during the Corona virus.

Play Healing Parent Podcast - Helping Busy Parents to Pause, Play and Connect in this Fast Paced Digital Age, with Debi John

 

Title: Preparing your 4-7 Year old for their return to school during the Corona virus.

About your host:

Debi is the founder of Play Healing and a mother of two teenage daughters. Debi coaches parents online and has featured on BBC Radio to talk about parenting, home schooling and preventing tech addiction. She has worked in Education with children aged 4-16 for over 20 years, performed as a musician for 25 years and studied a Post Grad in Therapeutic Play.

 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debi-john-159343a8/

 

Podcast Music: Written and performed by Debi John. Produced by the extremely gifted Paul Frazer. You can listen to the whole track here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RU6hw28SsY

Resources

 

SPECIAL BONUS - ebook containing a full transcript of this podcast can be found at: https://playhealing-bb694.gr8.com

 

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22 Screen Free Ways to Build Connection with your Tween/Teen - https://playhealing-tween.gr8.com

 

Play Healing website - https://www.playhealing.com/

 

Play Healing Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/playhealingofficial/

 

 

Show notes:

 

I’ve been working with a number of parents who are now thinking about their children transitioning back into school again, but are now faced with a whole new layer of fears to add to their already stressed out brains:

What if they go to hug another child who has the virus?

What if they have an accident and can’t be changed, due to social distancing?

What if my child wants to play with another child’s toy and it’s infected?

What if they need a hug?

 

Questions I never had to worry about when my eldest was starting school.

 

The first thing Debi suggests is her ever popular suggestion to PAUSE and look at how we are feeling as parents. If we are in an anxious state it will be very hard to feel relaxed enough to play, attune and connect with them.

 

Once we have grounded ourselves we can use Play to address some of the issues coming up for the child, whether that’s socially, emotionally, physically or academically.

 

Debi suggests the use of therapeutic stories including ‘While we can’t hug’ found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PnnFrPaRgY

From the creators of the internationally adored ‘The Hug,’ Eoin McLaughlin and Polly Dunbar. (Faber & Faber Publishing)

 

This could start a conversation about all the things they can still do with their friends and will help to keep things positive.

 

Other suggestions include Role Play, Puppets, Drawing and Nonsense Play.

 

Sponsors

 

Thanks to Habyts for being a sponsor of the Play Healing Parent Podcast.

 

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Thank you to the amazingly generous people who have donated to the podcast production via Go Fund Me and to Pete Sene who has been producing these podcasts with his amazing producer skills!