Commitment Five: Transition

After what might feel like forever, you’re finally reunited with the children you love. Stage Three, Returning, can be a long-awaited, wonderful reunion of joy, excitement and relief. However, it can also be an unexpected rocky period of challenge, difficulty and pain, especially after weeks or months away. And for some, returning can signal the start of yet another challenging period apart.

Unfortunately, ‘returning’ is not something that instantly – or effortlessly – happens, for example upon that first heart-melting hug with the kid/s you love. Returning is a transition, which requires as much discipline, energy and effort as the previous two stages apart and their associated four commitments. Depending on how long you’ve been away and the nature of your relationship with both the children you love and the caregiver/s left behind, new routines might need to be established and feelings addressed (including your own, those of the children you love, and those of the caregiver/s left behind). Perhaps contrary to expectations, during this period, you might feel like a stranger in the lives of the children you love, while they might feel, for example, cautious, insecure, indifferent, detached, disconnected, angry and even a little ‘organizationally confused’ if they’d taken on some of your duties around the house while you were away.

Commitment Five is, therefore, aptly named ‘transition’. Your primary focus during Transition should be to stay calm, ‘walk’ softly, set realistic expectations, communicate and do your best to enjoy being back with the children you love. Fortunately, children are resilient. And while being apart isn’t easy for anyone, with the right amount of love, affection and effort to stay connected while apart, they were born to both adapt and grow. Indeed, the success of your return will depend, in significant part, on the efforts you made during stages one and two of being apart and, more specifically, in Commitments One, Two, Three and Four. Your efforts to have stayed connected while apart will pay dividends upon your return.

Ideas For Action

A: Approach

Keep up with commitment one and stay anchored: The calmer you remain throughout this crucial transition period, the more you’ll maintain and strengthen those all-important connections with the children you love: which you so carefully fostered while apart. Give yourself room to be aware of and process your emotions in the most healthy manner possible. In addition to strengthening your connections with the kids you love, you’ll also model one of life’s most powerful skills for the children you love: staying calm.
Tread softly: Returning to the children you love requires a gentle approach, as well as a lot of patience, affection, positivity, listening and humour. Emotions – both yours and those of the children you love – can swing from joy and connection to anger and withdrawal faster than you might expect, especially if you’ve been apart for some time. So, take your time to catch up, stay positive, avoid criticism (and remember the five to one rule: five positives for every ‘negative’), model an accepting and non-judgemental demeanour, give space to the children you love if and when needed, and slowly ease back into positive discipline (as well as jobs around the house).
Set realistic expectations: we often expect that our return will be smooth, easy and joy-filled (including smiles, hugs, deep connections, quality time, cake (!), and celebrations). After all, the hardest part of being apart is over! … isn’t it?… While all of these things are indeed possible, and often the norm, as described above, returning is sometimes not as straightforward as you might expect. As with all three stages of being apart, change seldom comes easy. You may have adjustments to make; and so might the children you love, as well as the caregiver/s left behind. So, measure expectations (yours, the children you love and the caregiver’s left behind), hope for the best and be prepared for the unexpected.
Communicate: from the specifics of your arrival, to how/if you want your return to be celebrated, from where you’ve been and what you did (at an age appropriate level), to what the children you love have been doing and how they’ve changed; from what you’re feeling, to the emotions that the children you love are going through. Some of what needs to be said can be shared directly, some things might need to be shared through side-talk and in the course of some fun activities. Trust your gut, but don’t stop using your words. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

B: Having fun

Time your return: If at all possible, try to time your return at the start of a weekend and, where relevant to your personal circumstances and the time you’ve been apart, consider taking some extra time off, so you have more opportunity to reconnect with the children you love – while also ‘decompressing’.
Plan a celebration: from a simple ‘welcome committee’ at the airport to a special meal at home (welcome home sign and all!), to a more grandiose party with relatives and friends. Talk with the caregiver/s left behind before you arrive and plan something appropriate for everyone, and considering the length of time you’ve been apart.
Bring the children you love a gift: It doesn’t need to be lavish, extravagant, or expensive; after all, while it might not immediately feel like it, the gift they really want, is to see you again – and to reestablish a connection with you. But of course, they’d no doubt love a sweet, a small toy or a book. If you’re away often, for example on frequent short business trips, you might consider limiting the gift to a certain price (for example five USD), ensuring the gift is related to where you’ve been, or simply drawing something, or writing something, or making the gift a special desert upon your return.
With babies, just get involved: from changing diapers to feeding, from comforting to cuddling, from cleaning around the house to playing. And then, when you’re done with all of that, play some more! Don’t underestimate the importance of the little things, or your calm presence. Responding to the baby’s needs, with a smile and a soft voice, is perhaps one of the best things that you can do – for the baby you love, for you and for baby’s caregiver/s. This said, just being around goes a long way. So, roll up your sleeves, help out around the house, respond to the baby’s needs and play, play, play.
Spend special time with the kids you love, one on one: Go for a walk; go to the park; go to a cafe; catch a movie; or go to a bookstore (preferably with a cafe – and cake!). Ask the children you love what they’d like to do and follow their lead. But it doesn’t need to involve getting out and about, one of the best things that you can possibly do is to sit and play. If the children you like enjoy artwork, get colourful; if they like lego, rebuild your connected one block at a time; if they life running around outside, playing soccer or another game, get your hands (legs, knees, arms) dirty!
Do things as a/with the family: organise a special event to do with the whole family of the children you love. It could be as simple as a board game at home, or something more extravagant, like a movie outing, visiting a favourite museum, watching a match of your favourite sport on TV (with popcorn and all the trimmings) or at the pitch, going for a hike in a local park, or a day out at your favourite fun park.
Review your trip – make it educational – and hold a fun (!) test, with a small prize, e.g. a book about or small momento (like a key ring) from where you’ve been.
Ask the children you love to give you a ‘debrief’: ask to see school work, hear about extracurricular activities, ask about friendships, old and new. All without making the ‘debrief’ into an inquisition! Focus on listening and providing lots of encouraging words. You could ask the children you love to turn their debrief into a picture, a play, a song, or a simple conversation over some special one and one time (see above). If the children you love kept a box of special things to share with you upon your return, now is the time to review its contents and, in so doing, to reconnect.
Don’t over fill your calendar: you may have lots of people to see and places to go, but give yourself some time to relax and readjust, on your own and with the children you love. Ease back into your routines, and positive discipline, and give yourself a brief ‘time out’ if things don’t feel comfortable right away.

Featured image by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash