Kids need to get out of their comfort zone

The other day I got a comment on this post saying that the reason why Oliver has “bad days” is because I’m not giving him what he needs: routine and “know-what-comes” days.

Luckily, I’m a confident mother and I observe my kids enough to know that’s not true (but I’d anyway invite all parents to always ask questions instead of expressing judgements).

Oliver has been this way since always, he’s similar to me: he sometimes gets up on the wrong foot and we all have to accept it and navigate through crisis as best as we can till the end of the day. He had bad days in Marbella, too, where we had a 100% predictable life and routine.

That’s why, apart from my personal opinion on the benefit of routine for children (we keep a routine even when traveling around my he works and my kids are always in bed at 7pm), I know that routine has nothing to do with Oliver’s bad days.

If anything, not having stability and missing friends is making him come out of his shell.

On the last day of nursery in Singapore, I asked him if he wanted to say goodbye to somebody (his answer had always been no till that day): he went back inside to a GROUP of friends, and said: “Bye bye! I’m leaving Singapore. *pause* I’m taking a plane”. Then they hugged and parted ways.

I was speechless, and it made me emotional: even though I’m a confident mother, not one day goes by that I don’t ask myself how my choices will affect my children.

But truth is, that was yet another confirmation since we left for this travel, that children need to get out of their comfort zone as much as adults do.