Half-term and the rest that isn't rest.

I want to talk about what rest actually means for a developing nervous system, because I think there is a large and consequential mismatch between what parents mean by 'rest' and what children's biology needs.

When parents say they want their children to rest during half-term, they usually mean: no school, no homework, less structured time. This is correct as far as it goes. The absence of the school schedule does allow the nervous system to relax from the specific demands of classroom work.

But the way we tend to fill the removed school schedule — with activities, outings, clubs, playdates, screentime, the general busy-ness of a managed holiday — is not restful in the neurological sense. It is a change of stimulation, not a reduction of it. The nervous system remains active and responsive throughout.

True neurological rest — the kind that restores the systems depleted by six weeks of school — requires two specific things: adequate sleep, and periods of unstimulated, unstructured time where the brain can enter the default mode network state I described in June. Both of these are easily disrupted during holidays.

Both of those rest states are easily disrupted during school holidays. That is the cost of the disruption, and it is a real cost worth naming.

Both of those rest states are easily disrupted during school holidays. That is the cost of the disruption, and it is a real cost worth naming.

That is a real cost worth naming.