Half-term. What the break actually needs to be.

The first two days of a school break are almost always the hardest. This is so consistent that I've stopped being surprised by it and started planning for it. The child who has been holding it together through six weeks of school — managing social performance, academic effort, the physical demands of six hours of structured time — arrives at the break and does what the body has been waiting to do: falls apart slightly.

The falling apart is the recovery. The irritability, the sleeping longer than usual, the apparent boredom that produces complaints, the complete inability to decide what to do when nothing is required — these are all the released tension of the term. The system that has been running at effort has the effort removed and takes a moment to recalibrate.

Parents who try to pack the first two days of half-term with activities are inadvertently preventing this recalibration. The child can't rest if the stimulation continues. Rest requires the absence of requirement. The half-term that works is the one that starts with two days of almost nothing, not the one that starts with a trip. The system that has been running at sustained effort has the effort removed and takes time to recalibrate. That recalibration IS the recovery.