Someone said to us 'it wouldn't be furlough if you weren't exhausted'.
Funny thing about exhaustion... you don't often recognize it until you receive rest.
We're very thankful for the house we're living in because it offers us some rest from running around.
This post however is for parents of young children.
We have been warned and have in fact gone through training and counciling for our kids and how to watch for signs of .... travel stress.
In the past 24 hours both of our children have had uncharacteristic 'melt downs'. Anger, tears, shouting, bargaining, extreme selfishness.... and then they fall asleep.
I'm not proud of their behavior, and my response in discipline and punishment doesn't alter if they break the rules...
but we are definitely aware that with each transition there comes some level of emotional adjustment on the kids.
So today I sat down with my son and asked him 'how does it feel when...' type of questions.
-He enjoys going from place to place. He feels sad if he stays alone in one place for too long.
-He likes the house we're in but he likes our house in PNG too, because it has his own room and it feels... RIGHT... this place is very nice according to him, but doesn't feel like 'home'.
-He doesn't get sad when we have to go someplace, but he gets sad when he realizes he won't see someone for a while.
This is the trigger point for his meltdowns I realized today. When he's faced with saying 'goodbye' for a prolongued period of time to his close friends or close cousins, and knowing he won't see them for a few weeks.... THAT is the trigger.
I'm currently trying to figure out ways to help alleviate this stress on them.
Today my 11 yr old daughter said 'I can't handle all this moving around, it's too much for me.' Well, admittedly, she's a bit of a drama queen and probably heard that on a t.v. show somewhere, but we're still digging into it.
There is FAR more transition during furlough than there is in moving to PNG. Furlough we are finding is more energy consuming.
