What December Means For Your Students Or Child

My Experience Of December

I had a middle-class privileged childhood. December was a magical month. The anticipation of Santa arriving and bringing presents, having 2 weeks away from school, and a potential family tropical vacation allowed for the magic to wash over me. Now that I’ve been a teacher for over three decades, I realize this is certainly not the case for thousands of children.

The Reality Of December For Some Students

The month of December can trigger a host of feelings for students far from what I experienced. Some students get anxious that being away from school for a long period of time is less than ideal as school may be their only safe space where they receive a warm building, food, and friendship.

Others get anxious as parental separation/divorce rates tend to increase during this season, leaving children feeling abandoned and unsure of the future.

Still others are anxious about the general tension that is created by a consumeristic approach to what once was a celebration based on religion.

When This Holiday Anxiety Starts

From my observations of elementary students, it seems to start as soon as the music teacher begins concert practices during music class. It often starts earlier than that at home with parents bringing out the decorations immediately after Thanksgiving and/or Halloween. It certainly starts earlier in stores and online marketplaces.

That means that children start receiving the message that something big is happening two months before it happens. This exhausting reality is why schools see a spike in student anxieties near the fiscal year-end and have to play the academic and social skills game to reset students in the new year.

The Impact The Break Has On Students

Research confirms that when students are not in school with regularly scheduled instruction, they tend to read less, practice and apply math skills less, and have fewer positive social interactions with their peers.

The levels of stress felt by both students and parents are palpable during the holiday season. The need for food banks and toy collections increases as December becomes a family's financial and emotional survival game to provide what has become an expected “experience” for the family.

After it is all over, people can often feel exhausted, unsatisfied and more anxious about the financial and emotional debt that was incurred in the process. By the time students find their way back to school in the new year, they, and their teachers, have to work hard to regain lost learning and lost academic and social routine. 

How We’re Here To Help

While the solutions to the stress felt by students and parents during this time are nuanced and wide-ranging, a way to reduce the academic disruption portion of the holiday season is to provide self-instructed remedial or enrichment learning activities that would benefit the students’ conceptual and skill development at home during the Christmas break.

This would also provide the student with a secondary opportunity for daily structure that would feel similar to actually being in school. If you want to add in the social dynamic portion, then have your child invite a classmate over and/or meet at the public library to tackle the learning activities together.

The unit and lesson plans in our K-6 Learning Library are designed for just this. They were created to foster confidence, proficiency, and self-efficacy. The best part is that you can edit these resources so that your child or students can focus on what they can do right now and build on it, rather than internalize that they are not performing at grade level.

All of our resources include engaging instructional videos, audio functions, and high-definition images. These resources can be used both digitally and non-digitally at home or at school.

If you want to fully preview all unit and lesson plans, you can do so on our Teachers Pay Teachers page!

If you have any questions about any of our products, then you can email me at hello@educationrocks.ca.

Thank you for reading this blog post on what December means for your student or child. I wish you and your child(ren) or students all the best during this time!