04/12/2021
Are you struggling with your child and their advent calendar? You're not alone!
Young children have very immature brains. The frontal lobes of the brain, the parts responsible for something called 'executive functioning' are the most immature area. Executive functions include: behavioural control, emotion regulation, social skills, problem solving and impulse control. This part of the brain - and functions associated with it - don't mature until the late teens, into the twenties.
Advent calendars absolutely require mature executive function development. They require an understanding of the process of opening one door per day, they require an understanding of the social rules surrounding why it's not OK to open all the doors at once, they require impulse control (to not open the doors all at once) and they require emotion regulation when that is prevented. These are things that children really, really struggle with. Not because they are naughty, but because they are children.
Add to this, advent calendars involving chocolate bring a whole other degree of temptation, especially if these sorts of 'treats' are normally restricted in your child's diet. Because they aren't used to eating them intuitively, they don't know how to regulate them and once they start - they literally can't stop.
Does this mean you should avoid advent calendars until adulthood? No, of course not! But it does mean that you should reset your expectations about how your children will interact with them. What's the worst that would happen if they open all of the doors today?