Rebranding Childhood®: 4 things children need instead of New Years Resolutions

Holding Children Steady Without Resolutions

As the year winds down, something familiar shows up in homes, classrooms, and play spaces everywhere.

Children become louder. Shorter-tempered. More distracted. Sleep gets wobbly. Big feelings spill out over small things. Routines that worked for months suddenly fall apart.

This isn’t misbehavior.
This is what I like to call end-of-year fever.

In my over two decades of coaching children, I have seen what happens at this time of the year.  I know that children feel the shift long before us adults name it. Calendars change. Energy changes. Grown-ups talk about “next year,” “fresh starts,” and “doing better.” Even when we try to keep things light, kids sense the pressure in the air.

As a Play Based Coach, this is not the moment to tighten control, or to rush into goal-setting and New Year’s resolutions. It’s a moment to slow down, soften expectations, and offer something far more regulating: play, presence, and permission to land.

What End-of-Year Fever Really Is

End-of-year fever isn’t excitement alone. It’s accumulated nervous system load.

Children have:

• Held it together through months of expectations

• Adapted to schedules, transitions, and social demands

• Absorbed adult stress about deadlines, holidays, and “what’s next”

By December, their systems are tired. Let's face it, so are ours as adults! I don't know about you, but I need a rest!

When children (or adults...):

• Act silly or reckless

• Resist routines

• Regress emotionally

• Seem “unmotivated” or “checked out”

They are not falling behind. They are tired and dysregulated. They are asking for completion, not improvement. What they need from us as Play Based Coaches is permission to pause. 

Why We Skip New Year’s Resolutions for Children

The adult world loves a reset button. Children’s nervous systems do not. New Year’s resolutions, even well-meaning ones, often carry hidden messages:

• “You weren’t enough last year.”

• “You need fixing.”

• “Try harder.”

For a child already stretched thin, resolutions add pressure at the exact moment they need relief. I know from my perspective that offering children a moment to pause and recalibrate at the end of the year is far more beneficial than using the time to shame, name and blame for what wasn't, what hasn't and what should've!

This is where my Play Based Coaching model takes a different stance:

• Growth emerges from safety, not scrutiny

• Change happens through experience, not promises

• Regulation comes before reflection

Instead of asking children to do better, we give permission for children to slow down, to reflect and we ask them:

“What makes you happy right now?”

4 Things Children Need Instead of New Years Resolutions 

1. We Lower the Bar (On Purpose)

End-of-year is not the time to introduce new rules, goals, or expectations. It is the time to:

• Shorten activity time

• Expect less emotional regulation

• Allow more movement, mess, and humour

Lowering the bar isn’t giving up. It’s protecting the relationship whether you are a parent, teacher, coach or therapist.  Children don’t need us to push them into January. They need us to walk them there gently.

2. We Use Play as a Nervous System Reset

Play is how children process unfinished emotional business. At the end of the year, prioritise:

• Repetitive play

• Silly play

• Role reversal (child is the “teacher,” “parent,” or “coach”)

• Physical play that involves pushing, pulling, crashing, and building

These forms of play discharge stress and restore a sense of agency, without needing children to explain how they feel.

If a child (or their parent) seems “stuck,” don’t ask more questions. They need more play.

3. We Focus on Completion, Not Improvement

Instead of “What do you want to be better at next year?”
Try:

• “What was hard this year?”

• “What was fun?”

• “What are you glad is over?”

Completion might look like:

• Recreating favourite games from the year

• Drawing or building “the year” and knocking it down

• Telling stories about silly or difficult moments

Closure helps children integrate experiences so they can move forward without dragging emotional weight behind them. They need to feel like a chapter is ending but without the pressure of being better or doing better. 

4. We Model Rest Instead of Reinvention

Children learn more from what we embody than what we say. When adults rush to reinvent themselves every January, children learn that rest is only earned after productivity and that they are never quite done.

As Play Based Coaches, we model:

• Pausing

• Reflecting without judgment

• Ending cycles with care

We show children that:

You don’t need a resolution to be worthy of a new year. What children need is unconditional, unconventional, upbeat, upliftment! What our global network of Play Based Coaches call our 4 U's.  

Entering the New Year Without a Resolution

As an organisation committed to Rebranding Childhood®, at Kids Life Studio®, we understand the value of not setting New Years Resolutions. Instead of resolutions, we carry forward:

• Relationships over results

• Regulation over rigidity

• Play over pressure

For children, the best start to a new year is not a promise to be better but it’s the felt sense that they are already enough.

Let’s end this year by letting things settle.
Let’s begin the next one by meeting children exactly where they are.

That’s how real growth begins.

Why we’re closing our office for an end of year break

As part of our philosophy to practice good self care, our team is taking a break from today! We are closing our office from 23 December 2025 till 2 January 2026.

Not because we’re tired (well maybe just a little LOL!), but because ending well matters to us! We are excited to press pause and share time over the festive season with our families and friends. 

We believe children deserve us to role model and:

• Respect limits

• Honour transitions

• Choose rest without apology

Closing our office for 10 days is an act of alignment as to our highest value at Kid Life Studio®. It says:

• Play doesn’t thrive in burnout

• Therapeutic work requires replenishment

• Growth includes knowing when to stop

When we reopen in 2026, we won’t arrive with a list of fixes or changes or new anything... We’ll arrive with curiosity, steadiness, and room to play as a Kids Life Studio® Head Office Team. We have so many successes from 2025 still left to celebrate and so many exciting opportunities for 2026 left to integrate and we need to nurture and rest for all of this! 

If you would like to start your training, you can enrol right here on our Kids Life Coach Academy website! No need to wait for us to return from our holiday! Our December special still applies and you can enrol in your Kids Life Coach Certification self paced training package by 31 December 2026 by clicking on this link to take advantage of a massive saving of £2650! 

Happy festive season to you and yours if you are celebrating! I look forward to seeing you in 2026!