I think that this is a significant piece of advice for tired parents or indeed tired teachers. As a teacher, I would often find that term started off with a feeling that teaching was the best job in the world! However, after a few weeks, tiredness would set in, emotions would begin to run high and sometimes it would be all too easy to completely over react to a situation.

This reminds me of an interaction I heard on a train the other day. A young mother with 3 young children, yelled at her eldest child, probably about 5, and took away the device he was playing happily on. This made the situation worse because the little boy now had very little to do – being his age and stage made it difficult to focus on anything and remain quiet.

The idea of being able to sleep on things and then respond the following day I think is a good one. As we all know, our emotions can be very strong which can lead us to over reacting and responding in inappropriate ways. I think as we approach the end of the academic year this message is apt for teachers and particularly those teaching young people who are leaving their schools: as teachers get more tired, pupils that are soon to leave become more of a challenge. We want to send people on their way in to the big wide world with a sense of positivity rather than the opposite.

Let’s do our best to keep our emotions in check!