The best investment I have ever made is a $7.99 wall calendar for my four-year-old daughter. Each month we write in the important events coming up. We mark shabbat and any days off from school. And each night, she crosses off that day. She has learned the days of the week and she has developed her own countdown to events (“6 days until my half-birthday...5 days until my half birthday…”) This past week, she wrote “HUG” on March 28th, because her bubbie and sabba will be 2 weeks past their second vaccine dose, and she can hug them for the first time in a year.
I won’t lie - even writing to tell you that my daughter is going to hug her fully-vaccinated grandparents feels wrong. It seems I should feel ashamed for breaking the rules or fearful that we are putting her grandparents at risk. It doesn’t matter that the CDC has explicitly told us that we can do this. Our brains are pattern seeking, and for the last 53 weeks, our patterns have been to maintain distance, to refrain from touch, and to keep our grandparents safe. Here at school, we have been able to change protocols as the county moves from the purple tier to the red tier, and when we implement a new rule, even one that’s absolutely allowed by the county - like socializing in increased pod sizes - I need to stop myself from separating everyone back into their smaller cohorts.
Our muscle memory is strong, and it has become accustomed to specific practices over the last year. But now, as vaccines become more available, as COVID rates decrease, and the rules change, I have been thinking: How do we develop new patterns and habits in our lives? How do we help our children develop new patterns and habits? And how do we intentionally choose the habits that we want to build while refraining from rebuilding the habits we’d rather leave behind?
I wish it were as easy as waking up one day and deciding that a habit is going to change in order for that practice to be a pattern in our lives (my pants would fit much more comfortably if that were so!). But pattern-seeking is hard wired into our brains. In his book The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer explains that pattern-seeking was essential in evolution -- our ancestors, who were hunters and gatherers and nomads, needed to develop pattern-seeking brains for survival, and we are the descendents of those who were best at finding patterns. So our brains grab onto patterns and are reticent to give them up. Phillipa Lally, a researcher at University College London, found that on average, it takes more than 2 months for a new behavior to become automatic, though it can take anywhere from 18 days to 254 days, depending on the person, the behavior and the circumstance.
In other words, we’re looking at somewhere from 2-8 months for hugging grandparents, for dining inside restaurants, for long, leisurely, kid-filled shabbat lunches, for the rhythms of post-pandemic life to feel normal again. And while hugging grandparents might be an easier habit to develop - there is a lot of reward and incentive built in - there are other habits that will be more challenging or ones we are less likely to easily give up as vaccines become available, as science evolves, and as the rules for safety change. I think there are two important steps we need to consider:
First, determine which patterns you are actually interested in changing. We need to be thoughtful about which habits we do want to build, and it’s ok to say we are not ready to build other ones yet. I am ready to begin the habit of hugging my in-laws, for example, but I am not ready to begin the habit of being inside a heavily crowded room with unmasked people. And each of our boundaries are different. Some of us still have our kids learning at home and are carefully distancing from anyone outside our household, and some of us are eagerly dining out indoors. We don’t need to be in agreement - but we need to each be intentional individually with what we are willing to do right now and what we are not. This will help our brain as we develop new patterns of behavior.
And then, use self-talk to decrease any anxiety associated with changing these patterns. Something interesting we have observed, which we did not expect, is how much harder it is for older students to return to school than younger kids. Our kindergarteners bounced out of cars, and there were NO tears on the first day of in-person school (this is unheard of) whereas by the time the fourth graders returned, anxiety wafted off them like heat from a sidewalk on a steamy summer day. For 50 weeks, at that point, their pattern had been to learn from home and to see a small, select group of people. Being at school was not what their brain expected to experience, and their nervous system kicked into survival mode. As we help all of our children develop new patterns and habits, at all ages, it is important that we talk to them about what to expect, what they will see, what they might feel. While our older children have outgrown Daniel Tiger, there is wisdom for all ages in the song “when we do something new, let’s talk about what we’ll do.”
While these lessons feel really important in this moment, as the rules of our world literally change each day, these are lessons that we can apply at any point in life. Whether navigating a shifting relationship, trying to develop a new health habit, or outlining a goal you want to achieve, we all have times when we need to develop new habits and patterns. And knowing that we can name those patterns, and talk ourselves through them, is an essential life skill for ourselves and for us to teach our children.
Change is hard. It’s disregulating and anxiety producing and takes determination and practice. But luckily, while our brains seek patterns and rely on habits and muscle memory, our brains are also adaptable. So when March 28th comes and it is our moment to hug, I am going to acknowledge any feelings of shame or fear in the moment, I am going to remind myself of what to expect, and then I am going to squeeze as tight as I can.
