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Rookie Mom

Don't let Monday ruin your Sunday afternoons

By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH
Published November 13, 2005

Now that we have turned the clocks back, the days are shorter and darkness seems to set in especially early on Sundays. About 4 p.m. or so the weekend starts fading into the sunset, and many of us face the onset of the Sunday blues.

I know a lot of people - children and adults - get that same heavy, gloomy feeling on Sunday afternoons and evenings. But until recently I didn't know there was an official name for it. Then a few weeks ago I came across a cute book titled The Sunday Blues: A book for schoolchildren, schoolteachers, and anybody else who dreads Monday mornings by Neal Layton.

Even when I didn't have an especially great weekend or a really tough week ahead at school or work, I always hated seeing Sunday afternoon fade into Sunday night.

People around the country tune in to public radio each Sunday afternoon to hear Garrison Keillor's long running show A Prairie Home Companion. But if I get in the car and hear his folksy, Midwestern voice, I have a visceral reaction and switch the station immediately. I don't have anything against Keillor or his stories and music. It's just that the sound of his voice reminds me that the weekend is over and I'm already overdue to get everything geared up and ready for the coming week.

The theme music for Bonanza triggered the Sunday blues for Harold Koplewicz, director of the child study center at New York University's School of Medicine.

"On Sunday evening when Bonanza's theme song came on I got a lump in my throat," he wrote in an e-mail to me. "Not because the Cartwrights were a dysfunctional family (five men living alone on a ranch) but because I was uncomfortable about going to school the next day. I started wishing for snow and it was April."

Koplewicz said that those of us who get these feelings on Sundays suffer from a mild version of separation anxiety disorder.

"Sunday night precipitates the anticipation of the beginning of the school and work week, which means separation from one's home and family," he said. "The Sunday blues are common and unpleasant but not serious if they don't cause distress and dysfunction. If you (or your child) can get to sleep and get up on Monday morning and attend school and work," it's not necessary to get outside help.

If you or your child has nausea or headaches on Sunday night and Monday and difficulty starting the week, he suggests getting into a routine that is settling and calming for Sunday evening. Let kids watch a favorite TV show or have a special reading time, or herbal tea or warm milk might help. Also, try thinking about something positive to look forward to in the coming week.

Ruth Peters, a clinical psychologist in Clearwater who specializes in treating children, suggests coming up with a special family treat on Sunday evenings so they become something to look forward to. Maybe make ice cream sundaes (what a fitting name) or cook a special meal.

But don't make it too much of a good thing, she cautions. You can't give your kid a pony every week just because it's Sunday night.

When my husband was growing up in New York City, his family had a Sunday afternoon tradition of eating at restaurants representing different nationalities. One week it would be Indian; the next it might be Vietnamese.

They also had a strict rule that nobody went out on Sunday nights. (They went to the restaurants in the afternoon.) This helped everybody get homework done and be ready to face the week. To this day, I may be the one frantically switching Garrison Keillor's radio show, but he bristles at any mention of a Sunday night cookout or movie.

My friend Helen Marger, a St. Petersburg mother of two, remembers always having simple Sunday dinners, such as breakfast foods, because her family had such a big lunch. She also remembers the downside of Sunday nights.

"My sisters and I still talk about how we had that sick-to-the-stomach-gotta-go-back-to-school feeling on Sundays. We watched The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday night," she recalled. "Then when the fireworks came on at the end of the show it was like, Okay, it's really over, it's really happening, got to go."

Another friend of mine said he hates Sunday afternoons because come Monday there's a mountain of responsibilities. He used to go to his office for a couple of hours on Sunday to face the music and get a little of the Monday morning work out of the way. At least then the office was quiet and he could feel he was getting ahead of things instead of just pedaling fast to catch up.

In this current age of technology, he doesn't go into the office as much on Sundays but does make a point of dealing from home with all the e-mails that piled up over the weekend.

The Sunday blues are bad during the darker days of fall and winter. But probably the worst Sundays are those on which we return from a long weekend or week's vacation.

The best way to deal with this is - I hate to tell you - to come home from that vacation late Saturday or early Sunday. At least then you have plenty of time to start the laundry and get the homework done instead of starting at 9 p.m. Sunday.

If you're reading this over breakfast, enjoy your day.

If it's 4 p.m., don't you need to put down the paper and get going on that laundry?

You can reach Katherine Snow Smith by e-mail at snowsmith@verizon.net or write Rookie Mom, St. Petersburg Times, PO Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

[Last modified November 13, 2005, 03:00:43]