Four Ways to Help Your Kids Cope With Change and Uncertainty
Sheltering-in-place is bringing out the best and worst of all of us: teachers, parents, and kids alike. Kids especially do not have the emotional experience to understand how to navigate change this dramatic and are looking to the adults in their life to learn how to cope. While you may feel frustrated, anxious or short-tempered because you are coping yourself, how you handle this quarantine will inevitably shape how your kids will navigate this and any future life obstacles. As a teacher, I have helped many kids and parents navigate change and here are 4 of the most effective tools.
As you are sheltering-in-place, it is likely that you are seeing your child at both their very best and worst. Pancake making dance parties spiral into catastrophic meltdowns. Discussions between siblings devolve into the kinds of battles that Marvel movies are made of. You find yourself teaching the best math lesson that has ever been taught when suddenly, and for no known reason, your child is screaming at you to stop ruining their life.
Sound familiar?
Believe me—as teachers, we see and feel this daily. Maybe the meltdown comes because of a change in routine. Maybe it’s because a student (or, three!) has had enough writing for the day. Perhaps it’s because they would just rather be anywhere else than where they are.
And, in today’s COVID climate, it could simply be that they miss the way life used to be.
A sentiment I think we can all relate to.
But, as hard as this new world circumstance is on you and me, it’s even harder on your child. You and I have weathered plenty of storms in our lives—job changes, breakups, illnesses, the loss of friendships—the list goes on. And, while sheltering-in-place and isolating ourselves from our usual social interactions is entirely unchartered territory for all of us, as adults we have access to a memory bank full of coping strategies to draw upon, while your child does not. Perhaps they have lived through divorce or grieved the loss of a grandparent, either of which is clearly jarring and not to be discounted, but the absolute disconnection they are now experiencing is entirely new.
As a teacher, I always anticipated the difficulty that came with routine changes. I knew that when I swapped class schedules, changed my hair color, or altered the date of a class party, there would inevitably be backlash from a handful of kiddos. I still have former students who call me by my maiden name because the married moniker just doesn’t feel right to them.
I tend to find change jarring and can absolutely relate to resistance.
But, as the captain of my classroom, I knew that how I reacted and responded to change—whether I saw it coming or not—would mold and shape how my students perceived it.
If I let them see me sweat, meltdown, throw a fit or lose my cool, then I was modeling to them that they should do the same.
Now, let me be clear:
Is it okay to cry? Yes.
Is it acceptable to be unhappy and frustrated when we are thrown a curveball? Definitely.
Is anger an appropriate feeling when things don’t go as we intended them to? Surely.
Are we going to have moments when we are anxious, impatient, and flat out annoyed? Absolutely! We are human after all!
Our kids benefit from seeing vulnerability as a necessary part of healthy communication and resolution.
But we also need to be acutely aware that we are our kids’ point of reference. They mirror what we do, what we say, and how we say it.
How you are handling this quarantine is shaping how your kids will navigate this and any future life obstacles.
Here are a few ways that I approach change and crisis with my students:
Talk about it.
I’ve never shied away from using “I” language to talk to students about feelings. “I am feeling angry”; “I am feeling disappointed.” I always follow those statements with specific reasons for my feelings. Maybe it’s frustration over a poor choice that they made. Maybe I am irritated because a lesson that I was really excited about landed like a lead balloon. Even now in the COVID crisis, I am honest—“I am really struggling with the fact that we’re not in school together. I miss everyone and our daily routines.”
When talking with your kids, use “I” language so that they learn how to attach emotion-specific words to their feelings. Coach them in qualifying those mindsets so that you can understand where they are coming from and respond specifically.
Take a time out.
So often we want to be the loudest voice in the room—have the last word. But, when it comes to frustrations hitting a boiling point, less is more. There have been many scenarios when I would need to address a student’s reaction or response to a particular situation, but instead of us both approaching it fired up and angry, I would give us time to level out.
Some scenarios need to be tackled in the moment (blatant disrespect or physical aggression, for example), but if you are both coming to a head over a grammar assignment or their lack of initiative on a math worksheet, take a break. Give them time to get up and move around, and give yourself time to breathe. Likely you are both more tense than usual due to confinement and overwhelm. So throw on a three song playlist, and agree to come back together to discuss feelings when it has ended. Believe me, those 10-minutes can and should make all the difference.
When in doubt, write it out.
Sheltering-in-place is giving us all a valuable gift of time. Sure, it may feel like it’s never ending, but it is a great opportunity to have your kids put pen to paper and write! Command of the written word has slowly diminished with the onslaught of abbreviations and emojis. Have your child keep a daily journal of their quarantine experiences. Have them write about what they’ve been doing, how they are feeling about it, things that they want to remember when this is all behind us.
Teachers often use journals as a way to read and respond to kiddos who are less apt to vocalize their feelings. Perhaps you should try this strategy if your child is having a hard time communicating their thoughts to you in conversation—write notes back and forth to one another. It is a great way to bridge the uncomfortable.
Make the “new” an adventure.
If you project excitement, your kids will follow—even if it takes some coaxing. If I sprang a pop quiz on my students, I would soothe the anxiety of those who didn’t like surprises by making it a “lolli”pop quiz, and give a Tootsie Roll to everyone as they completed the task. Find some way to make each day feel new and exciting—take turns having each person at home make lunch for the other members of the household, for example. Hide prizes within chores. Use Jolly Ranchers, stickers, or smelly spots from lip gloss as rewards for getting academic tasks done throughout the homeschool day. The more excited you are about this whole debacle, the more your kids will be willing to acquiesce to change and even disappointment long term.
I won’t generalize, but I can pretty confidently say that nearly everyone is sharing the same feelings of loneliness, disappointment, and overwhelm. There are moments when it feels charming—staying in PJs all day, taking Zoom meetings from bed. But those moments are generally shattered by the reality that life as we knew it is vastly different.
You‘ll never get this time with your kids back. You won’t get the chance to be present for those “aha” moments between 8AM and 3PM that we teachers live for. Soon enough you’ll go back to being the parent, and we’ll resume our work as teachers in the classroom.
So, instead of fighting it, use this time together as a means of instilling long-lasting coping strategies in your child. And, keep reminding them, and yourself, that this is only temporary.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, Celebrate It!
How to show up for your kids by celebrating their wins.
I feel fortunate to have been raised in a family that celebrated everything: Groundhog Day, half-birthdays, the Lunar New Year. If it was St. Patrick’s Day, my mom turned our cereal milk green; Cinco de Mayo always had a festive table-scape; National Pizza Day meant that dinner was going to be extra delicious that night; and, there wasn’t a first day of Spring that didn’t have fresh flowers around the house and a note in my lunchbox celebrating that we had made it through Winter.
But, this mentality of making every little thing significant went beyond that. If I was having trouble with friends at school, my mom would pick me up and take me out for lunch during recess time so that I didn’t have to feel alone. If I aced a test, my dinner was served on a red celebration plate. When the cold weather got me down, mom would blast the car heater and roll down every window to “simulate summer.” To this day, she keeps a yearly journal documenting exciting memories, significant moments, and even those times that made us particularly sad. Then, the following year, she’ll shoot me a text to remind me—“This time last year, we were packing for our trip to New York” or “On this day, four years ago, you officially moved to Dallas”.
My mom challenges me to remember. She invites me to reminisce. She enables me to recognize that my life’s journey is a collection of vivid, vibrant memories and experiences that can so easily be forgotten in the day-to-day shuffle. She enables me to realize the necessity of celebration.
With our kids more over-programmed and over-scheduled than ever before, it’s a challenge to complete the day’s routine let alone carve out time for additional fanfare or journaling.
But, those small moments of celebration are going to formulate a lifetime of memories and shape how our children view the world and their role in it.
Right now, we have a super unique opportunity to utilize our dedicated time and proximity together to create and document special memories, no matter how big or how small.
In my classroom and school community, celebrations are routine—they are both encouraged and expected. Valentine’s Day is a time for students to show appreciation for one another. Celebrations of culture and heritage are marked by a community-wide luncheon alongside vibrant bulletin board displays of heroes from all backgrounds. When I taught Language Arts, I was known to commemorate National Bubble Wrap Day with my students and do a special writing activity in honor of National Donut Day. To this day, I still have kiddos who come back and tell me what those celebrations meant to them.
They remember.
Celebrating your child’s large and small accomplishments can and should hold the same value in your family’s life as it does in their school. For example, when a student who has been really struggling with understanding how to formulate a complete sentence finally gets it, I make that a huge deal. Smelly stickers affixed to 100% spelling tests or the comment of “This is a refrigerator paper” when an essay is masterfully crafted are small moments of celebration in my classroom. On a larger scale, publicly recognizing students who achieve perfect attendance, earn a place on the Honor Roll, or demonstrate an exorbitant amount of kindness and compassion are ways to celebrate academic and citizenship milestones.
So, when your child earns a stellar report card or shows improvement in a challenging area, or when they wake up on time on their own multiple days in a row, celebrate! Use those moments for positive reinforcement to make an enormous impact on their motivation, determination, and perseverance long-term.
Two Simple Ways to Integrate More Celebratory Moments
Celebrate Improvement
Preach progress over perfection. Not every student is going to earn straight As. And, that is a-okay! Work with your child’s teacher to determine the threshold of their individual achievement level, and celebrate when they reach it. A note on their lunch-time napkin (since we are sans lunchboxes for a while), a card for them to find on the bathroom counter, an ice cream treat after homework—small moments of celebration over time lead to big accomplishments long-term.
Recognize Random Acts of Kindness
When you see your child do something positive for someone else, let them know that you noticed. When I see a student hold the door open for their classmates or pick up a piece of trash on the play yard, I go out of my way to thank them. To let them know how much I appreciate their contribution to our community.
If your child does their homework without a fight, empties the dishwasher before you have to ask, or shows an extra amount of grace when their sibling is trying their patience, celebrate these character-building moments in real-time with a high-five or an extra hug.
As you embrace this new role as homeschool teacher/mom, remember that, above all, your kids just want to know that you are proud of them.
Tensions are high and we are all feeling a little extra emotional these days so give them a little more slack for their mistakes and show them a lot more enthusiasm for their successes, no matter how big or small.
5 Tips for Homeschooling Your Kids Like a Pro During Coronavirus Quarantine
Coronavirus has given parents a number of new roles including teachers and homeschooling experts. Juggling these new roles and ensuring your kids still grow academically is challenging, to put it lightly. Integrate these five teaching tips and you will both thrive!
Coronavirus Is No Match For Your Parenting!
Here in San Francisco, we’re in the thick of the official COVID-19 shelter-in-place. It’s been toilsome, I’m not going to lie. If you’re anything like me, the allure of “Netflix and chill” wore off after the first 12-hours, and now you want to climb the walls. And, if you’re a parent, that’s a whole bunch of minutes in which you have been playing mom, dad, cook, housekeeper, teacher, friend, counselor, referee, circus clown, and about 17 other odd jobs you never fathomed would pepper the landscape of your March 2020.
As an educator, I’ve been marveling at watching how my students are coping with the shelter-in-place. For some, the very idea of not being with their friends, surrounded by the sounds, shenanigans, smells, and sights of their school environment leaves them blind. They don’t know where to look, what to do, how to even begin learning from a distance.
For others, the idea of being on their own and removed from the performance pressures and social anxiety that comes from working amongst their peers is the deep breath that they have, for years, been waiting for. They are doing their work, engaging with their teachers via Zoom, and all around, living their best student lives. Still, others are as apathetic to distance learning as they are to classroom learning—school has never been their thing, no matter how you package it up. And, COVID-19 isn’t going to change that.
Fair enough.
So, we work together, you and I, to do what we can. To engage our kids to the best of our abilities from afar or up close at home. And, to do so with as much grace and flair as possible, here are my top five ways to thrive both during and after COVID-19:
Never be above negotiating.
If there is one single thing that I have learned during my 17 years in education, it’s that you’ve got to be ready to compromise. Does this mean that you are giving in to the theatrics of your nine-year-old when they only want to watch YouTube and eat Cheetos for breakfast? Nope. But, does it save you from finding yourself at an impasse every five minutes as you try to ramrod that Vocabulary worksheet down their throats? Definitely.
Barter with them—40-minutes of Math work for 15-minutes of FaceTime with their friends. Silent read for 30-minutes (they should do a total of 60-minutes a day), and then take a body break (check out www.gonoodle.com). Seven carrot sticks at lunch before they have their Takis or make their bed before they jump on Instagram in the morning. The more control they feel, especially in times of things being out of their control, the easier it will be to maintain both balance and normalcy.
Set-up a schedule.
Perhaps your child’s teacher has already given you one which mimics their daily classroom routine. Awesome! If not, I would highly recommend reaching out to them and seeing if they can provide you with a framework. Or, develop one yourself that includes dedicated time to each subject with allocated breaks in-between. Have your child be a part of the planning process—put it up on a whiteboard in the kitchen, on a large sheet of butcher paper in the living room, or lipstick it on the bathroom mirror. Your kids are craving structure, all of the time, but especially during this time of uncertainty. So, the more you can establish a routine, the better!
And, get creative with alarms. Gone are the days of a basic kitchen counter egg timer, take a peek at these links to online countdown clocks that use visualization to help kiddos understand the concept of counting down the minutes:
Designate workspaces.
The boundaries of going to school and then coming home from school are blurred during this time of sheltering in a single place. Create a space that is for “school only.” This can be a section of the kitchen table, a corner in your child’s bedroom, a folding table erected in the living room. Make that their school space, and after breakfast, that’s where your child goes to complete their work. When they take breaks, or when the school day is done, have them practice organizing their materials, pushing in their chairs, etc. just as their teachers would request before they change subjects or head out to recess. Having a specific workspace will also help them to get into school mode versus just hanging out and completing a worksheet or two. With this long gap in direct instruction from their teachers, we need to make sure that their heads and hearts are in the game, albeit remotely.
Have fun.
Fractions can be studied while baking cookies and measuring the ingredients. Counting steps, leaves, trees, rocks, stop signs on a daily neighborhood walk will support number sense. Reading a story together and writing an alternative ending is great for Language Arts. Have your child film and narrate a family reality show to practice public speaking. Dance-offs are great in lieu of P.E. class, a family game of charades to understand vocabulary, or completing a jigsaw puzzle as a means of developing fine motor skills.
We, as teachers, want you to help your kids complete the content that we provide to you during this time of distance learning, but we also recognize the enormity of value that comes from time spent together. Conversations that cultivate communication are essential to your child’s ongoing development.
Be patient.
It’s not going to be easy every day, all day. But, it’s not always easy in the classroom, either. There are plenty of days when lessons go awry; kids have meltdowns; someone throws up while another spills a bucket of paint. Do what you can. When you can. How you can.
My favorite thing to tell my students is that they are more than good enough. So now, I am telling you—as you strive to be everything for everyone, what you are doing to keep your kids on track in this time of crisis—you and your efforts are more than good enough.
Together, we’ve got this.
3 Parenting Hacks For Scheduling Gratitude Into Your Child's Routine.
Gratitude needs to be overt. The practice of being appreciative is not a given anymore—no, it is a concept that requires modeling, discussing, outlining, and referencing over and over again. The practice of thankfulness can not only be a great way to re-establish the routine that all kids are craving during this time, but it also is a terrific way to quell their anxiety, too. Follow these helpful tips for creating a schedule that promotes communication, accountability and engages your kids in regular offline fun. Use these tips and download my schedule template to get started today.
You Can Stand Under My Umbrella
I went out for a walk this morning. In the rain. In this new age of social distancing. And, on my way back home, I gave my umbrella to a stranger, sitting on the soaking wet sidewalk, clutching a newspaper to cover his matted hair. I didn’t really think about it—no preconceived plan about how I could extend a helping hand to another human. No thought before I left the house of what I could do to shift, ever so slightly, the permeating negativity that has shrouded us all in such a pall. None of that. I just handed my umbrella over to him, knowing it was the right thing to do.
Now, I don’t bring this up to pat myself on the back. Not in the slightest. I will say that I have never been less bothered by the rain than I was in the moments that followed our encounter. But, being without that umbrella got me thinking about all that I am grateful for. Even right now as we all face the COVID-19 crisis together, there are still reasons to be glad.
“And most generally there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”
― Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna
It was easy to give that stranger my umbrella because I was walking home to shelter, and warmth, and a modicum of security. I acknowledge that. But, outside of that, do I give myself the space to continue to stand in gratitude and appreciation on the regular? Do I carve out time to focus on that for which I am thankful? And, even more so—do I teach my students, your children, to find joy in the minutia often enough?
Gratitude needs to be overt.
The practice of being appreciative is not a given anymore—no, it is a concept that requires modeling, discussing, outlining, and referencing over and over again.
Here’s how I approach it at school:
When I ask a student for something and they deliver: “Thank you so much for listening to what I said that I needed you to accomplish.”
When a student complains about “having” to take a Literature quiz: “Oh, you don’t have to take it. You get to take it. Aren’t we grateful that your brain can grow in knowledge!”
When a classmate holds the door open for them, but they just pass through: “Hold up. You need to thank [student’s name] for helping you out there.”
In this time of uncertainty, your children will feel a sense of worry, of fear, of panic. Social distancing is a far easier concept for us adults to comprehend than your child who wants to run and play and hang with their friends and go to the park.
The practice of thankfulness can not only be a great way to re-establish the routine that all kids are craving during this time, but it also is a terrific way to quell their anxiety, too.
According to Psychiatric Counselor Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, in her article The Neuroscience of Gratitude and How It Affects Anxiety & Grief,
“Significant studies over the years have established the fact that by practicing gratitude we can handle stress better than others. By merely acknowledging and appreciating the little things in life, we can rewire the brain to deal with the present circumstances with more awareness and broader perception.”
Increasing your kiddo’s capacity for joy and gratitude is a great way to maximize the learning that is going on, both during our quarantine and beyond. To do so, start by creating a schedule that promotes communication, accountability and engages them in regular offline fun.
Below, I have compiled some best practices for each focus and created a helpful downloadable schedule for you to use day-after-day in creating a routine for you kids.
Communication activities that inspire gratitude.
Have them write letters. Maybe you set-up a pen pal network with friends and classmates and have kids write letters to each other (note: the postal service is not considered a transport of the virus).
Have them maintain a positivity journal and write about one thing each day that was great, special, or made them feel glad. Go on a scavenger hunt around the house to scope out items, photographs, etc. that hold meaning and special memories.
Have them correspond regularly with their teacher(s). Educators feel just as worried during these times as our students do, so having your student be on the giving end of encouragement is a great way to flip the script and nurture in them a sense of giving care to others.
Household activities that ignite accountability.
Additionally, use this time of quarantine as a means of reestablishing your child’s role within your household. In the hectiness of life between work, school, basketball practice, piano lessons, and four birthday parties every Saturday, it’s easy to let things slide and give everyone a pass from contributing to the inner workings of your home and family. Use this time to get everyone back on board!
Empty/load the dishwasher
Make beds
Fold clean laundry
Wipe down bathroom countertops
Help with meal prep
Not only will it be a great way to cultivate a spirit of giving and appreciation for the work that you, as parent, do on a daily basis, but it will also nurture a sense of teamwork that is so necessary in times of turmoil.
Offline activities that spark joy.
And, finally, use this time of social distancing to serve as focused breaks from social media, too. Your child’s exposure to online content can certainly fuel their feelings of anxiety and uncertainty as well as increase their consumption of misleading information. Carve out time for activities that engage one another in conversation and communication—time to be grateful for family.
Games
Puzzles
Arts and crafts
Cooking together
Daily/nightly read-alouds
Watching home movies
So, while you can’t actually stand under my umbrella (remember that 6ft. of space rule), we can rely upon each other for moral support and solidarity in this time of crisis. Let’s use the quarantine as a means of reminding our kids how much we have in life to appreciate.
To put these tips into action, I have created a downloadable schedule for you to print out and use day after day. With your download comes a sample schedule showing you how to apply these tips to your child’s routine.
