5 Tips for Homeschooling Your Kids Like a Pro During Coronavirus Quarantine

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:

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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:

• https://www.online-stopwatch.com/classroom-timers/

• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/visual-countdown-timer/id541364004

• https://www.visnos.com/demos/classroom-timer

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.

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.

1. 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). 

2. 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.

3. 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.

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Sources:

https://positivepsychology.com/neuroscience-of-gratitude/