Life has changed for all of us. Everyone needs to social-distance (or physcial-distance) and we all have to stay at home, where it is safer. Everyone now needs to work from home. Games, concerts and events got cancelled. Although a lot of people have a lot of issues with this, we're okay with this.
Several weeks into this shelter-at-home ordeal, we realize that the only difficult part is how to juggle between housework, child-care, home-schooling and finding way to earn money when we no longer have jobs.
Point 1: Food and Kids
Where parents are used to just bringing their kids to school in the morning and picking them up in the afternoon, parents do not need to worry about providing food for their children. Now, kids eat at home (almost incessantly, every thirty minutes) and you need to prepare food for them. This and having to sit down and teach kids when they have their minds set on the next episode of their favorite cartoon show. You can really feel that the teachers are the most underpaid people in the world.
Possible Solution: As much as possible, prepare easy and quick to cook food during the weekend so during the week, you could easily re-heat them. It's not the best but for now, it will do, I suppose.
Point 2: Household Chores and Kids
You need to do the laundry, wash the dishes, clean up the messes and a lot more you normally deal with on a day-to-day basis even before the stay-at-home thing started. It becomes a burden even more when the kids are home to do home-schooling.
Possible Solution: Teach the kids how to help with the chores. Assign them with tasks that they are responsible for.
Point 3: We Need to Work to Earn Money
While our professions allow us to work remotely, this whole ordeal has created even our jobs were put on-hold. And so we now struggle to find ways to earn a living, even for just to pay for the rent and to afford to pay for our basic needs. Constantly thinking about this and attempting to read dozens and dozens of articles on work-from-home jobs take the focus off of teaching the kids their school lessons.
Possible Solution: Keep looking. I still have yet to find a suitable solution to this.
Point 4: Home-Schooling and Distance Learning
Are they actually the same? My opinion is that whatever the schools are doing now is more distance learning. The teacher sets-up daily calls with students, no more than an hour usually, and they give out school work that takes up the entire day to finish. When normally, the teachers would supervise the kids in school and kids would work together with their classmates, would now have to do those tasks while watching their siblings some other, more interesting things. If it was me, I'd lose interest in my school work, too! While I understand that teachers also need to adjust since they are also home to take care of their family, I feel that what they ask from their students and the parents is a bit more excessive and perhaps the teachers can trim it down to the basics. Otherwise, just leave it to the parents to come up with their own lessons and tasks for their own kids to learn from.
This brings me to home-schooling. My idea of this is that this is more structured and really is up to the parents to use to teach their children at home. This way, every family can decide on their own pace. Each family can go through the lessons following the curriculum and adjust according to their kid's learning abilities and the parents can work out the schedule on their own without having to worry about deadlines the teachers give out each day or week.
I could be wrong but perhaps a lot of parents would agree that if teachers can't really teach the kids the whole day (or at least the same amount of time during normal school days), it would be best to just shift to home-schooling (as I understand it).
Bottom-line is that kids and parents are not ready for this, even with the tools available. But while you know it is best for you and your kids to stay at home, you would often wonder when this whole thing is going to be over.
Our advise, how ever difficult it may seem, is just to spend time and enjo with your kids. We now have all the time in the world to do so. Learn with them, chat with them and understand how unique and yet alike each of them are. If and when this is over, we should never again say that we wish we had the time.
Several weeks into this shelter-at-home ordeal, we realize that the only difficult part is how to juggle between housework, child-care, home-schooling and finding way to earn money when we no longer have jobs.
Point 1: Food and Kids
Where parents are used to just bringing their kids to school in the morning and picking them up in the afternoon, parents do not need to worry about providing food for their children. Now, kids eat at home (almost incessantly, every thirty minutes) and you need to prepare food for them. This and having to sit down and teach kids when they have their minds set on the next episode of their favorite cartoon show. You can really feel that the teachers are the most underpaid people in the world.
Possible Solution: As much as possible, prepare easy and quick to cook food during the weekend so during the week, you could easily re-heat them. It's not the best but for now, it will do, I suppose.
Point 2: Household Chores and Kids
You need to do the laundry, wash the dishes, clean up the messes and a lot more you normally deal with on a day-to-day basis even before the stay-at-home thing started. It becomes a burden even more when the kids are home to do home-schooling.
Possible Solution: Teach the kids how to help with the chores. Assign them with tasks that they are responsible for.
Point 3: We Need to Work to Earn Money
While our professions allow us to work remotely, this whole ordeal has created even our jobs were put on-hold. And so we now struggle to find ways to earn a living, even for just to pay for the rent and to afford to pay for our basic needs. Constantly thinking about this and attempting to read dozens and dozens of articles on work-from-home jobs take the focus off of teaching the kids their school lessons.
Possible Solution: Keep looking. I still have yet to find a suitable solution to this.
Point 4: Home-Schooling and Distance Learning
Are they actually the same? My opinion is that whatever the schools are doing now is more distance learning. The teacher sets-up daily calls with students, no more than an hour usually, and they give out school work that takes up the entire day to finish. When normally, the teachers would supervise the kids in school and kids would work together with their classmates, would now have to do those tasks while watching their siblings some other, more interesting things. If it was me, I'd lose interest in my school work, too! While I understand that teachers also need to adjust since they are also home to take care of their family, I feel that what they ask from their students and the parents is a bit more excessive and perhaps the teachers can trim it down to the basics. Otherwise, just leave it to the parents to come up with their own lessons and tasks for their own kids to learn from.
This brings me to home-schooling. My idea of this is that this is more structured and really is up to the parents to use to teach their children at home. This way, every family can decide on their own pace. Each family can go through the lessons following the curriculum and adjust according to their kid's learning abilities and the parents can work out the schedule on their own without having to worry about deadlines the teachers give out each day or week.
I could be wrong but perhaps a lot of parents would agree that if teachers can't really teach the kids the whole day (or at least the same amount of time during normal school days), it would be best to just shift to home-schooling (as I understand it).
Bottom-line is that kids and parents are not ready for this, even with the tools available. But while you know it is best for you and your kids to stay at home, you would often wonder when this whole thing is going to be over.
Our advise, how ever difficult it may seem, is just to spend time and enjo with your kids. We now have all the time in the world to do so. Learn with them, chat with them and understand how unique and yet alike each of them are. If and when this is over, we should never again say that we wish we had the time.
