It is a challenging and confusing time for all of us, but especially for parents! Below we hear from a few parents at Redeemer about the experience of raising kids in this season, but first, some tips on homeschooling…
Home Schooling!
One of the biggest challenges faced by many families since the lockdown, is the task of working from home whilst also home schooling their children!
First a massive shout out and well done to the schools and teachers for the outstanding job that they do day after day!
But now for some tips. Don’t worry, this blog will be brief - as you are busy!
Tips from a home schooling parent:
Get up before your children wake up. Give yourself plenty of time to get your own mind, body and spirit ready for the day.
Put your child's well being first. Character development is way more important than academic achievement. Some days it's best to throw the workbook out the window (or walk away from the screen).
Read aloud to your children (no matter how old they are). Good books will take you on great family adventures even in quarantine!
BONUS TIP: Above all, give lots of grace - especially to yourself.
Podcasts
There are a massive selection of podcasts that you can listen to….
Follow the link below to find some great podcasts about the Charlotte Mason philosophy followed by the parent who gave the tips above!
More ideas
The following two websites are also packed full of home schooling ideas!
Community
Follow the link below to find a Facebook group set up by a veteran of home schooling
Parenting through Covid-19
As well as home schooling, there is still the permanent 24/7 job of being a parent to deal with too! Below are some thoughts and experiences from parents at Redeemer, we hope they encourage and reassure you during this trying time as parents.
The human theme park ride
We’ve been stuck in for 5 weeks, ‘someone’ in the family getting a cough which put us out before the schools even closed! In some other time and space this would be the perfect little sabbatical, as you ‘work’ from home, playing board games with the kids and go on bike rides. But in truth it's hard to do that when you're considering the world imploding, seeing corona stats rise, and you morbidly attach yourself to the news, both wanting to look away, but partly being transfixed by the drama. Part of me wants to retire away to the world of netflix and bury my head in the sand, but that just won't do! lIfe goes on, children need us, God wants us to step up, and fight the good fight.
I can take heart, my kids are, despite the turmoil around us, bonding in a wonderful, beautiful way, spending hours playing together. Don’t get me wrong, we are no ‘vitamin’ ad family and there have been squabbles, plus we picked up thread worm (How did we do that? stuck at home?) but we are trying to find new ways to do life, news things to interest us. I for one have extended my role as the human theme park, setting up a mat I got last year in the garden. I am helping the kids learn to front somersault, and they are using me as a ‘gym horse’ to jump off of. Coupled with this I take them on ‘fake’ theme parks rides as they sit on my lap pretending to go up and down on a roller coaster. Who says we can’t visit thorpe park from your own living room?
I can't go to a theme park, snakes and ladders or even visit the local playground but we can darn well fling ourselves off each other. (Disclaimer, whilst it’s fun for the kids, you will be shattered!). We all want to look back at this time to see the great things we've achieved. My contribution will be front flips and theme parks rides, and a deep devotion to building connection with the family and God. And a continued faith that this will be a footnote in history very soon! Plus, I can't wait to go for a curry again!
Craft your way to bliss (or into armageddon)
I set out with great intentions, endless amazing websites to educate my kids with, zoos to visit, exercise programmes to follow, theatre shows to watch, audible for kids for free, Disney for a week, social interactions to continue on FaceTime and Zoom.... The world is our oyster.
Couple with all this the endless craft which my daughter has set her eyes upon! In order to pass another 20 minutes we have panicked, bought card, felt, contact lens solution (for slime - sorry if this item is in shortage!) Normally I will craft away.... But right now...what a mess that I have to spend the day looking at. Well yes, I’ve realised I need to lose any pride I had in what my house might look like, no-one will be seeing it anyway! I’ve let go and allowed a build up of toilet rolls and egg cartons in order to allow the kids to make toilet roll pipes stuck to the kitchen cabinets as it is so fun.
What of the endless websites to keep our life looking outward and moving forward? Very minimal. Don't get me wrong there are some lovely gestures going on with all the free access but I’m finding it all a bit much, that so much has to go through the screen. I’ve tried to find a balance between a bit of structure and a great deal of relaxing and free play- lots of mess in the house. The mess however has also brought about some better habits, the kids have to tidy up more now, for years we’d been just tidying up for them and I really don't know why! We are having more meals together as a family, and as I’m not desperate to have the most flavoursome meal at every sit down, we can save a lot of time eating the same meal!
It’s amazing to see how the kids' imagination is growing, they’ve travelled to many places in the last 5 weeks, my favourite being the beauticians!
Matt’s never had better pedicured feet!
Thanks to Matt & Sarah Bateman and Leslie Mailloux for their contributions to this blog!
