Recommendations...From Us to Your Home
Have children help create daily schedules for themselves! Revisit these schedules as need be and make any necessary adjustments.
Create your own daily schedule! This is a great way to model time management for children.
Take time for self-care! Even 20 minutes a day devoted to yourself can have positive effects on your mood. You need to be physically and mentally stable in order to care for your family.
Be patient and don’t expect perfection! The challenges associated with this pandemic are new and daunting for everyone. A classroom setting cannot be replicated at home so don’t expect your child’s learning to occur in the same manner as it would at school. It is normal for there to be a transition period.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to teachers! Communication between you and teachers is essential during this time in order to benefit your child’s learning.
Make sure to incorporate regular breaks in your child’s schedule! Strive for shorter periods of hard work rather than long periods of work where your child gets constantly distracted. Quality over quantity!
Don’t forget that your child is looking to you as the parent to figure out how to react to this pandemic! Your child will observe how you react to the changes being made to daily life and model their own behaviors after this.
Validate your child’s feelings, and help them label their emotions! This will help them build self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
You can help your child maintain their social relationships through arranging facetime sessions with their friends. Just because they can’t connect in person, doesn’t mean they have to lose touch.
As shelter in place guidelines are eased, you can even work to facilitate play dates with your child and their friends while maintaining social distancing requirements!
Continue to incorporate home-based involvement with your child’s schoolwork: help them with homework, read to them, and make connections between their academic work and real life.
Don’t feel pressured by what others are doing on social media. Find what works best for your family, and minimize comparisons!