Blog
Balancing Children and Work in Lockdown
With what is going on in the world at the moment, a lot of parents have found themselves juggling working from home and childcare. In our office, half our team have children of various ages and have had to adapt quickly to the new challenge of balancing work and mum life. Nobody is claiming it is easy, but some of our superhero parents have some tips that have been making it a little bit more manageable and a lot less stressful both for them and their families.
Have a timetable
Using a flexible timetable to break up the day, children can’t concentrate for long periods without breaks. This is essential for two reasons, means you can schedule time in for you to have uninterrupted deep concentration with your work, but also keep them from losing interest in what they are doing.
Remember you’re not a teacher
You’re not a teacher, don’t try to be! Have tasks relevant to practice what they have been learning to keep it fresh is enough. You don’t need to be schooling 9am-3pm, they would spend a portion of this time away from the classroom anyway! 20-30 mins of reading, 20-30 mins of writing and 20-30 mins of maths are better than nothing. Talk to other parents about this and reassure yourself that keeping their brains active is enough.Although we do actively encourage you to make your children call you Mr/Mrs (insert surname) or just teacher between the hours or 9am-3pm, this is purely for your own entertainment of course and adds nothing to home schooling :)
Useful resources
Plan in advance and use the resources available! Aside from the school provided work, you can use YouTube tutorials, Audible and Twinkl! These are excellent resources to keep learning fresh in whilst your children are at home.
Keep active
Keep active! Walks, football, playing in the garden, dancing and don’t forget Joe Wicks!
Stay Positive
Try and enjoy the time if you can this is a rare opportunity for so much more time with your children than normal. Although it is stressful at times, take a moment to do nice things too – bake a cake, put a song on and dance around the kitchen! Remember what is happening right now is so much more then education. What our children will remember 5 years from now isn’t what they learnt during this period of craziness, it will be how they felt, how their parents behaved. A lot of life lessons can be learnt during this time. Gratitude for the smaller things in life, how little you actually do need to occupy yourself when needed and how to manage feeling bored.
Pat yourself on the back, whatever you are doing, your doing something, it might not be perfect but it's great!
Useful Resources
