How Home Schooling during a Pandemic is Overwhelming Parents and How to survive it.

Home schooling our kids during a pandemic. Yeh, that. 
 
Schooling our children at home when it’s not our lifestyle choice is a huge challenge for everyone involved. Teachers, parents and children are all trying to wade through the treacle and find an imperfect way to make this work. We are basically trying to squeeze a square peg through a round hole. Parents aren’t home schooling in the true spirit of home education, because the values that underpin that are entirely different from mainstream education. Parents are effectively a link between teachers and their children, facilitating what the children would be normally be provided with in person. We are basically the hook trying to hold on to the progress our children would be making if the situation was normal. 
 
There are a few key issues that makes this pandemic home schooling situation precarious for families (and I’m not saying it shouldn’t be happening at all, we’ve got a medical system and lives to protect, but just acknowledging the challenge) and why so many parents are finding it overwhelming:

• Parents are not trained in educating children. They don’t know the maths strategies or how to help children develop recall information, word build, spell etc. Sure, they can google this stuff, but for many, that will be the thing that’s added to the to list that breaks the proverbial camel’s back. 
• Children respond differently to teachers than they do to parents. Let’s make this very clear … mainstream educated children are not used to viewing their parents as they do their teachers. So, when we have to suddenly step into this role (within the home, usually a place for relaxation, play etc) this is unsettling for our children. Homes are bordering on battlegrounds at times. How do we motivate our children to stay focused on mainstream education tasks at home and not make it feel like we’ve turned from loving, fuzzy mum into a cold-hearted sentinel? 
• Children are far more likely to express their emotions related to schoolwork at home than they are in school. Frustration boils over regularly, impacting the atmosphere of homes around the country.
• The remote learning set up places pressure, unintentionally, on parents. Younger children especially need so much support and intervention to complete tasks that teachers set or suggest. So, although the worksheets and activity suggestions leave headspace for parents (thank goodness we don’t have to find out what our children should be learning and research ideas), but the implementation takes time, which for working parents means an impossible juggle, and for any parent extreme stress. See above two points! 
• Recreating the school day at home is intense for children. Routines help but strict timetables make home schooling intense for younger children, who are used to interspersing their school tasks with chit chat with their friends. Images of children sat at their laptops completing hours of work, normally expected of teenagers, is heart-breaking to see. Online sessions held with their teacher helps. During my daughter’s daily live lesson the teacher brings children in to interact with the group, albeit one at a time so the call can cope. 
• Parents are now more than their usual, herculean role of parent. They’re also now friend and academic teacher. Parents are dizzy from tall the plate spinning. 

 
So, what’s the solution? Well, I honestly don’t think there is one. The saving grace is that this is temporary. The positive to take is that we are all doing our best. 
 
There are some things though that can help relieve this pressure cooker situation. 

• Choose connection. This time will pass and the progress your child makes academically during this time will never outweigh the impact on your relationship.
• Flexibility. Routine over timetable. Game based learning over worksheets. Changing direction over bulldozing through stress invoking tasks.
• Short, sharp bursts of work. Take regular brain breaks. This doesn’t have to involve leaving the workstation if you think that will mean your child falls off track altogether.  Just a stretch, a pause for a drink of water or a quick self-hand massage will help. 
• Keep expectations for the day on the lower side. Prioritise just a few things for the day.
• Pause all tasks if necessary.
• Permission to home-school imperfectly. Coming out of this still communicating as a family is winning.