Parenting could be hard during a pandemic, especially when your child’s physical classes are on hold. If you are helping your child learn from home or home-schooling them, a few tips can make it a positive experience.
Priyam Saharia, a parenting blogger/expert at Momspresso suggests these home-schooling tips if you are feeling overwhelmed that your home is now a school.
Use time-blocks to structure children’s time
Knowing what to expect will relieve anxiety and help to set boundaries. Break the day into blocks like academic, exercise, play, chores,TV. Within each time block, give children flexibility to choose things like what games they want to play during playtime or where they want to sit during coloring time.
Identify your child’s passion
Step out of traditional learning and help your child dive deep into a subject they love e.g. if your child likes trains, encourage her to spend some time everyday to make a scrapbook about trains. Helping children learn the process of identifying their passions will help them in choosing their career paths later in life.
Teach life-skills
You may not get another opportunity like this one to involve children in chores and teach them life-skills like doing laundry, cooking and cleaning up after themselves. Make it fun by giving them some incentive at the end of the week for jobs well-
performed.
Schedule fun activities together
Whether its watching animation movie, cooking or playing board games together, schedule activities just to have fun with your children. These memories of laughter and fun together will bond you for a lifetime.
Lower expectations
Remember children are not only homeschooling, but are also facing total isolation. Don’t be hard on them on days when things don’t go as planned. Allow them the space to do things they love, and try to build routine again the next day.
Embrace this precious time that you get to spend with them-the emotional connection you build with them now will give them firmer footing in life than any academic result ever will.
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