Shannon, thanks for this super detailed play by play of how things have unfolded. What online resources have you found most helpful to you and your family during this period? You mentioned Amazon and Disney+. What else? Anything educational or based on physical activities?
We haven't really been doing much online stuff. This is partly because my son already gets way too much screentime and because of his age. He's in the equivalent of kindergarten, so he doesn't need anything to complicated. In terms of entertainment, we bought a few puzzles, some extra arts and crafts stuff and then we've mostly been just using what we already have for educational extras. So we're getting out old board books to use as practice for reading (because they're easy and he kind of already knows the words), I'm asking him to read things like the back of cereal boxes and then we're doing practice with doing math in his head.
He also loves Minecraft so I got him a set of strategy books which are dramatically beyond his reading level, but he's kind of sounding out some words in there, too.
For physical activities we had been going to the park and going on walks, but now that that's apparently not allowed he's been playing catch/soccer with his dad in our condominium's garden area, so at least he gets outside for a bit every day.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I've heard from a friend that her kids are getting so much screen time. That seems to be the default solution, and there's a need for non-screen related activities.
What would you say are the biggest challenges for you/your family overall in this situation? My friend called out 1) financial and 2) lack of structure/schedule as being the biggest challenges for her.
We're pretty lucky in terms of financial issues, because I work from home already and my partner is a public school teacher, so while he's had to figure out how to do distance teaching, he's still getting paid/working. The lack of structure is definitely a thing, but we've more or less been kind of running things as a permanent weekend. So our kid can hang out in his pajamas until 10:30/11:00 then he has to get dressed/brush teeth/do his homework for the day, if the weather is decent we go outside an hour or so after lunch. That kind of thing.
It's honestly been harder for me and my partner to figure out our own schedules, because I'm used to working from 9:00 to 1:30 every day, uninterrupted and that's uh, not happening right now. That's pretty much been our biggest problem - figuring out how to equally prioritize both of our working needs.
Shannon, thanks for this super detailed play by play of how things have unfolded. What online resources have you found most helpful to you and your family during this period? You mentioned Amazon and Disney+. What else? Anything educational or based on physical activities?
We haven't really been doing much online stuff. This is partly because my son already gets way too much screentime and because of his age. He's in the equivalent of kindergarten, so he doesn't need anything to complicated. In terms of entertainment, we bought a few puzzles, some extra arts and crafts stuff and then we've mostly been just using what we already have for educational extras. So we're getting out old board books to use as practice for reading (because they're easy and he kind of already knows the words), I'm asking him to read things like the back of cereal boxes and then we're doing practice with doing math in his head.
He also loves Minecraft so I got him a set of strategy books which are dramatically beyond his reading level, but he's kind of sounding out some words in there, too.
For physical activities we had been going to the park and going on walks, but now that that's apparently not allowed he's been playing catch/soccer with his dad in our condominium's garden area, so at least he gets outside for a bit every day.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I've heard from a friend that her kids are getting so much screen time. That seems to be the default solution, and there's a need for non-screen related activities.
What would you say are the biggest challenges for you/your family overall in this situation? My friend called out 1) financial and 2) lack of structure/schedule as being the biggest challenges for her.
We're pretty lucky in terms of financial issues, because I work from home already and my partner is a public school teacher, so while he's had to figure out how to do distance teaching, he's still getting paid/working. The lack of structure is definitely a thing, but we've more or less been kind of running things as a permanent weekend. So our kid can hang out in his pajamas until 10:30/11:00 then he has to get dressed/brush teeth/do his homework for the day, if the weather is decent we go outside an hour or so after lunch. That kind of thing.
It's honestly been harder for me and my partner to figure out our own schedules, because I'm used to working from 9:00 to 1:30 every day, uninterrupted and that's uh, not happening right now. That's pretty much been our biggest problem - figuring out how to equally prioritize both of our working needs.