Adventures in Pandemic Parenting
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Ermagerd, Pandemic Parenting is Hard!
If it’s not enough to deal with this weird nightmare and uncertain future, we are now with our kids 24/7 and homeschooling! It’s enough to drive anyone mad! As a homeschool parent, I have plenty of ideas based on experience that can help you now.
For the last two years, we homeschooled our kids by choice as we traveled around the world to 31 countries. We are avid explorers and figured out most problems we encountered by trial and error. We took the same approach with homeschooling. Our kids have homeschooled in the wildest assortment of situations, environments and emotions. We learned math before attending Carnaval in Olinda, Brazil with thousands of partiers and parades. We did creative writing before a sunset camel ride in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. We dove into marine science lessons on a live-aboard before diving with Mantas in Komodo National Park in Indonesia. We studied Roman history before visiting Pompeii. And as far as emotions are concerned, well, suffice it to say that we are a fiery bunch.
I’ll be honest with you, we aren’t that organized or perfect as parents. We winged it all. If things didn’t work, sometimes our best strategy was to keep showing up and sticking with it. When things got really challenging, we stayed flexible, took breaks, adapted and evolved our approach until we found what worked. While it was only occasionally easy, and rarely pretty, through these two years of trials and tribulations, we came away with a lot of invaluable experience. We found what worked for us, and in the end, we were successful. I offer these tips in the hope that maybe a few will resonate and help make a few moments smoother for you. Hang in there!
12 Tips for Those New to Remote-Learning
Model the Challenge
Things went better for us when we explained that we were in this together as a team. We told them what the goals were, and when we got overwhelmed and frustrated, we tried to model how to solve the problem with humor, trying different options, and tinkering until it felt right. Overcoming challenges is an essential life skill. Sometimes we yelled, sometimes we called each other idiots, but then there was always a repair conversation that looked like this “I’m doing my best and together we will make this work and figure it out.”
This is Not Perfect Parenting
We threw that out the window right from the start, and what a relief that was! We expected ourselves to do our best, but realized perfection was not the goal. Some days even our best didn’t work. Some days we decided it was life skills and school looked more like taking a walk together, doing math for budgets and shopping, learning about animals and ecosystems around us, or doing laundry - this 3D learning helped a lot. We tried to incorporate challenges and games as often as we could - such as finding our way through Venice to the best gelato store using landmarks and somewhat accurate Google Maps. Or figuring out the timing of the moonrise so that we could plan our trip to see the Aurora Borealis in Norway in the darkest skies. And we played games constantly while we waited for food at cafes.
Think Routine Not a Schedule
We had the routine of waking up, tech time, breakfast time, school time, then lunch/adventure/errand time. We didn’t freak out if we couldn’t stick to the routine, but we did our best to have an order of events - first this, then that kind of thing. The more we stuck to routine, the less power struggles we had. Real world school had the benefit of herd mentality, on the road, it was all us, ALL the time.
Stay Firm
Our kids have been the ultimate gamblers from day one. Even with the odds stacked a billion to one against them, even when there was merely a sliver of hope for victory, they would try to get out of schooling or chores. If our kids sensed even a tiny waiver in our conviction they would go for it with all their power. So we got really repetitive and boring with our soundbites, and let them freak out without talking them out of what they were experiencing. We were real - “yes this isn’t fun/interesting but it is school and we gotta do it.” It also helped when both parents got solidly on the same page.
Cultivate Choice
My kids hated being told what to do, of course. Rebellion is built into our DNA. One workaround we found was to offer them choices - “Right now is art, would you like to draw or color?” “ Would you like to watch this video on nutrition, or one on climate change?" Would you like free tech time for an hour after school, or when we get home tonight?” “Do you want me to explain this math problem or do you want to watch a video?
Google and YouTube Were Our BFF’s
Our kids really did not want to listen to us. Once we accepted that, we enlisted the help of math teachers on YouTube or short films on history. I gotta say, that was amazing. You see, my kids are great at watching videos and actually listening to other people - and this played right to that strength. For our kids, videos that had some humor worked well - the dry, boring academic programs were excruciating and lost their attention in minutes. Stick with humor! Life and learning are supposed to be enjoyable.
EVERYONE Melts Down
In our experience, everyone melted down when we were trying to find a new normal. We found emotional extremes before we found harmony. Accepting that this was our process made it easier when the meltdowns hit. Thankfully, not everyone melted down at the same time, we always took turns. We looked at these meltdowns as positive steps toward harmony. Everyone gets one, or several.
Get Outside
No excuses here. We got outside to exercise in some way every day, even if it was walking to dinner. A good book on audible and a headset for each kid worked wonders. They could walk alone nearby! We loved getting out in nature and seeing landscapes and talking about what we liked.
Yummy Food
Good snacks were a game changer. Hunger can hijack homeschooling faster than anything else. We always had treats and something yummy available. Maybe it created some positive association with learning, maybe not. But if it helped even a few minutes go more smoothly, SCORE!
Assume Good Intentions
John Gottman, the psychologist, has some amazing work, and we loved his concept of positive attribution. When you are in a small space with just your family for days on end, it can be tense and easy to get mad at each other over trivial things. We tried to give each other the benefit of the doubt, to assume when others made us mad that they were not trying to upset us. We always followed up a fight with an understanding of what good the person was trying to do, and how it went sideways.
Self-Care and Meditation
The most powerful thing we did as parents to stay sane was to have some alone time to do what we wanted to do. Relaxing ourselves, and getting in a more positive space meant we had a healthy cocktail of neurotransmitters, we could be more resilient, and that in turn made the whole family dynamic better. One of the hardest things was bedtime after a crazy day on the road - the kids were always fighting and things escalated fast when we were all tired. I had listened to a podcast where Jack Kornfield told of how he paid his son to read certain books. We started paying the kids to listen to a meditation on the Calm app every night before bed. That was a rockstar strategy for easier bedtimes!
Be Grateful by Habit
Ok so this is something we all know about. In full disclosure, I tried to start this as a family practice, but it didn’t stick. As the mama though, I realized I could just do it myself, and my family would experience the benefits in my attitude. I also read that stacking habits can make things work better, so every time I brushed my teeth I thought about three things I was grateful for - and one thing had to be super small, like the view of the ocean out the window, or the painting of the butterfly on the wall, or something I had seen the day before.
What have you found that works as you navigate homeschooling?
I’d love to hear from you. It helps to make your own list. And, if you are struggling with homeschooling, routines, or even if you just want to vent about how challenging it is - I would be happy to talk to you!
About Robeen
We've hit the road many times while raising our kids. In 2013 we bought an RV off Craigslist, named her the “Soul Sistah” and road-tripped across the US for five months. During the summer of 2016 we took the “Soul Sistah” up the western US through the San Juan Islands, Victoria Islands and British Columbia. From 2017-2019 we traveled the world, world schooling our boys along the way. Contact me if you wanna chat anything travel or world schooling. I am always happy to chat and if I can help you then it is a gift to both of us💚.
