Last week, we discussed the stress that parents are experiencing in the current pandemic. One of the main drivers of stress, of course, is having your kids home and trying to navigate school online. In some ways, it’s absolutely wonderful to have your children with you more — you’ll have an opportunity to connect like never before during this unusual year. But it’s also a source of stress, as you have to split time between your work responsibilities and a new perhaps unfamiliar role as a teacher.
We came upon a recent article with some helpful tips on how to manage working from home and having your kids at home. While it’s geared toward entrepreneurs, who have the luxury and the curse of making their own hours, it includes some tips that every parent with kids at home could use.
One of the most important pieces of advice is to familiarize yourself with the school calendar and make sure you’re syncing with it. The author recommends Google Calendar in particular — it’s got a lot of versatility, and it’s likely that both your school and you already use it in some capacity. Whatever you use, though, you want to make sure that you put your school’s important dates in it. (You also want to make sure that your school’s dates don’t conflict with anything important you’ve got planned, and if there is a conflict, you have a plan for it.)
It also recommends that you boost your wi-fi to accommodate both your work computer and your kids’ school computers. You might have noticed, when schools shut down in the spring and your kids came home, that your computer’s performance lagged. It might not be a coincidence. You can go to https://www.speedtest.net/ or https://fast.com/ to see how well your computer is working with your wi-fi. You might need to upgrade the plan you have at home. If your router isn’t close to where you set up to work in your house, or you need a boost to your system, you might look into Eero. It’s easy to install, and a member of our team who works from home reports it’s made a noticeable difference in how his wi-fi performs.
Another important piece of advice the article gives is setting up playdates with friends. They can be online, or they can be in-person if you have appropriate distancing and all parents on board. It’s important, though, for your children to be able to interact with their friends, even if it can’t be like it was before March.
The article offers some good additional advice about making time to check in with your kids — as it can be easy to forget about lunch and recess, which are there for a reason! It also talks about the need to set up workspaces that are dedicated; that helps you and your kids stay organized. It can also help you separate your dining room table as a place to eat and have family time, rather than having it be an office and a schoolroom as well as a place you eat and gather.
If you’re a divorced parent, or a parent going through a divorce, the stress can be particularly significant. At the Law Office of Lisa A. Vance, we’re attuned to how stress can impact divorce. That’s where the compassionate part of our “fierce, compassionate lawyers” motto comes in. Whether you’re looking to craft a parenting plan that works during these challenging times, need a modification to your existing decree, or you’re grappling with your ex over a parenting time issue, we can help address the legal needs with the awareness of what you’re going through emotionally.
As we have throughout the pandemic, we’d like to remind you this is all temporary, and in due time, we’ll remember how we got through this rather than wondering how we will.