What To Do With Your Kids When Working From Home
You have work to do. And your kids aren’t at school. So how do we make this all work out? Take a breath. Relax your shoulders and your jaw. We can tell you’re holding a lot of tension there! And now, let’s make a PLAN!
At Showit, we have working moms, working homeschooling moms, and there are many in our community as well, and they all have some great tips for you!
Do you have Disney Plus? There is a great program on there called Marvel Hero Project. They do spotlights on amazing kids who have overcome different odds in their lives. There is one about a girl named Jordan who was born with one arm. She is a major inspiration, and it is great to make kids watch this to learn from her example. Then kids can write essays on her. Topics to discuss/write about can be: ‘Advocacy. What is an advocate? What is Jordan an advocate on? And what is something you want to be an advocate on?’ Also, ‘overcoming obstacles’ and ‘same is boring’ are topics that are also relevant to her story. Having kids write about anything they are watching and how it applies to their lives is a great, and easy exercise for multiple kids to do all at once! (From Disney movies to documentaries!) And this is easy enough for elementary school kids to high schoolers.
Looking for more advice?
“I’ve been a homeschool mom for 7 years now! First just breath! Second please know that your kids in school really are not doing book work the full 7 hours or so they are there. Remember smaller kids get recess, bathroom breaks, lunch breaks ext… older kids not as much. Doing things in bite sizes with breaks works well. If you get stuck helping them on something you don’t understand don’t sweat it. My kids are now teenagers doing high school work *cough math I cannot even do.* 😂 We use Google and YouTube a lot! I think the key is finding a good routine and sticking with it because children need routines. If you have all smaller children… good luck! 😂 I have no real advice there because I did not start my Journey until my kids were 7-8 ish and at first I didn’t think i was going to live to tell about it.” – Mindy Vassalle
Importance of time!
“An early bed time works really well (like 8pm for 10 and under)! That way you can have adult time or alone time for at least a couple hours in the evening. Also, keep a stash of mom treats in the bathroom and take a long “bathroom break” when they start to drive you insane. Send them out to the yard to run off some energy for a bit every day. If you are trying to work on school through this, then lots of breaks and try to make it fun. Incorporate games and educational tv into their lessons. And don’t try to do school for 6+ hours a day. Even my high school son, who will be doing e-learning through his public high school, only takes about 3-4 hours or so a day for his lessons/work. My younger two homeschool and when their lessons and work are done then they get screen time. That way we all have something to look forward to. They get screen time (usually playing with friends through their gaming system) and I get me time.” – Nicole Corinne
More resources!
Check out this incredible blog post by our friend, and Pinterest Wizard – Vanessa Kynes! She is a busy working mom, who happens to homeschool her 3 kids. She definitely has a lot of great tips, knowledge, and recommendations to share!
