Rules of Engagement

Many of us are entering week two of social distancing, working from home and homeschooling our children and may need a different kind of post than the last two.  You may need a post that gets you through being in your home with ALL of your immediate family members with your sanity intact, so that you can have those conversations with your children that I have been talking about.

Being quarantined with your family, unable to carry out your normal activities and make the human connections that keep us mentally healthy can be challenging. It is normal for moods and frustrations arise.  Below are some tips that can help you alleviate some of those challenges.

1. Set up definite work areas for each family member, a defined space where they will keep their supplies and can serve as their work space.  When we start to spread our work all over the house, it can get messy both physically and mentally.  You need to separate your work and home space. 

2. Set up definite work schedules and walk away at the end of your work day.  It is my experience that when I work from home my work day extends from the time I open my eyes in the morning, until I close my eyes at night.  It is unrealistic for anyone to work from home from all of your waking hours and still co-habituate with your family, who is also working from home.  

3. When you do need to have conversations about your frustrations while you are all stuck in the house together, remember to start the conversations with, “I” rather than “you.” The statement, “I need you to pick your toys up” disarms the frustration and possible attitude that saying, “You need to pick your toys” would bring. 

4. Go outside and get some fresh air, the movement and fresh air will rejuvenate you and help keep you healthy. 

5. Take a lunch break.  Make sure you take a break and eat a normal meal.  If you were at work you would take a break and eat, so do it at home. 

6. Get up every morning, shower and get ready for work.  You don’t have to wear your work clothes, but prepare for the day.  You will feel much better. 

Finally, BE KIND to yourself.  

Reality Versus Schema

Yesterday I talked about how children take the information that they understand about a situation and create a schema or a reality that makes sense to them.  They do this for everything, not just the hard stuff or the overwhelming stuff.  Let me give you an example of how it works from my life.  I am going to share a story about my youngest son and how he took several truths in his life and put them together to create something he could understand.

Here are the facts that he used:

1. 1. Zachary was born on December 7^th.  This day does not have significance for as many people as it used to, but as the son of an active duty Submarine Master Chief and having been born in Hawaii it has meaning to Zachary.  December 7, 1941 was the day Pearl Harbor was bombed and the day that the United States entered WW2.
2. 2. One of my closest friends was a foster parent for years and she adopted every child she fostered.  Zachary spent a great deal of time with this loving family and only understood the loving family side of foster care, not what caused the child to be in foster in the first place.

When Zachary was six or seven we went to go see Chronicles of Narnia in the theater.  As the movie began with families putting their children on the trains, Zachary leaned over and asked me what was happening. I explained that during WW2 many families in Europe who lived in the city sent their children to live with other family members who lived in the country to keep them safe.  The enemy was bombing the city, but not the country, so children would be safer there. He then said, “So it was like the foster care Aunty Kelle does?”  I replied, “A little bit, yes.”

Fast forward a few months and as we drove past Pearl Harbor, Zachary asked me,”Mom, when am I going back to my real family?”  I was a little confused because I was the one who delivered all ten pounds of him, three weeks past his due date so I asked him what he meant.  This was his reply, “Mom. I was born on Pearl Harbor Day, at the beginning of the war and my family sent me to you to keep me safe, just like foster care.”  

This example of how a young child took the information he had, all truthful, and created his own understanding is one that I use in every class I teach to explain how children create schemas.  Children take the information that they know and as they understand it and they create something they can relate to. 

So, now imagine the schemas children have created about what is happening in the world right now.  You may not have had a conversation with them about it, but their minds have been gathering information about it from the news, the change in their daily routine, the fact that they don’t go to school anymore and are learning from home, the vibes they are getting from the adults in their lives and the feelings from social isolation.  If you assume that that they don’t know what it going on, you are correct.  However, they are going to take what they know and create something they can relate to and it will become their truth about the situation. 

How do we impact that schema?  First look at the messages that they are hearing via TV and radio and consider not watching when they are around.  Second, make sure that you have dealt with your own emotions around what is happening so they will feel your calmness.  Thirdly, take some time to sit down and ask them how they are feeling and talk through those emotions.  If they share fear and anxiety about becoming sick or someone they love becoming sick, tell them that everyone is doing their part to make sure that doesn’t happen by staying home and washing their hands.  If someone does get sick, doctors and nurses are working hard to take care of everyone so that they can get better.  Talk to them and see what information they have used to create their schema’s and where there is misinformation provide them with truth and talk it through.  

During this time where we are confined within small spaces with each other, with no end date for the social distancing, be kind to yourselves.  As crazy as this sounds, we are fortunate to have this happen at a time in history when there is an awareness of the importance of social/emotional development in young children and the knowledge of how situations like these impact the mental health and wellbeing of individuals and families.  We can talk about these things and work them out together, unlike any other time in history.  

Know What Is Important During COVID19

As I sit by and watch all of my family and friends with school age children begin distance learning I have gone through several stages of thought. The first one being, no big deal many people have been receiving their degrees using online distance learning for many years.  Next came my amusement over the multiple memes of parents experiencing homeschooling and the reality of trying to educate their children under a state of lock down.  My current stage is one of concern.

Let me start that I spent all of my parenting years as a military spouse and the mother four military dependents.  Additionally, most of those parenting years were also spent as an educator of other military dependent children.   I will tell you without hesitation that children whose parents serve in the military have a different set of core values than that of the average American child, however, there are also things that they have experienced that many of the children of America have not had to, until COVID19.

Our children are experiencing a form of Trauma.  Stop and think about it for a moment.   The definition of trauma is “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience”  We as adults think of trauma as violent or aggressive, however it is as simple as a disturbing experience, which is exactly what COVID19 is. 

Humor me for a moment and have an honest conversation with yourself right now.  Think about how you are feeling about what is happening in the world right now.  Let me share how I feel. I am concerned for the health of my family and friends, I have three children who are mission essential and a daughter and law and son in law who are also considered mission essential.  I am also mission essential.  I am concerned about the economy and the burden this virus may put on my employees. I am worried that this will go on and it will be difficult for the country to recover financially.  I worried that the work that I have done over the last several months on my job will be gone and I will need to come up with a new plan.  I am worried about all of these things and I am an adult who has the cognitive and social/emotional ability to work through these things.  I have the language skills to explain how I feel.

Now think about your children.  These children were all conceived after 9/11 so they do not have the knowledge that our country was able to rise out of the most devastating experience of our generation.  The currently knowledge they have from the media is that our country does nothing but argue and bicker, they are scared.  In order for children to understand what is happening around them they create schemas in their minds out of what they understand.  Think about what that may look like for a moment…they are creating their truth about their current situation with the knowledge they have gathered.   What do you think is going on in their little minds right now? 

Next, I want to you to think about the importance of human relationships and the human connection.  As an educator, I think that parents do not realize that teachers and school staff are just as active in their children’s social emotional development as they are their academic and cognitive development.  Whether it be preschool, elementary, middle or high school a large part of the growth and development a child experiences in a day is in the area of social/emotional development.  Those connections to other humans, friendships, solid positive relationships with adults and the minefield known as peer pressure are all experiences our children have outside the walls of our homes on a daily basis.  The positive friendships and human interactions that cause them to laugh, smile and feel good about themselves.  The teachers who go the extra mile to encourage a child that is struggling, the administrative staff that encourages them and the coaches that mentor and coach them…they experience these each day they attend school.  Today they find themselves without those human connections, thrust into a new learning environment, with if we tell the truth, parents who are ill equipped to be their teachers.  Their human connections they are now experiencing are limited to what happens within their home.

Here is my advice to parents that are now faced with this dilemma: Spend as much time on your child’s social/emotional development as you do as you do on the school work they have been charged with completing.  Keep in mind that you don’t have to have a “school schedule” that mimics the normal school day.  I recommend a schedule, but it does not have to look like traditional school day does.  Build some time in there for social emotional connections, time for your child to talk about how they are feeling, opportunities for you to give them the knowledge and support they need to understand this current situation.  Help them build schema’s that are truthful and encouraging, instead of those they have created for themselves.  Allow them some down time without the computer, TV or tablet.  Allow them time to play, laugh and feel good about life. 

Finally, please listen to me as the voice of experience…take care of yourselves as well.  This is traumatic for you as well.  People joke about being home with their children and having to become their teachers, but there is some trauma in that experience as well.  Many of you have been taken from your roles on the job and thrust into a situation where you must now work from home, while educating your children and being responsible for all of their activities, while not leaving the house and work through the stress that COVID19 is causing in your own schema’s.  You no longer have the social outlet of going to work with grownups and talking to your peers, you can’t go out to lunch with your friends and there is no therapeutic Target run in your day. These can all be distressing, therefore traumatic. 

Everyone take a deep breath and think about the social and emotional health of your family and then come up with a plan that works for all of you.  One that is kind and allows for you all to feel and talk about those feelings.  One that encourages laughter and the human connection.