Kids Are Cool Unless They're Home While You're Trying to Work

I work mostly from home already, so the big change for me this week is having my family home as well. My daughter is almost 7. Her school was canceled last Thursday and will be closed for at least three weeks, though I expect the closure will last way longer. My son is 4. We kept him home this week and his school is closing on Monday.

You need to work, and if you have a partner, they might need to work, too. If you've got young kids, they're going to need nourishing activities or at least some attention sometimes. This is kind of like the, "Fast, good, cheap, pick two" exercise, because obviously, in our case, both parent's can't work, while also giving attention to the children. One good thing is I own an ice cream shop and we're closed so I've been far less busy and we can prioritize my partner's work schedule. One bad thing is I own an ice cream shop and we're closed so I don't have an income. Another bad thing is I'm used to being mostly alone in the house most of the week and that's not happening anymore, but that's another post. I'm grateful my family is healthy, my partner's job is letting her work from home, and we're extremely lucky we CAN manage through this while keeping the kids home.



Because of our schedules, I've been home with at least one of my kids at least one workday a week for almost seven years. The below list is a fleshed out version of what I've used to keep myself and the kids sane while also getting a little work done. The usual caveats apply. I'm not a parenting expert, but I am a dad. My kids are different than your kids, of course. Some or all of this stuff won't work for them, but that's OK because some or all of this stuff might not even work for my kids after today. The third thing you learn about kids when you get one is: the stuff that worked yesterday might suddenly not work today, and the stuff that works today won't work tomorrow, but some of the old stuff might work again in three weeks. In any case, here are some suggestions/tips/activities in no specific order on how to stay sane working from home, but surprise, the kids are there, too, and oh by the way, so is your partner.

There's more than one way to teach a kid. Schools are structured the way they are because they're trying to teach as many kids as much stuff as efficiently as possible. Every school district is approaching school closures differently with regard to distance learning. On the other hand unless you're a teacher, and even if you ARE a teacher, do you really want to try to figure out a ton of new teaching resources? I sure don't! Ask me again in a few weeks, but for now, we're doing a game I invented called "School!" where the kids ask questions and then we look on the internet for answers. So far we've answered, "Why do horses eat so messy?" (Because they might not like what they're eating and they have personalities.) "What happens when you exercise?" (Your heart rate goes up, your temperature rises, your brain works better.) "Science?" (For this one I explained the scientific method in kid terms, which was fortuitous, because one of today's questions was, "What happens if you mix honey and water?") Also, "Do turtles breathe out of their butts?" (Popularized by Frozen 2, the answer is yes, kind of.) Some good resources for this are Google, and Youtube, and But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids. (Consider also spending a minute finding some relevant videos, making them into a playlist on YouTube, and parking your kids in front of that tomorrow instead of Frozen 2.)

Relax your expectations of what you can accomplish in a day. This might be obvious, but it's going to be far harder for you to be as productive as you were the week before last when your kids were in school and you were in an office. Your boss is going to understand this, if you're the boss, your customers and clients will understand. This week has been stressful for us, and yesterday evening I felt as relaxed as I have since school was cancelled. I realized it's because I didn't try to get anything done. Nothing. For the week, I'm averaging about 1.25 tasks per day. It's fine. 

Make your old kid teach your young kid something. My almost 7 year old has just gotten into reading and also loves playing school where she sets up her stuffies in a classroom setting and replays her day in school with her as the teacher. My 4 year old worships her and knows his letters. Can she teach him to read? I don't know! Am I going to try to make her teach him to read? Yes! If you've only got one kid, this is going to be a challenge.

You're not the only one cooped up with kids, so arrange some FaceTime playdates with your children's classmates. They can give each other tours of their houses, show of their favorite toys, or read to each other. Also, your friends without kids are probably going to be bored as hell and most of them would enjoy a little time talking to your kids. FaceTime their friends, FaceTime your friends. Maybe your kids can teach something they learned to their friends or your friends over FaceTime? Who knows! Arrange it in advance, or try your luck and call people willy nilly. Nothing mattress.

Let your kids watch TV or play with the iPad more than you normally would. Screentime's not great, but it is effective. Do you have a call you absolutely have to make without interruption? Daniel Tiger. Is there a study on which you need to concentrate? Doc McStuffins. Do you need to video conference into the weekly meeting? Frozen 2. Need 15 GD minutes to respond to emails? Frozen 2. Is your TPS report due? Frozen 2. I'm not saying park your kids in front of the TV all day, but I am saying if they normally get 15 minutes of screen time a day, 45 minutes isn't going to kill them. Frozen 2 was released early on Disney+ and my kids have watched it 5 times in 8 days.  

Let your kids teach you something, anything they want. Just have them practice picking a subject, taking notes, and then explaining an idea to other people in terms they understand. 

Do science! Kids fucking love science. Here's a link to a website full of science you can do with stuff you mostly have at home. Make your kids work out the scientific method or just do cool shit. Later today we're going to see what happens if you mix honey and water (honestly not that cool), and yesterday I brought home some dry ice to play with (a little more cool!).

Bake or cook. There are lots of websites full of easy recipes kids can cook, but kids can cook hard stuff, too, as long as you help them. Cooking will help kids learn how to follow instructions and then you get cookies at the end. I've just started teaching my daughter knife skills and she can crack eggs. She's really bad at cracking eggs, but that's alright because there's no other way for her to learn. This is going to be messy, so just be patient.

 Art! I'm not good at art so I'm mostly letting them lead the way on this. They're very creative. Focus on your strengths and what you like. Your house might have a stronger art curriculum, but my kids will have an outside chance at making you decent pancakes from scratch in less than a month. It's not a competition. 

Ignore your kids for short periods of time. Unless they're very young or sick, you can probably let them be for a while. If they ask for something, but you're busy, let them know you'll check in with them in a little bit. For some parents learning to ignore their kids is going to be a challenge, but for me it's second nature. They need to figure out some shit independently just as much as I need one good GD second to finish something. Additionally, having two kids is pretty hard, but it's really good when they entertain each other for long stretches of time. Contradictorily, my kids form up like Voltron sometimes to create one unstoppable ball of chaos and not just chaos, but menace, too, so I've also found it's helpful to have the kids play separately once in a while. This minimizes chaotic energy and reduces the occurrences of Voltron. What should kids play? Well, if you've been fortunate enough to have children spoiled by grandparents, your house is probably full of toys, books, games, and puzzles the kids played with a lot for two weeks and have ignored since. Hide 75% of their stuff and reintroduce it slowly.

Relax the rules and routines. My son wanted to wear his clothes to bed the other night, something we might not normally allow. The next day when it was time to get dressed he wanted to wear those clothes again.  I was going to insist he put on new clothes because structure and realized it didn't matter. I don't hardly change my clothes so we compromised on him putting on new undies. Everything's all upside down right now. Even though kids are resilient, they're still going to feel strained, so revisit some of the rules in your house that might not matter at the moment because nothing does. Am I going to holler at them to stop playing in a hamper at the top of the stairs? Yes. Am I giving them Lucky Charms marshmallows two at a time to get them to put on their shoes and play in the backyard? Also yes.

Take care of yourself and your partner. Take a minute to talk about the next day's schedule if you're trying to work around each other's meetings. Give hugs. Drink lots of water. Go for walks by yourself. Put in headphones while folding laundry. Apologize. You need to make sure to take the time you need to keep yourself fit as a parent. We're not going for parent of the year shit, you just need to be good enough to take care of your kids.

I hope some of these tips work for you over the next several months, but if they don't you'll figure something else out. You don't have any other choice.