How Do You Deal With Your Child’s Zoom Fatigue?
In the spring, my 9-year-old son quickly developed what I began to call “Growth Fatigue.” He didn’t mind doing his classwork online, and he didn’t mind the academic timetable I made for him. But when is it time to tackle Zoom with your class? The dude was not interested .
The teacher tried to make it more fun with scavenger hunts and other games, but he found that video calls with 19 peers were boring and tedious. And those calls were just the beginning — brought together to continue to have some semblance of face-to-face communication as we all stumbled across the finish line at the end of the school year.
It’s different this fall. Many kids are learning right now, and many others are learning at least in a hybrid manner. Video calls have become the centerpiece of the actual training, not just “Oh, I think we’d better check it out as soon as possible.”
Especially for kids who are learning entirely virtually, and especially right now as we start the school year, this can mean hours in front of the screen as teachers explain to their students how to access this app and how to submit this assignment. No wonder they are bored, distracted, fussy and whiny; I watched a 12-minute video from my son’s teacher on how to access all of the tools in her online class, and – although I was already an adult and knew this to be important information – I found that my own eyes had faded by the third minute.
Teachers do their best in a difficult situation. They take breaks, pull up Go Noodle and try to keep things interesting and interactive. But for some children, this is still a problem.
If your kids spend hours at the computer, how do you deal with them? Do you chase them around the yard during breaks? Teaching them some mindfulness techniques? Did they squeeze those balls of stress ?
Tell us in the comments: How do you and your kids fight Zoom fatigue?