If You Are Struggling to Become a Parent Right Now, You Are Not Alone.

I was going to write a post on how to help your young children burn off all this shackled energy that is coming from them right now – and I still will – but I had to pause on the hacks for a second to tell you something important: if you’re struggling, that’s okay. If you are completely and completely depressed and struggle with crying most of the time, that is also normal. I would be more than surprised if you didn’t. Because we are all like that.

I live at home with one child and this child is nine years old. His dad is here too, and although we both work from home, this is an excellent parent-to-child ratio in this situation. Yet it took me 45 minutes to write this first paragraph.

Why did it take me 45 minutes? Because I was trying to write this while my son was reading. But he ran out of books. He literally reread every book he owns, plus a few new ones I’ve sent home over the past couple of weeks. He is one of those kids who really do well in structure; if this structure begins to crumble, his emotional well-being can go along with it. So until the next batch of books arrives, I have to keep it for this time with something to do with reading.

Fortunately, during my usual morning scrolling through parenting news, I discovered that J.K. Rowling had launched the Harry Potter Home website with a variety of activities for the kids. We are currently reading the series together, so games related to Potter are considered reading right now as far as I understand. But in order to be placed in the Hogwarts home, I had to set it up with an account that required email confirmation and account registration. His Chromebook was not working, so I needed to install it on my desktop computer, which has a mouse that he is not used to. Thus, every 4-5 minutes, he needed help navigating to a page or clicking on a slideshow.

And each time it was a break in my concentration. Each time, I had to put my laptop aside and walk across the room to click an arrow or refresh a page.

Fortunately, his reading time has come to an end, but now he is telling me about a dream he had last night.

Whichever day or week you are in this claustrophobic new world that we live in, it lasted for at least one day or a week. You are either stressed out trying to work from home and also make sure they are logged in at the right time for a Zoom class meeting, or you are not working from home because your work cannot be done from home. This means that it is entirely possible that you are under financial stress or are doing important work and are at risk of being infected with the coronavirus every day. I’m not a fan of any of these scripts.

Now he tells me that he thinks there is a spider on our tanning bed because he saw a cobweb under the cupboard when he was vacuuming a few days ago.

I listened to the One Bad Mother podcast the other day and this thread is all about how overwhelming and un helpful all of these lists are right now. You know: 20 crafts you can make from xyz material, 50 indoor activities you can do, all the museum tours your kids should take, and a truly endless pit of free educational resources offered right now by any company or organization. even the most insignificant. a little educational.

All of these lists and resources are meant to be helpful. But this is a lot to figure out when you are already sorting out how to live, 24-7, in a confined space with young children who need to constantly learn, despite the fact that you are not a teacher or you are a teacher, but you are at home with your children … Plus you are worried about your job. In addition, you are worried about the health of your older relatives. You are worried about canceling not only the rest of the school year, but the whole summer as well as summer camps, vacations, barbecues and life.

Now he calls me for help because he is taking a shower, but he forgot to take a towel.

If you are a parent with children at home, it is difficult for you now, and this is normal. You will have days when it’s enough to just walk to the end, when everyone is physically (if not emotionally) whole. It might even be a goal. And if I decide to blow up my son’s academic schedule because the stress of finding something new to read for him begins to outweigh the benefits of keeping his day structured, that’s okay.

He would like to know how to pronounce the word alligators. And then I can tell him how a person has a heart attack?

Listen, I’m here. I will be coming here every day and letting you know what LeVar Burton is going to tweet for us . Or what if you want to take a virtual trip with your kids, you can also make it Disney World . Or Baby Shark has a new hand washing video that you can try if you’re desperate.

Take what is useful and leave the rest. And if you need help with a specific aspect of parenting during this pandemic, write about it here in the comments. Now is not the time for us to try to be perfect; it’s time to do what we need to survive. Because whether you work or not, whether you have one child or four children, in a four-bedroom house or in a 500-square-foot apartment, it’s tricky.