Are you struggling with maintaining your mental balance while trying to juggle work, school and kids? Feeling overwhelmed, fatigued and frazzled?
Karen Tan from The Wellness Keeper is a business wellness coach as well as a mum of two school-age children. I ask her to share her expertise after many of the #TOTSquad shared with me their stress, and in some times, despair, with trying to home school their reluctant learners.
Here Karen shares her tips on how parents can help maintain family wellbeing while suddenly being thrust into the role of an educator as well. I hope it helps your family!
For more resources to help you with remote learning read 9 tips for how to home school a reluctant child and have a look at my Daily Visual Schedule.
How to avoid stress while homeschooling
Two and a half weeks into learning from home and what an experience it has been for all of us at home! What a juggle!
With the tech side of things sorted – after a lot of swearing, some shouting and a lot of frustration – I thought the first full week of school would be easier or smoother.
But it wasn’t.
I soon realised my 9-year-old son would do his work, but in a ‘let’s rush and get it done quick’ method, or skip through the instructions and only picking out bits of tasks to do. He also wouldn’t sit still for long!
Then I made it even harder and more stressful for myself when I started looking at the work he was submitting and expecting that the work should be better quality than what was getting produced.
BIG MISTAKE! Cue more frustration.
It dawned on me that my expectations were probably higher than that of the teachers. I was adding pressure to an already uncertain, unusual and unexpected situation that the kids were also trying to adapt to.
The moment I let go of expecting meticulous perfect work from the kids, things changed.
Instead now what I choose to focus on is how to create the right environment for them to do their learning, to their best ability and capacity.
1. Start the day with something fun and physical
We start the school day by doing something fun and physical before the learning starts.
This usually involves some laughing yoga, dancing to a song, bouncing on the trampoline and a PE with Joe session.
The kids find many of these activities hilarious so they usually land up talking and laughing lots whilst doing the exercises. This puts them in a GOOD MOOD to start their work!
2. Schedule in regular, frequent breaks
Early on, a friend who’s an early primary school teacher told me ‘realistically, young kids can only maintain focused attention for 20 minutes’. This really helped me to manage my expectations on how long my kids would be able to sit still and to concentrate.
So we have lots of breaks during the day! My 7yo and 9yo do short bursts of learning of up to 30-45 minutes with a 15 -20-minute play break outside, LEGO session or a snack.
Taking lots of breaks has really helped to move both the kids AND I out of that stressed state we were finding ourselves in, where everything feels hard right now.
The breaks mean that we can be in a calmer, happy state and approach our work with a growth mindset and teamwork mentality.
‘We’ve got this, we can do this!’
A bonus is that it is supporting our immune system, physical, mental and emotional health at the same time. When we are in a stressed mode, our body is in a reactionary fight and flight state which makes learning, focusing and concentrating harder and also lowers the immune system and doesn’t allow our body to digest and detox at its best.
3. Break up the negative vibes with physical activity
Whenever I hear or feel that the kids are getting stuck in a negative state or there’s a creeping feeling of frustration or resistance, I use a silly game to break ourselves out of the stress response.
I say ‘anytime you hear this song (a fun upbeat song) during the day, stop what you are doing, run to the living room (or any designated spot) and dance to this song.’
What this does is change, interrupt and break any negative thought cycles the kids are in. It helps to reset and get everyone back into a happy mood.
4. Laugh to maintain a light environment
For us, I really feel the secret sauce has been the letting go of expectations and focusing on creating a fun, light, and happy environment throughout the learning day.
I feel it’s ever so important at this point in time for all of us to be doing things that keep us in a rest and digest state. And believe it or not, laughing is one powerful tool to do that!
Laughing is such a good fix for our nervous system right now. Did you know that your brain and body don’t know the difference between a fake laugh and real laugh? Fake laughing turns to real laughter in about 45-60 seconds and then your body releases all those happy hormones and endorphins which floods your nervous system in a good way!
I’ve been using a lot of laughter therapy at home not just to boost my immune system but to get me out of my reptilian brain and also to get me in a happy mode as I go to sleep at night. The mood you go to sleep with is what you wake up with!
For more resources for homeschooling / remote-learning have a look at:
My Daily Visual Schedule
Big Life Journal Review: Best Growth Mindset products for kids
9 tips for how to home school a reluctant child
21 best toys for keeping kids busy and learning
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