Do not feel an ounce of guilt about your kids’ screen-time!
COVID-19 and kids — A How-To-Guide to not losing your mind.
First let me get this out of the way….your kids are stuck at home with you for the foreseeable future. No matter how optimistic your public officials and the local principals sound, school is out for summer. And as much as I hate to admit this, summer camps are now off the table too. Had the federal government acted more uniformly and decisively, tested more, contained clusters, maybe, just maybe, we would have a chance to get out of this by June/July— but that ship sailed this week. Frankly, given how terribly we’ve handled this virus thus far, I’ll be shocked if school opens in September.
So having accepted that inevitable and depressing fact, what’s next? How are parents supposed to work (largely from home) and yet somehow also educate children of various ages and survive the next few months?
(P.S. If you are a Pinterest parent and already have an Excel spreadsheet with your family’s schedule color-coded and broken down in 30-minute allotments, I admire and envy you. Go forth and thrive, my friend. This article is not meant for you. Also I should note, it is not meant for the parents of kids under six years old. I think the needs of pre-school kids are different and more challenging. I just wish you luck and patience.)
Step 1. Leave them alone. Children do not need constant supervision. They can find ways to entertain themselves. I am a helicopter mom just like every other 44-year-old woman I personally know, but the fact is, given a safe room/backyard and some toys, most kids can entertain themselves for a few hours. In fact, studies show, it’s good for them. They learn independence and problem-solving. So tell them to go find the fun. It’s also a learned skill. So the first day, they may only be able to do it for 15 minutes, but if you keep encouraging them to leave you alone and go play, they eventually get to a hour or two.
Step 2. Ask them to do chores. With so many people home all the time, everything is getting messy. So make them do a load of laundry, organize their books, sort out old toys that can be donated to younger kids, vacuum, and dust. You name it, most nine-year olds can do it. And hey, one more thing off your plate. There is also a sense of accomplishment that a kid gets from making a bed or loading a dishwasher; why deny them that?
Step 3. Encourage them to read. Reading is both a fun and mandated activity in our home. And it is an easy answer to the question: “Mom, I am sooooo bored, what should I do?” The best books are whatever book your kids like. My 11-year-old is reading Twilight which is perhaps too advanced for her, but she likes it — she gets to read it. My 9-year-old likes books where the pictures outnumber the words, to which I say “have at it.”
Step 4. Ask them to cook. Cooking is math and science and complex instructions all rolled into one. And yet again, another thing taken off your daily to-do list. Yes, I grant you, the kitchen may be a disaster zone when they are done, but with practice and some small oversight, kids can totally manage both baking and cooking. Blue Apron recipes are particularly easy for my 11-year-old to follow. But both kids are now capable of putting a simple breakfast on the table, or making a few easy dishes for dinner. They enjoy it, we lavish them with praise for their efforts, and the only thing that truly suffers are my kitchen floors.
Step 5. And most importantly, give them the damn iPad. Look, desperate times call for desperate measures. You have to assume that every person you come into contact with has the virus from this point on…so no, you cannot have playdates and you cannot go to the park, other than for bike-rides and walks where you are truly far from other people. Horrifyingly — yet out of necessity — a lot of hospitals are no longer letting visitors in the building. That means if your child gets truly sick, GOD FORBID, you may need to leave them alone in the care of strangers. That’s just so traumatizing for everyone involved that I can’t even wrap my head around it. So yes, let them melt their little brains into mush watching other kids unwrap toys and play Minecraft for hours on end for the next few months. It’s okay. Don’t feel guilty about it. It’s what we are ALL doing whenever we need some peace and quiet during that never-ending conference call. Ultimately, hours of iPad trumps increased risk of COVID-19. So stay home. Stay safe.
And don’t feel guilty — no matter how much or how little you are doing to entertain and educate your kids for the next few months. Never forget that our entire responsibility starts and ends with keeping them as healthy as possible. Everything else is secondary, and dare I say, utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of life under the current circumstances. Believe me, once school starts again, they will easily rekindle their friendships, relearn their multiplication tables, delve deep once again into Mesopotamian history…
Until then, all hail the mighty iPad, the savior of quarantined parents everywhere.
