Dear Parents, Have you tried duct tape?

A sarcastic look at parenting in the wake of COVID19

Last August or maybe September, you got your child ready for another school year. They were ready to learn. You were ready for the routine. That is until the schools closed in March.

My stepdaughter called a week or so ago frustrated beyond belief. Her two girls, aged 10 and 11, were creating turmoil, and in the wake of COVID19 and social distancing closing the schools, she wanted to pull her hair out.

You’ve been doing well at parenting, but welcome to the world of parenting and home schooling without the freedom of summer.

Wait, you’re not one of the parents who elected to home-school your children? You thought your child would do better in public school, private school, or parochial school, didn’t you? You enjoy your adult co-workers, but your position is now considered non-essential. Are you are counting the days when you can go back to work?

Many people are not prepared to be a mashup of parent, teacher, principal, and provider. In addition, you are also the head chef, laundress, housekeeper, yard guy, pool guy, financial adviser, bank, and oh, don’t forget the dishwasher. Did I leave any of your responsibilities out?

In the summer, you can tell your child to go outside and play, but “shelter-in-place” and “safer-at-home” mandates have changed the rules: no longer is it responsible to allow your children to go outside and burn off energy.

Tag breaks the boundaries of social distancing. You have to actually touch someone else to pass off the position of “IT.” Perish the thought.

Although games like kick ball or soft ball seem innocent, will your child actually pull the bottle of hand sanitizer from his or her pocket and use it after touching the ball or bat each and every single time? Probably not.

Slide into base and now you have broken the social distancing rules.

Some communities have adopted clear cut social distancing rules and curfews. Is it even safe to go out for a Sunday drive to escape the boredom of the same four walls without putting on a mask?

Add to your frustration of having their children home when they are normally at school comes the realization of the monstrous appetite a bored child can have. Tired of the television and video games because there is not much else to do, hunger sets in and the grocery list grows.

Now, it has also become your job to function as your child’s/children’s teacher, or maybe I should say facilitator. If you only have one child, you are actually lucky. You only have to master the concept of how to individually tutor.

I sympathize with you if you have two or more children because that means you have more than one level of math, language arts, science, and social studies. Now, you as the parent can listen to “Why do we have to do this?” and try to come up with a reason.

You are lucky, however, that you don’t have to prepare the lessons (the teachers in many districts are still having to prepare multiple daily lessons AND make videos AND post them AND respond to student’s questions), grade the papers, or take attendance.

You as the parent just have to get your child/children to sit in front of the computer and pay attention. At least you don’t have a room of 30 students to get to pay attention, but you do have to figure out how to juggle the computer and internet needs of two or more children.

But wait, what about your actual job? Well, that depends. Is what you do considered essential or non-essential? If you are non-essential, you have all day to help your child with studies or at least get them to sit in front of the computer screen. Unfortunately, if you are essential, you have limited time and energy. You must hope your child sees the importance of doing assignments that may or may not help their grade.

Before I offer you some discipline techniques, I’d like to pause to commend your attempts to juggle everything. I applaud your efforts.

But, if and when life gets too loud and complicated, here are a few things you could try.

A GET ALONG SHIRT

If you have been a social media follower for the last few years, you might have seen one of these. The idea is that if you are confined close enough you have to learn how to get along.

Take a plain white adult extra-large t-shirt. On the front write “OUR GET ALONG SHIRT.” Place two children within the shirt, both heads in the neck space and each child gets one arm.

THREE-LEGGED RACE LIFE

Remember the three-legged race? Yes, you do. The one where your leg and your partner’s leg are tied together, and you have to run to the finish line? Yup, that one.

They used the concept in one of the kid baking shows as well, but they added, I believe, the middle hands tied together as well.

If you tie two struggling children together around the ankle and hand, they have to learn to work together to get anything done.

DON’T LET THE PAPER FALL

Standing in the corner or standing with your nose on the wall is far too easy when dealing with difficult kids.

Instead, stand the two struggling children face to face with a sheet of paper between. Each of the children must keep their hands behind their back or in their pockets. The idea is that they must stand there for a determined amount of time without letting the paper fall. If the paper falls before a timer sounds, the whole activity starts again.

BITCH BALL

The idea here is that the person with the ball has the attention. That person can speak, whine, complain, tattle, or whatever until a timer goes off. (I usually set it for 15 seconds.) When the timer goes off, they must give the ball to another person who has 15 seconds to “bitch.” This is great when there are more than two children in the household.

Rebecca (Becky) spent 34 years in a teaching career, but when she retired in 2014, she picked up her pen and pursued her passion to write. As a high school English teacher, Becky held the philosophy that she wouldn’t give any writing assignment that she personally wouldn’t or couldn’t do. That philosophy strengthened and broadened her own writing.

In addition to publishing her writing on various platforms, Becky also blogs at Life is for Living, a blog to encourage, motivate, and help others live the best life possible. As an extension of Life is for Living, she also publishes a weekly newsletter, Let’s Chat. (Check it out HERE.) Life is for Living also has a social media presence with the group Coffee on my Porch. (Check it out HERE.)

After teaching writing for 34 years, Becky began Ink & Keyboard, a blog for writers at all levels. She supplements what she writes on the blog with a subscription newsletter, The Writer’s Notebook (Check it out HERE.), the social media group Ink & Keyboard (Check it out HERE.), and a Medium publication Ink & Keyboard (Check it out HERE.).

Thanks for reading.

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