Why Structure in a Kid’s Life Is Overrated (Except for One Thing)
Put distance learning in its place so families don’t frazzle even more during a pandemic
Are you bracing yourself for the tidal wave of digital learning about to befall you and your family?
With Back to School time, parents and children alike are in for major adjustments during the Age of Covid-19, possibly for the entire school year and maybe into the next one. These are uncertain times indeed for everyone. School-related changes that impact children can be frightening or anxiety-causing. It’s up to you, as parent, to smooth the transition for kids as best you can.
But no one’s a miracle worker.
Where to start? A look at some scheduling basics is the perfect place to begin (but please, don’t stop there).
Schedules and Kids
Some people go way overboard with schedules to the point that a fixation on time rules their every moment (waking and sleeping). This clock-watching obsession is in itself stress-inducing. It easily snowballs into every aspect of life. Stress is contagious, too. Your kiddos will become edgy in response to your own uptightness.
Give yourself a break. A pandemic is taxing your nerves more than usual.
In fact, pandemic anxiety is for real. Irritability, anger, forgetfulness, sleeplessness, and just an over-arching sense of general malaise and foreboding are common symptoms. Sound familiar?
I’ve encountered a fair share of pandemic anxiety in my own home since the spring lockdown. (Cabin fever syndrome may be part of it since we’ve been cooped up in quarantine.) But, if I’m writing an article under deadline and it spills over into the wee hours of the morning, I will exclaim “Be quiet!” a little too energetically, too often all day long. In reply, the background bickering will take everyone’s bad mood up a notch as well. Of course, the next-morning grumpies don’t help. I promise myself to do better but don’t always hit my goal. My kiddos, innocent victims they are, bear the brunt.
However, do not throw out schedules completely thinking you’ll eliminate stress if you do. Some structure is undeniably essential for children’s normal development and sense of security. Feeling safe in a reliably constant environment is critical for physical and mental health in children and adolescents. There are decades of evidence-based research from many disciplines backing this up.
Covid-19 upends the stability of home life by its very nature, but there are ways to outsmart it, and — starting with establishing or re-establishing routines — there is a way to get a grip on family life again. Back to School is the ideal time to do it.
The question, however, is: How much structure is good for your child?
Here are the bare bones of routines for children of all ages.
Importance of enough deep shut eye
My anarchist tendencies aside, I am a staunch supporter of getting a good night’s sleep every single night. Sleep is, beyond a doubt, my caffeine. Without a fully rested brain, I struggle to write well. Creativity goes out the window. I’m moody and unpleasant to be around. You, too?
TIP: Beware of caffeine jolts after 12 pm. They’ll interfere with fitful sleep.
The importance of sleep for children and teens cannot be overstated. Sound, restful sleep is essential to their development not to mention to their ability to perform well on learning tasks.
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, here are recommendations for kids’ sleep in a 24-hour period (including naps for the little ones):
- 3–5 year olds: 10–13 hrs. (That’s over half a day!)
- 6–12 year olds: 9–12 hrs. (That’s up to half a day.)
- 13–18 year olds: 8–10 hrs. (A significant length of time rarely achieved with super-early bell times in schools for teens whose brains are naturally predisposed to a later bedtime and wake up time. A reason why some teens — including my own — actually like lockdown and remote learning.)
During a pandemic, sleep takes on greater significance. A strong immune system depends on receiving adequate and sound sleep every night.
The take home message is: I never skimp on sleep time and don’t allow my kids to, either.
Dialing Back Bedtime
If you haven’t already dialed back bedtime after a lax summer, it’s a good idea to do so now. Easing into it by 30 minutes to an hour every night may help make the transition less grueling. The most important thing is to establish a near-fixed wake-up time (more so than a rigid bedtime) from here on in.
During this process, it may be tough for your kids to fall sleep earlier than they have become accustomed to doing. (Also, getting up earlier for video lessons may be next to impossible the first week or two. Don’t sweat it. Do the best you can.) To make this transition peaceful for all, try these techniques one-two hours before bedtime:
- All electronics off (including the TV), and out of the bedroom.
- Reading a pleasant, positive book (together or separately depending on age)
- Soothing bath with lavender oil-infused warm water
- A sip or two of chamomile tea (Not too much though — you want to avoid bed wetting or night-time trips to the bathroom)
- Light stretching (If you break out in a sweat, you’re overdoing it.)
- Massage while listening to soft music
- Lots of hugs, snuggles & cuddles (for teens, maybe high fives and smiles)
Using Sleep as Your Daily Pivot
In terms of structure, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say: Once you get into a regular sleep-wake routine, all the rest will more or less fall into place. By “all the rest,” I’m referring to all the other stuff you gotta do every day like eating and working. Since families and individuals in those families are so different, presenting anything more…structure-y may make certain people feel that they’re doing something wrong if they don’t follow it perfectly all the time. Or worse, make some feel weird or abnormal if they deviate from a set routine. Why be the schedule police in your own home?
I’m not at all about that. Structures need to serve you, not the other way around.
So, my view is: Parents do best by taking a minimalist’s approach to routine. You’ve got too much on your plate already. I’m not here to compound your problems or make your life more challenging than it is by suggesting you set up detailed and color-coded schedules for every member of your household, accounting for every hour of every day.
As a result, I offer only general guidelines for structuring your days. Discuss your ideas for routines with your family before you implement them. Try to get each family member on board. Accomplishing this feat may involve making compromises and concessions. Consider it a teachable moment for a life lesson on family (or, generally, team) cohesion.
Daily Routine Guidelines
Somewhere in there, you need to plan working, playing, cooking, eating, and doing chores.
Personally, my children and I do a flow state, in-the-groove routine, with little rhyme or reason to it. Granted, they’re older and quite mature for their ages. This may not work for little ones.
So, for example, when something needs to be cleaned, like the dishes or the shower, “someone” does it. Usually the person who sees that it needs to get done is the self-appointed housekeeper. Once in a while, I may politely request that a specific child do a certain chore. But this is rare. And when I (or another family member) expresses a need, I don’t get a bunch of backtalk or resistance. (I know. I am blessed. My secrets coming up in another article.)
Same for cooking. Usually, the last person to finish leftovers cooks up something else with whatever’s in the fridge and pantry. We all take turns.
If your family doesn’t sync like ours, a chore list (with rotations) or cooking calendar may help alleviate any disagreement about whose turn it is. Suggesting that people pick a day to cook or clean every week, without insisting on specific times, may be adequate for keeping things running smoothly at your home, sweet home.
For the other activities, (working, playing, and eating), our two guiding principles are:
- Moderation in all things
- Maintenance of family harmony
Considering each activity in turn:
1. Working
Face it. No one’s really psyched to be doing virtual school or hybrid school. To make the best of a bad situation, I suggested a modified distance learning approach in my previous article titled Pandemic Pods Are Too Risky for Your Child. Try Modified Distance Learning Instead. Through cooperation with your children’s teachers, my strategy focuses on integrating lots of hands-on and child-selected activities, following the school’s curriculum closely. It requires research on your part and involvement in carrying it all out from start to finish. But it should add variety and heighten enthusiasm for learning to your day-to-day routine.
Starting or joining an outdoor learning pod may also liven up the daily routine, aid your children’s comprehension and enthusiasm for school, and, most of all, boost their mental well-being. However, there are important safety factors to consider when going the pod route. I discuss seven key points in my article titled Learning Pod Etiquette During the Covid-19 Pandemic : 7 Key Points.
You as a parent need to juggle your own remote work with your children’s. The balancing act seems formidable now. How can you ever do justice to either?
The person who figures out the time management solution to this dilemma is sure to make a fortune. Until that happens, you muddle through the best you can. I’ll say more about this in an upcoming article. But here are some general guidelines:
- Work a little before your kids wake up and/or after your kids go to bed. This way, you’ll maximize the “free” time you have to devote to helping them with schoolwork one-on-one. But don’t cheat yourself out of precious sleep if you try this!
- For your Zoom meetings or phone calls during normal business hours, schedule them around nap times, when your kids are outside, or when they’re quietly watching a movie. If you have a partner, enlist their help.
- Share cooking and cleaning responsibilities all around — and insist on it. If someone doesn’t do their part, withhold privileges from them until it gets done. You don’t have to be a superwoman.
For more ideas on juggling remote work and distance learning, see my article titled 9 Best Work from Home Jobs for Homeschooling Single Parents.
2. Eating
Having a meal together provides a chance for family members to reconnect each day, or several times a day. You may not be able to do what you did pre-pandemic, but that’s okay. You’re living a different reality now.
It’s a good idea, when waking up, to be in a sunny room or preferably outside for at least 15 minutes. Morning stroll or jog anyone? Doing this resets your biological alarm clock. Maybe whipping up breakfast at this time in the kitchen will aid in the wake up reset (associating food with wake up time).
At least one meal together every day allows all members to share their feelings and talk about what they’re doing or will be doing soon. Usually, it’s dinner that’s the family meal but it doesn’t have to be. Go with whatever works for you and your family. Optimal nutrition is key to health, so make it a priority.
Remain flexible about eating together. A weekend brunch or Saturday afternoon pizza party could be just the thing to lighten up the ambiance in your home. It would certainly be something to look forward to and plan. Or, just spontaneously suggest it! Variety will lessen the drudgery of being at-home all the time.
3. Playing
Last but by no means least, play is essential for mental and physical health. Indulge yourself and your kids here. Incorporating lots of unstructured outside time for leisure — maybe a walk or bike ride around the neighborhood — will relieve any pent-up tensions over the daily grind. Reconnecting with nature is also therapeutic in children and teens (and in moms and dads, too).
Whatever you do, make time to just hang out together in a relaxed setting. This could be in a family room or a public park. Change it up, too. A game of night laser tag or Sunday afternoon flag football may be just the remedy for the Covid-19 quarantine blues.
And now, in a pandemic, don’t ever rule out the possibility, especially if you or one of your kids is having a really bad day, of shutting down screens and throwing in the towel for the time being. Put everything on hold and have fun. Do something you all enjoy, together. Baking and decorating a cake, having a pillow fight, building a snowman or flying kites are just a few ideas. Whatever you do, just make it family-unifying and fun!
Tomorrow will be another day. Give yourself a break today.
Thriving in Routines: Is It Possible?
The key to productivity during distance learning is to keep rules minimal, and revolve all activities around a healthy sleep-wake cycle. Carving up the day into discrete time blocks will wear thin after awhile. Humans are not robots. Automation has its limits.
So, keep time flexible. Maybe allowing up to 1 to 2 hours at a time for each of the five major activities (working, playing, cooking, eating, and doing chores) during the day is plenty. You may feel more grounded in reality if you write out a tentative schedule in very broad outline, doing so one day at a time or maybe even weekly. In this way, you’ll be customizing routines to fit your lifestyle and mesh with whatever’s going on at the time. You control routines instead of just following protocol in the name of “order.”
Feel free to do a second round of one or more of the five categories of activities later in the day, too. And definitely include regular breaks from screen use. Moving around and stretching stiff muscles during breaks are good ways to beat the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle in kids (and in you, too)!
The order in which you slice up the day into the five types of activities may change from day to day. This is not inherently bad. For instance, you may intend to spend two hours on work in the morning, but it turned out to be four, shifting lunchtime and pushing everything back a bit. Complications connecting digitally or downloading a document may have created a setback. That’s okay. Mistakes or problems happen. It’s not your fault. People are versatile enough to adapt. Chalk it up as being another teachable moment about life for your kids, so spend a moment pointing it out.
Self-care = #1
Above all, make time for self-care every day. For everyone in your family. Integrating it into playtime, breaks, and during your bedtime routine may work for you. Examples of self-care for you and your children include:
- Making a favorite dessert to share
- Dancing to your favorite music
- Taking a bubble bath
- Adding an extra hour or two of sleep into your schedule (at night only)
- Watching an uplifting movie as a family
- Journaling about your feelings with or without a prompt
- Limiting watching news or being on social media to one hour a day. Or less. (No need to see negative images all the time, but it is important to stay informed.)
Hope your school year routine enables you to reconnect with your family and make pleasant memories. Any schedule must serve you, and not the other way around. Just remember that distance learning shall pass one day. Until then, do the best you can with what you got.