Oh goodness gracious, does anyone else feel like they are loosing their mind with all this Distance Learning business?!

First off, I thank God that my children attend a school where the staff put so much effort into not only continuing their instruction, but also maintaining the academic quality we have come to expect. I am astounded at how resilient educators are during this time, to be capable of teaching our kids from their own homes, or as in our case, from the school’s otherwise empty classrooms.

That said, the daily multiple emails from each subject’s teachers regarding zoom meetings, assignments, schedule updates, etc is enough to drive someone to the edge of insanity. Last week felt like chaos. My 12 year old seemed as frustrated with me, as I was with the effort of trying to keep it all organized. She insisted she knew what assignments were due and when, and when and with whom her Zoom meetings were scheduled. Come to find out, at 7:30 am yesterday morning (Monday), she had misplaced her science book and had missed an entire assignment that was due. Luckily she was able to contact her classmate who texted her pictures of the pages from the book. She will need to become accustomed to mom nosing in her business until I feel confident we are all on the same page and her work is being completed on time.

We muddled through last week, working our day around the Zoom meetings. This week my goal is to set the schedule in writing ahead of time so that each day there are no surprises. Ideally, by the end of this week, we will have a routine where as I am not feeling like a drill instructor, or the villain as I call myself when the minions exclaim, but why mom?! They will know the who/what/where and how for the following week on Monday with plenty of opportunities to work ahead. We have the advantage of experienced homeschool in the past, so this should not be so much of a shock!

My eight year old son continues to require significant supervision. Unless it is something he is fulling interested in such as coding, I am needing to constantly hound him, deducting 10 minutes at a time per offense (arguing, negotiating, whining, refusing to work, etc) from his allotted 90 minutes of screen time. So when I got the call to come in for a second interview for a nursing gig I am really excited about, I became very concerned about how this will work. The kiddos will be able to go with Dad to work but will be left on their own to complete their assignments. Therefore, another task we will be working on this week is autonomy. I will be giving my son many opportunities to direct his own learning, within the assignments I have given him for the day. So far, today being Tuesday, I am taking many deep breaths and really trying not to loose my temper.

For now, I need to approach this situation like homeschooling. As much as I would like to assume the learning from home would be directed by the teachers, I realize that is not always going to be the case. While ‘school is in session’ I will need to be available to help and keep my little guy focused. Until I go back to work…

This is going to be a challenge.