Managing in the Pandemic Part 1… You’ve Got This! Taking Care of YOU Helps Your Kids, Too!

This is a tough time in history and crossing into 2021 hasn’t magically changed that.

Heartwarming videos and posts encourage us that we’ll get through this together, but if you’re working from home and trying to manage distance learning with your kids, it can feel pretty lonely.  It may be helpful to know that what you’re feeling is normal – the emotional ups and downs and the sense of overwhelm at times.

 

Education is taking a hit this school year and it’s affecting most students regardless of age.  We may have to adjust our expectations.  You may have a child who was doing just fine in school until Distance Learning started, and now they’re really struggling because of the lack of monitoring and structure that the classroom always provided. We want our kids to do their best, but their best might look different in their current school situation.  Our focus may have to be a little bit different. We can’t do things exactly the way we have in the past. Even when things go back to normal, normal will have changed.

 

This is an opportunity to reset and make some changes that we might not have made or noticed the need for, but that hopefully will result in our children, our students, and ourselves having more resilience, more independence, better self-care, and stronger thinking skills.

 

It’s really important during this time, that you stay OK so that your family and students have a chance of staying OK through this.  Our kids are always going look to us for social referencing:  to see if we’re all OK, if life is OK, and if we’re all going to get through this.  If you’re a mess, your kids will be, too.  But the same thing goes for being calm and resilient.

 

As parents, especially moms, we tend to put everyone else first, but the only way this works is if you take care of you.  It’s kind of like putting the oxygen mask on yourself first and then your child.  Everything that’s happening now is outside of you and outside of your control.  It’s only occurring inside of you if you allow it.  We are adaptable creatures.  All we can do is embrace where things are, even if we don’t like them and see how we can adapt and even develop.

 

Take this opportunity to be intentional about building new habits for mental, physical, and spiritual health for yourself and your kids. It’s OK to start with tiny changes.  That’s how new habits start.  So, if you think, “I would love a little bit of quiet time with a cup of coffee before I jump into the day, but there’s simply not time…start with just 5 minutes.  It’s OK to start small.

 

This is important!

Mental health issues are of real concern right now for children of all ages, as well as adults.  Give yourself permission to take care of YOU.  You’re worth it and your family deserves it!

 

In this time of uncertainty and stay-at-home, we at Stowell Learning Centers have been so grateful to be able to continue to serve children and adults with learning and attention challenges – helping them to close the gaps in their learning and permanently change their learning and attention challenges by addressing the inefficient underlying skills at the root of the problem.

 

If you would like a free consultation to talk with someone about your child, call us at 877-774-0444 or sign up on the front page of our website:  www.stowellcenter.com.

 

If you’re a parent of a struggling student in need of a safe place to ask questions and get support and resources, check out our private Facebook group: SLC Mom Squad.

 

Jill Stowell

Founder Stowell Learning Centers

Author:  At Wit’s End A Parent’s Guide to Ending the Struggle, Tears, and Turmoil of Learning Disabilities

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