The Ultimate Guide To Staying Sane:
The Social Distancing For Parents Edition
Last updated: April 10, 2020
Here’s the thing. Your children are probably concerned, worried, or plain confused. They don’t know what’s happening, why their schools have shut down, why their Mummys and Daddys are staying at home (and not playing with them during the day!), and why all their playdates and classes have suddenly stopped. To boot, you probably have to channel your inner juggler and manage working from home as well as household duties (since most of us have asked our household help to practice social distancing as well).
If you are wondering how to handle this situation without going insane, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. The Ultimate Guide To Staying Sane: The Social Distancing For Parents Edition has resources that will help you explain the situation to your children as well as a host of recommendations on what you can do to keep your children busy. As for how you can keep yourself busy as well as be your productive best while working, we’ve got you covered here.
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Take some time out to explain the situation to them, to understand what they know and what they’ve heard. Nothing beats solid reassurance from your parents. Of course, before you talk to them, arm yourself with the correct knowledge (we recommend using this New York Times article).
And for when you do have the conversation, here are some resources that may help you:
- This guide on how to talk about COVID-19 to your kids.
- This video has some great tips on ways to have such serious conversations as well as some of the things you should be doing as parents.
- This video from The Children’s Hospital, Colorado has a load of great information that you can use while talking to your child (and it includes why their school is shut).
Here are some other resources that will help explain the novel Coronavirus to your children, and the things they can do to prevent the spread.
- For older kids, Science Mom’s video explains COVID-19 really well.
- NPR has an excellent comic that explores the novel Coronavirus.
- KidsHealth’s explainer on when and how to wash your hands.
- The Young Orthopod has a video that explains why social distancing is important while CBC Kids News tells you what social distancing is.
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How To Successfully Work From Home With Kids Around
If your children are in their teens, it probably won’t be so hard for you to work from home. Truth be told, your teens may be happy to not spend time with you! However, setting boundaries and explaining work from home to younger children may be hard. We strongly believe in having candid conversations. Children are often smarter than we give them credit for and a conversation is often all it takes. To help you work from home, here are some things you can do:
- Create a workspace. If you’re lucky to have a separate room, make that a no-go space. However, even if you don’t, at least allocate a space which is your temporary ‘office’ (say, part of the dining table) and tell the children they’re not allowed to ‘enter it’.
Pro-tip: If you have a common work area, a pair of really good noise-cancelling headphones might be worth the investment!
- Set clear ‘office’ hours. At the same time, you can break them up so your children can spend time with you- for example, work from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., then spend an hour with your kids as well as have lunch with them, and work from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. again. That’s still an eight-hour day. Children inherently love routine, so clarity helps significantly.
Pro-tip: You can set up timers/alarms on your phone or your child’s phone (if they have one), which tells them when you’re currently ‘in office’ and when you are free to engage with them.
- Set your children fun tasks that they have to complete during your work hours. For example, they have to colour in a drawing, complete a puzzle, read a book and tell you its story when you meet or, to really get the creative juices flowing, give them a prompt and get them to write a story around it (this will also keep them busy for a while).
Pro-tip: If you have more than one child, we’ve found, they love coming up with plays and performances. Give them a book that they have to convert into a play and put on a performance for you at the end of the week. That should keep them busy all week! Keep in mind though that you may unwillingly get roped into props duty!
Pro-pro-tip: Ease up on the no-candy rule! Let them have a (small) piece of candy for successfully completing a task. However, if you really don’t want to give them candy, here are some healthy and fun treats to offer them instead. Another option – roll up some ghee, jaggery, white sesame and peanuts into a ball and voila, you get a really healthy, 10-seconds-to-make and yummy (we’ve tried it!) laddoo!
Always remember, many freelancers have had very successful careers while working from home with children of all ages. Which means, you can definitely do it too!
This video of Professor Robert Kelley seriously continuing his live televised interview (while working from home), despite his children barging into his room, never fails to make us laugh.
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Keeping Your Kids Busy
It is important to keep your kids busy during this time of social distancing. However, keep in mind that while you do want to entertain your children, there is some merit in letting them get bored. Let the children entertain themselves for some time. You never know the kind of creativity a bored mind can come up with!
Meanwhile, here are some recommendations on how to keep them entertained:
Read
Wondering how to make reading a fun activity for your children? Here’s your chance! Children’s author Parinita gives you some tips on how to do go about doing this in her TCR article. If your child is already a reader and you don’t know which books to buy for them, here are some suggestions:
- Our favourite children’s authors and the books they recommend.
- Books that help teach your children about various disabilities that affect people and how to treat them with sensitivity.
- Discover the beauty of Hindi by reading these books out to your child.
- Show your children that women don’t always need to be rescued and are capable of charting their own paths through these books.
You also have the option (albeit for a short period of time) of downloading the entire collections of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle!
Cook
Looking for a good way to keep your children away from the candy stash that you’re (also) dying to dive into? Try cooking instead. It’ll be a fun activity for you to get involved in with your child, it’ll keep them occupied and also help them learn a new skill.
- Tasty has a fun mix of healthy and unhealthy recipes to cook with your children.
- First Cry also offers recipes that your children can easily make in a kitchen stocked with Indian ingredients.
- If you prefer physical cookbooks, celebrity chef Vikas Khanna’s Young Chefs is a good book to invest in.
Learn
If your child’s school hasn’t overburdened you with homework, here are some resources to invest in to expand your child’s horizons:
- Language Curry: An easy way to teach your children Indian languages (Website | App Store | Google Play).
- Little Pims: An excellent tool (a collection of board books, flash cards and DVDs) to introduce young children to different European languages.
- Blockly: It’s never too early to get them started on computer programming, a skill everybody will need in the future (Website).
- The Kids Should See This: A range of interesting and educative videos for children of all ages.
- The Shifu STEM pack: An augmented reality toy that makes your children use logic.
- Collins Digital Home Learning: Harper Collins is allowing free access to school textbooks for classes one-eight on their digital platform.
Alternatively, you can also use the Education Above All Foundation’s exhaustive list of educational resources to find something that suits you and your children.
Play
Playtime is probably the one thing that will keep you and your children sane during this time of enforced social distancing.
- Board games like Kids on stage, Junior Scrabble and Junior Pictionary can keep them entertained and busy.
- World Geography Games is a really fun website that lets your children play geography-related games.
- National Geographic Kids’ range of quizzes and games will ensure your children are occupied and never bored.
- The Artful Parent is a Facebook page with lovely activities you can try out at home with your children.
Exercise
Given the current situation, it is safe to say that your children are probably not going for their basketball, football or dance classes, nor are they getting their weekly P.E. in school. However, some form of physical activity is important for them.
- You can ensure that they stay healthy by doing basic yoga with them by following Cosmic Kids Yoga.
- This playlist from The Learning Station has some fun songs with choreographed dance movements that your children will be able to easily follow.
Listen
Storytelling is an excellent way to engage with your children. However, if you don’t have the time to tell them stories yourself, there are some interesting options out there.
- Audible is offering a selection of children’s books for free till the COVID-19 related lockdown passes.
- IVM’s Kini Aur Nani is a selection of Hindi stories, and is available on your preferred Podcast provider.
Watch
Not all T.V. has to be bad. There’s a lot of really great content out there that’s both educational and entertaining.
- TED-Ed has TEDx style videos meant for students.
- Crash Course Kids is a YouTube channel with fun and engaging videos for your little ones.
- The International Kids Film Festival is offering one free film per day for children, with the selection ranging from educational to cultural.
- The Kruger National Park is broadcasting game drives twice daily, along with information about the animals.
- Of course, streaming services also have a host of great and educational options for children. Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood (Netflix) remains a favourite amongst children of all ages with its social and moral lessons, Curious George (Amazon Prime) features an endearing monkey and covers themes of learning and forgiveness, and Word Party (Netflix) is a good way to improve the vocabulary of younger children.
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