Parenting the pandemic is extremely challenging. Parenting is challenging regardless of your backgrounds, cultures, race or religion. However, a pandemic happens not even once in a lifetime. Charting a path becomes each individual’s responsibility. Consequently, many divergent theories arise without the mapping of the generation before us. We seek the scholars, philosophers, teachers and demigods grasping for ideas that resonate with our style of living and parenting. Do they meet today’s needs or are we still longing for the magic bullet that will right our course and help us raise our children to understand and cope with the current limitations to our lives…their lives. What options do we have currently though that magic bullet would be perfection? Perhaps this is the magic bullet.
What Options Do We Have for Parenting In The Pandemic?
My professional and personal journey has led me to understand the need for being able to be resilient during challenging times. Throw away the shoulds, the hopes and dreams and live only in the present day. Your children need your support and comfort but mostly they need your fun and play. I love the book, “All I Really Need To Learn I Learned in Kindergarten. I have found this to be so true the older I get. Kindergarten used to be and is coming back to be a time to play for we learn important life skills in play. Grab this opportunity to play with everything. Make each day have activities that bring laughter and joy. Let them help you create the play and the activities surrounding your routines, school, homework and social interactions.
Take this time to build your children’s social and emotional learning skills for they are 80% the reason we are successful in life. They will not fall behind. They will learn to explore their minds and find creative solutions for the current challenges. Watch them become the human beings that have empathy, jump at service and find gratefulness in the smallest of pleasures. Pedantic learning squashes the vibrant active mind. When I was teaching, I swore that my classrooms would not be as boring as mine were in childhood. Therefore, I attempted to play with every subject be it math, history, reading or writing. Your children will thrive and learn more than they ever would have sitting for hours on end.
Play, Laughter, Fun, Love and Joy
These are our options for thriving with our children during this pandemic. Yes, there are awful happenings all around us and I am not suggesting that we stick our heads in the ground. However, take a year off at home from all the have tos, shoulds and futures. Teach your children the ways we survive at the worst of times for we need to maintain our physical and mental health. Education is indeed important but how we arrive at success may depend on our emotional well-beings once the pandemic is over. Stave off the depression, the anxiety and the lost of control with play, laughter, fun, love and Joy!
Humor me and try it and see how it feels. My humor has saved me from many sad and challenging times. It builds the resilience we need to push ahead and be present for another day.
Knock, knock, who is there? Joy and Love. Joy and Love Who? Joy and Love from Above!