LJMS Chronicles: Parents Describe T …

The cabin fever parents are experiencing is all over social media these days.

They are struggling and juggling to be Supermom and Superman is spilling all over the house while sheltering-in-place.

The process of managing kids morning, noon and night while managing their worried finances overnight is perhaps the greatest struggle you’ll face during your adult lifetime.

Even though we have meetings and disseminate lessons with parents, many are feeling overwhelmed by the pressures.

So, let me offer my best advice: just do your best…tell yourself it’s going to be okay. 

And, so am I!

For example, one mom wrote that all she did one day with her kids was watch three PG-rated movies with them in a popcorn-throwing living room frenzy. She didn’t follow through on her kids’ lessons. She wrote, “I feel like a failure.” 

No, you’re not! You spent valuable family-room time together! 

You created a loving, happy home all day during a time of sheltering-in-place.

When this element of our social distancing is over, school will reopen. Your children will again learn in earnest when they return. They’ll have their own experiences to share. And those experiences will be about how their family spent their time together and the smiles, joy, and love they received from each other.

Here’s a tip to try tomorrow…a ‘very’ Montessori Method tactic. 

Start at the breakfast table and ask your kids to decide and tell you what they want to do as long as it is something new that we can all learn from. How about these ideas:

• we will exercise together
• we will walk the dog together and look for insects along the way
• we will play hide and seek together
• we will just use our imaginations while playing in the backyard
• my children will teach me to draw
• we will learn the words to a song together and sing them all the way through
• I will explain how to play a new game together with my kids or teach them the finer points of a game they already know.

You won’t feel like a ‘failure’ at all. Instead, you’ll be a ‘hero.’

It is a great blessing to spend more than ten days with your family even though it’s not a vacation and not the holidays. There’s a great deal of insight you can glean from your kids during this time—what they’re all about at their core.

So, just step back, reclaim your purpose as a parent and just know at night that your efforts have been more than good enough. It’s going to be okay and I’m going to be okay. And, that means that my family will be okay, too, while sheltering-in-place.