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how not to feel like a lousy parent during covid-19
expert alyson schafer: 'you can't mess up your kids for life by chucking treats at them as a bribe to be quiet.'
mar 21 2020
4 minute read
working from home with kids is challenging, but doable. stock/getty
in a monthly advice column for healthing.ca, toronto-based parenting expert alyson schafer answers your most pressing questions.
dear #askalyson,
now that my kids are home and i have to work, how i can avoid feeling like a schmuck parent for throwing m&m’s at them so i can get through a call?
signed, feeling guilty
dear feeling guilty,
if ever there was a time to be kind with ourselves, it is now. none of us were prepared for this unexpected chaos. we are just doing our best to figure out a way forward. and when we are in survival mode, we do what we can to get by, moment to moment. perhaps it would feel reassuring to know that you can’t mess up your kids for life by chucking treats as a bribe to be quiet. we have all got our share of #notmyproudestparentingmoments.
if you’re going to give yourself a parenting assessment, for pete’s sake, don’t measure it by how you manage in a time of crisis.
my parents were also parent educators (yes, i am actually 3 rd generation in my family to do this work), and they didn’t believe in bribes either, but when my brother was six and refused to walk down the aisle as a ring-bearer — my mom bribed him with $20. the organist was playing, the whole church was watching. sometimes you just gotta do whatever it takes. let this one go.
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i have a friend who raised her kids while working from home. they are now grown ups, but when i asked her how she managed, she said that she had a white board in her office. when her kids would come home from school and she was on a business call, they could write her a message instead of talking. i thought that was brilliant, but then she added that they often would write things like ‘i am going to have a bowl of ice-cream now,’ knowing full well ice cream was not allowed. but there was not much she could do about it, since she was stuck on a call. she says it seemed like a huge issue at the time, but it’s now a great family memory that everyone shares and laughs about. maybe your m&m toss will be a joyous memory too.
we all have different ways of coping, and we all have different tolerance levels. and, frankly, some kids are way harder to parent than others. my best advice is that if we want to stop feeling judged as a parent, let’s start by not judging ourselves.
as the initial chaos of the social isolation as a result of covid-19 passes, we can start to prepare for working at home for the long term. we will need to shift from a sprint to a marathon approach. when you are feeling a little less under the gun, then you can make a more solid plan with your family about how to solve the issue of working from home while sharing the house with them, and the proper discipline, boundaries, expectations and consequences that go with that.
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here are some practical ideas you can toss in the mix as you brainstorm solutions with your kids. the more you ask for their input on rules, the more likely they are to agree and actually follow them. imposing rules you invented is less likely to work, since kids rebel against being told what to do.
add some of these ideas to your discussions and see if the kids have ideas to try too:
movie and screen time . if you know your call is going to last awhile, make that time movie or game time for the kids.
independent play time . if it’s a scheduled call, plan with your kids how long you are going to be unavailable and get them started into an activity or game so they are able play independently, or distract themselves while you’re on the call.
get help from older siblings . offer to pay an older child for babysitting services to engage the younger sibling(s) while you’re on calls.
share kid duty . if you have a partner who is also working from home, this is an opportunity to share the responsibility to child entertainment.
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location matters . take your calls in the laundry room or from the garage as a signal that these are more important calls.
most important of all, remember that the person on the other end of the phone is probably also working from home and likely has kids too. or they have been on calls all day with others who are working from home with kids heckling in the background and dogs barking to go outside. even jimmy fallon is doing his show from home with his kids photo bombing him and not being cooperative. how fantastic that finally we are waking up to the reality that people in our work force have families. that just makes you real. be proud.
alyson schafer is one of canada’s leading parenting experts. she can be reached at hello@alysonschafer.com or on twitter @alysonschafer.
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