Quarantine Survival Tips | Part 3: 5 Lessons To Teach If Homeschooling Is A Nightmare

Is homeschooling not turning out the way you expect it?

Work around the challenges with these quarantine survival tips!

Quarantine Survival Tips | Life Lessons for Kids

It’s all well and good to have yourself a little laugh at the parents in your Facebook feed describing fights over learning to read. But, it’s not quite as fun to live through these breakdowns in real life.

Many teachers are working tirelessly to create online lesson plans and videos and set up online courses on the myriad of sites available to them. But what if the move to online schooling isn’t working for your child? Or when it’s not working for you?

Let’s face it, lots of parents chose not to be a teacher by profession. And lots of kids are struggling to learn with all of the distractions of home, tempting them from beyond their books and worksheets.

Luckily, the success your child enjoys in life has a lot to do with what happens outside of the classroom. So lower your expectations, limit schoolwork where you can, and focus on these quarantine survival tips to regain your sanity.

1. Respect and Manners Go a Long Way

Your child may be a math whiz or a spelling champ, but it’s hard to imagine them finding great success in life if they’re constantly interrupting people or having emotional reactions to tough conversations. Make an effort every day to model respectful behavior for your child.

When you sit down for dinner at night, have a conversation that includes everyone taking turns speaking. Use and teach manners, and gently remind children that they are not exempt from using them.

2. Chores Teach Accountability

Teach your kids responsibility and some of the basics of running a household by adding chores to their schedules.

Even young children can help unload a dishwasher, fold clothes, feed pets, and weed a flower bed. Older kids should know how to do dishes, laundry, and some basic cooking skills before they leave the nest.

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3. Stories Promote Curiosity and Inspiration

One of the best quarantine survival tips is storytelling. If your child is learning to read but getting frustrated, continue to read to them. Try not to push them to sound out the words, but point to words they know or could know as you read.

If your child is an experienced reader, have them read to you in the evenings. If your child is older, start a family book club where you take turns reading the same book and discussing it.

For the family of preppers out there, why not tell your kids true survival stories they can learn and be inspired from? Survival stories are always interesting and amazing!

4. Positivity Is Essential 

This is a trying time on many levels: many parents are out of work or working from home, the economy is tanking, a highly infectious virus is spreading, and kid-friendly activities are closed. Don’t let your children feel these stresses.

It is of paramount importance that they feel safe and cared for despite the unusual circumstances. Staying positive is one of the most crucial quarantine survival tips during times like this.

Start a jar where all family members write down the best things that happened each day and read them together. Do something fun and relaxing together each day, like play a game or spend time together outside.

5. Fun Learning Is Still Learning

One of the best ways to learn something is to enjoy the process of learning it! You can easily transfer a lesson on fractions to the practice of baking cookies. Geography may hit home easier if a child is learning about the animals they’d find in a region. Hide sight words around the house for your child to find in a scavenger hunt.

The most memorable lessons don’t happen in an office or on a computer. They’re much more hands-on than that.

There are so many factors that contribute to your child’s success in life. Don’t get hung up on just one aspect of their growth.

The time you spend as a family and the attitude you bring to parenting is more important than whether they learned to read in kindergarten or first grade (or second grade). Delaying a difficult math lesson by a few days could make all the difference in their attitude towards it.

Hopefully, these quarantine survival tips will help improve family time.

Remember, be flexible, be forgiving, and be creative!

Up Next:

• Quarantine Survival Tips | Part 1: How to Keep Kids Busy While You Work From Home
• Quarantine Survival Tips | Part 2: Creating A Coronavirus Homeschool Schedule
• Disaster Preparedness: Prepping with Kids