Stay at Home 2020 Tip #4: Remember to Have Fun With Your Family

It may be hard to not feel stressed or anxious right now, with the current crisis of COVID-19.  However, the connections you have with your family are what everything else is built upon, so don't neglect them.  Invest time and energy into just having fun with your kids and getting to know them.  School is important, but don't let it surpass your connections with your children or your spouse.  It can be easy to feel like you have to let academics take the priority because the education of your children is such an important responsibility, and now with this crisis we all fer that our children will "fall behind", but don't forget to enjoy each other, too!

Families are having to get creative at finding new ways to have fun when all of our activities have been cancelled.  Recently, our go-to family fun activities are walking our dogs in the neighborhood, taking hikes, watching movies or TV, and our kids enjoys video games with friends, social media, and Face Time with friends.  We also enjoy lots of different kinds of music.  I've seen families in the neighborhood walking, riding bikes, working in their yards, and one fun family brought out their professional DJ equipment and shared fun dance music that rang through the neighborhood all afternoon to bring a little joy to our area!

My kids are now 17 and 19 years old and as their interests and hobbies have changed many times through the years, our family time has also changed, but it's been a wonderful journey.  What are your families doing right now to have fun?  I remember long winter days indoors when the kids were small and they would find fun ways to play inside.  One thing they liked to do was to get out our single person sized, thin, inflatable camping mattresses and "sled" down our long flight of stairs.  They would also set up their play tents over an air conditioner vent and have the dogs hang out inside the tent with them.

We all learned how to ski in the winter when the kids were young and enjoyed being outside, even in the winter.  Family games on the Wii, Apples to Apples, or different versions of Monopoly and Uno have also been fun ways to spend time together.  We like to sit outside around a small fire when the weather is nice outside.  We also enjoy kayaking, fishing, boating, paddle boarding, and swimming in the summer.  Through the years, our fun activities have changed, but we have found that when we have more time, we tend to become more creative.  It has been fun to see photos or videos of ways that other families are entertaining themselves during our stay-at-home orders.  What kinds of fun are you having right now?  Let's share simple ways to have fun, even in the middle of a crisis.

Family Fun Ideas

• Read together
• Listen to or play music together
• Board games, card games, outdoor games
• Physical activities: walking, running, gardening, yard work, hiking, swimming, biking
• Cooking and baking new recipes
• Chalk drawing outside on the driveway or sidewalk
• Planting flowers, vegetables, or herbs
• Creating your own Tik Tok videos
• Face Time extended family and friends
• Play with your pets 
• Watch TV and movies together
• Play family video games like wii bowling, Mario Kart, or Just Dance

Stay at Home 2020 Tip #3: Read Aloud

We used to go to the library every week when the kids were really young.  They had a wonderful story time there complete with "The Libary Song" with hand motions, fun stories read aloud by a librarian, and some more fun songs and possibly an activity.  We mothers loved story time because we could bundle up all of our babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers and drive them to the library for a few fun moments with the kind librarians and other shiny faced parents and children.

As our kids grew, we chose to home educate them, so we continued our tradition of going to the library on many Fridays to get out, see my mom and step-dad, who both worked there, and to find some new fascinating books to read the following week.  I had a large green canvas tote bag from Lands End that was super durable and held many, many books!  I would keep most of the books in that bag between visits, so I didn't lose a book or start racking up fines.

Over the years, our trips to the library have not been as frequent as the children got involved in more activities outside of our home and there are so many other ways to "read" on electronics now.  However, I still prefer to read "real" books with physical pages and so especially when we have a break from school, I usually go to the library to peruse the books and hope to find a new book to enjoy during my "down" time.  Reading aloud can be a fun, bonding experience for families of all ages.  Even teens can enjoy books read aloud or audio versions of books.  This does not have to be only for young children that can't read to themselves.  Our years of home education included reading aloud and the children and I enjoyed so many stories together.  This builds a culture and a worldview.  We have great memories of stories we read together.

During this strange time of COVID-19 shut-downs and stay-at-home orders, we may appear to have more time for reading, but we cannot even go to our local library!  However, there are many options to find great books of all kinds to enjoy.  For those of you who are suddenly at home with your family all day, what does reading aloud look like?  Well, it can look as unique as your family compared to mine.  One thing I have learned is that for many children (and adults) it works better for them to keep their hands busy while they listen and they will be able to pay attention to the story more easily, instead of being more distracted.  It will actually help them remember the story.  Here are some ways to read aloud:

• Read books together for a half hour in the morning at the breakfast table, while your children are eating or busy doing something like playing quietly with toys or drawing
• Read poetry aloud and have tea or snacks to go with it - Julie Bogart of Brave Writer calls this "Poetry Tea Time"
• Listen to audio books while doing everyday chores, like laundry, or while traveling in the car
• Choose a great fiction book to read a chapter of each evening after supper or before bed
• Read the Bible each day with your family, or another book of prayers or spiritual meaning for your own faith  as part of your daily routine

More tips for reading aloud:
Brave Writer Lifestyle - Reading Aloud
Homegrown Learners - Reading for Kids

Some of our very favorite audio books:
The Chronicles of Narnia set by Focus on the Family Radio Theater - we love this version with a full cast of character voices and sound effects and we have listened to it multiple times one long car trips
Jim Weiss recordings are fabulous!
Adventures in Odyssey recordings are another well done collection of fascinating stories by Focus on the Family
The Story of the World Series are also narrated by Jim Weiss and they provide hours of interesting and fun stories from history

Here are some great places to find book suggestions:
Read Aloud Revival book lists
Honey for a Child's Heart
Honey for a Teen's Heart
Brave Writer Arrow book list for ages 8-12
Brave Writer Boomerang book list for ages 13-16

Stay at Home 2020 Tip #1: Give Yourself Space to Grieve

I hope to encourage you during this COVID-19 crisis, but I feel that I must start this series of tips with the reality of what we are dealing with.  Give yourself space to grieve.  We have all lost our everyday way of life right now and even if you are used to being at home a lot, the world is a different place during this COVID-19 crisis.  Change is hard and change equals loss, while loss equals grief.  It's okay to have strong surges of emotion suddenly in the middle of a pandemic.  It's normal to feel the strong sense that everything in the world is not okay.

There may be moments when you or a family member suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of loss and you feel strong emotions.  I have had those moments, too.  It was good when I had one of those moments last week and I finally cried for a few minutes.  I had not cried for the two weeks prior and had been "staying strong" and "staying positive", but the counts of active cases in our area suddenly jumped and it felt overwhelming.  I don't typically watch the news, but I have felt the need to check the local and national news every day with all of the new information coming out. 

Last week, before I let myself cry that day, I got frustrated with one of my children about something and snapped at them and we had to stop what school work we were working on and just take a break.  I took a few minutes to think and shed a few tears, but then I realized the true reason why I was frustrated.  It helped me to name what I was frustrated with and it was not my child, it was this unknown virus and the unknown future of it.  It's hard to deal with something that we cannot see, but is affecting so many aspects of our every day life.  I had the opportunity to take part in a Zoom meeting where a supportive community of friends from around the world talked about how they were coping and we participated in a short meditation exercise where we focused on our own breathing and naming some of the emotions we were feeling.  I came away with a more peaceful heart, realizing that I do have these fears and yet today, I am okay.

I went back and communicated to my child that I had decided to check the number of active COVID-19 cases in our state when I was sitting there with him and it had upset me.  I apologized because it was not him that upset me but my gut reaction to the news.  I'm trying to limit my exposure to the news about the Coronavirus COVID-19, choosing to check on it just twice a day for about 20 minutes or less. That is helpful.  I am intentionally focusing on the news about my state and the overall nation, but not spending a lot of energy reading about other areas of the country because it just increases my own anxiety.  I also will be more intentional about when I check the updated news each day and not do it in the middle of helping one of my kids!  My anxiety had suddenly increased about the Coronavirus, but the anxiety showed up in me getting frustrated with my child.  I was glad that I could take a moment to recognize this and go back and explain, so our relationship was set right again. 

All of us have lost something in this time.  We collectively grieve the losses of many lives around the globe.  We may know someone who has become sick or who has lost someone from this virus.  Even the loss of our normal social activities outside of our homes, work, school, jobs, finances, or routines still feel like losses to each of us.  We have lost the security that we can go out in public to shop for groceries and not be worried about how close we are to other people.  We have lost our freedom to go do things that we need or enjoy doing.  Many of us have also lost time with our families, as we try to stay apart to protect the more vulnerable.  So many losses at once can weigh down heavily upon each one of us.

Tips for dealing with grief:

• Take a few moments to close your eyes and breathe, to feel how you are doing in that moment, without judging yourself
• Name your feelings and fears
• Write them out, put them all there on the page, and then leave them  
• Pray and talk to God about it

It's a strange time and we will have grief, but God sees our tears and understands.  John 11:35 says, "Jesus wept."  Yes, it's the shortest verse in the Bible, but it is very important because it shows us that when Jesus lost a good friend who had died, he wept, like us.  He understands our grief.   Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus as "despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."  He goes on to write in verse 4, "Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows."  Jesus suffered greatly, for us.  This week, as we look toward Easter, we may have a new understanding of loss.  On Good Friday, Jesus gave everything for us.  He understands our loss and loves each one of us so much that he suffered loss for us.  Joshua 1:9 says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."  May it comfort you that Jesus understands and will walk through this trying time with you.