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 #2: Build a Routine

Setting up a routine can help everyone who is stuck at home right now during the COVID-19 crisis.  Routines bring some comfort and help us to get things done.  When I get into a routine, it helps me feel "normal" and I don't have to worry about making decisions on some of the things I just do automatically in my routine. 

Schedules are different.  It's not bad to think about how much time certain activities take and when they fit best into your day, but if you are trying to get your kids to stick to a hard and fast schedule with a specific time for each activity throughout your day while you are all at home all the time, it might cause undue stress.  Don't feel like you need to recreate the school schedule that your children once had.  The schools needs schedules because they are organizing and coordinating large numbers of students, teachers, administrators, custodians, and other workers into each day.  They are moving around hundreds of people, but you are only coordinating one family. 

You can set up a routine for your family!  We naturally plan days around meals, even when kids are in school, so that's a great place to start.  In our 14 years of home education, we have had routines that work around meal times, too.  Everyone needs to eat!  Routines can be a list of things that happen in a certain order, but don't have to have a designated time.

For many years, the kids and I generally followed this routine (you do not need to re-create it, this it just to give you ideas that might be helpful):

• Everyone gets up, has some time to themselves
• I fix breakfast
• Kids eat breakfast with me at the kitchen table
• I do some reading aloud while they eat
• I clean up the kitchen, while they go get dressed and ready for the day
• I get a quick shower, get dressed, put on makeup and shoes
• I start a load of laundry
• We begin working on school work

We generally try to start school by 9:30 or 10 and work until lunch time, usually around 12pm, but again, that is really "scheduling".  However, I thought it might help to give you a ball park idea of time. For the chunks of "school time" we would also get into a rhythm or routine, but it would look a little different each year, depending on the age of my kids and what we are working on at that time.  When they were young and in elementary school, for several years, it would look something like this:

• Copywork at your desk or we work on handwriting all together
• Morning meeting where we looked at a big calendar, practiced memory work, and maybe sang a song
• Read aloud time - I read aloud books that might include great literature, history, science, music, poetry, art or even math stories, a few different books in one sitting, while the kids did something quiet like play with Legos, draw, or stuffed animals
• Snack time (see, there's another meal!)
• Math work
• Lunch time

We almost always took a full hour for a lunch break, so when the kids were done eating lunch, they could play outside or inside and have "free time".  I also cleaned up in the kitchen and moved the washed laundry to the dryer and usually started a second load.  I would also try to take a few minutes to do something else like make a phone call, plan errands I needed to run, go outside and play with the dogs for a few minutes or check email.

Our afternoon routine would usually include:

• Individual time with each child working on reading and spelling, I would give them something to do while I worked with the other one when they were small, and as they got older, I would have one of them do independent reading while I worked with the other child.
• English and language arts together
• Afternoon snack
• Play outside

Usually, that would cover everything and then in the afternoon, I would try to get errands, grocery shopping, and other things done like putting away the laundry before I needed to start supper.

This is just one way to build a routine, the combinations are truly endless!  Find a few priorities for your family and starting building a routine around them, if you haven't already.  What makes a routine work for you?

COVID-19 and March, 2020

In less than one month our world has changed.  We were watching the Coronavirus spread across Asia and Europe about a month ago and in the last two weeks, guidelines and requirements have been changing daily or even more frequently. Suddenly, almost all public events and gatherings have been cancelled or postponed indefinitely.  The whole world is trying to figure out how to stay safe and healthy and how to stop the spread of this COVID-19 virus to ourselves and to others.  We don't know if we have it or have come into contact with it, that's how viral infections work!  Some people have dangerous symptoms that could potentially be devastating, but some people who have tested positively thought they felt fine.  In the last week, almost all schools and universities have closed and are transitioning to online classes.

On March 12, we flew to St. Petersburg, Florida the first Grand Prix of the Indycar 2020 racing season.  We were with our friend and Indycar driver on Friday when he heard the news that Sunday's race was cancelled.  Our son's university first announced that they would be extending spring break and moving to online classes for two weeks, but that has changed to the rest of the school year.  Our nephews, along with many other seniors around the country, have already heard that their commencement ceremonies in May are cancelled.  Our daughter, who has been showing horses in Florida this winter, has had her season end early.  We have friends who children have had to change or postpone celebrations of wedding plans, as well. 

Yes, these are very strange times.  I start to feel anxious and afraid when I can barely keep up with the newest guidelines - gatherings of no more than 250 people, to 50 people, and now, no more than 10 people.  Two weeks ago, I sang with less than 10 people from our worship team on Sunday to do a Facebook live recorded worship service for our church family, who cannot attend.  The following week, I helped my stepdad watch the service on a Zoom meeting online.  My mother also had to have surgery and stay in the hospital for four days without any visitors at all.  It's been challenging to face the unknown when it really is unknown for everyone in healthcare, economy, industry, hospitality, education, finance, and government.  This pandemic reaches all people around the globe in all sectors and all areas of life.

My husband and I were talking the other day about how the closest feeling we have had to this experience was when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11.  Then we started thinking of other times of crisis in our country throughout our lives.  We have seen wars begin and end, terrorism, other deadly viruses, the fear of what might happen with Y2K, recessions, and changes in many areas of life.  When we look back, we can see how well God has provided for our needs.  We have hope.  We know that we serve a might God and ultimately, He will prevail.  We cannot see how this will work out in the future and we are really living a day at a time, but we are thankful that we have information to help slow the spreading of this terrible virus.  We are thankful for many people who are trying to come together to help those in need during this difficult time.  We pray that this virus will be slowed and stopped and few lives taken with it.

I felt the need to journal this experience on my blog here, but it has taken some time for me to process it all.  In the coming days, I hope that I can share more positive and encouraging stories, tips, or ideas to help you during this difficult time.

"Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."  Psalm 91:1-2