The Blog
Covid Loss
This year, so far, has been one of the most challenging ones many of us have faced. As more people present as Covid-positive around us, we find ourselves having to cancel plans, trace contacts and be listed as other people’s positive contacts. We find ourselves canceling visits that we were longing for. We even find ourselves back in self isolation or quarantine.
Pandemic Panic
The corona-coaster can be brutal. We can be caught off guard in a moment, finding out someone we know, or a contact of ours, has been tested positive and all that that means. Has this happened to you yet? If not, it is something we will all face and it is something that will become a part of every day life for us in the coming weeks.
Digital gaming and modern parenting
With the onset of online multiplayer games, gaming has becoming a global community and is arguably more social than face to face contact for many people. It is a lot of fun for many and is a motivating factor for many children and adolescents. How do we parent them through this?
Helping manage anxiety
As a follow on from my previous article on anxiety, I wanted to share practical ways we can help reduce anxiety in our children, but some might even work for us too. What can we do to help?
Anxiety and our children
Anxiety is a word we have come to know more and more lately as we experience this global pandemic. Everything that we once knew has changed and although we have had some time to process it, the reality of our “new world” is sinking in more and more, causing anxiety. Some of us are more prone to it than others and the same thing applies to our children.
Attention span
How long is a child supposed to be able to work for? This is an age old question and many parents are wondering about it now because they are the ones monitoring their workload at home. The answer to this question is dependent on so many factors, such as the age of the child, the child’s personal learning profile (do they have ADHD?) and the activity being done.
Zoom fatigue
There is a new phenomenon that has been dubbed ‘zoom fatigue’, which is an exhaustion as a direct result of being online for many hours a day. Specifically, it refers to Zoom in the title, but effectively incorporates all video conferencing platforms out there.
Screen time during lockdown
In an article I posted a couple of months ago, I highlighted the American Pediatric Association’s guidelines on advised screen time for young children. Since the start of lockdown though, with the onset of distance learning especially, screen time has exploded for most of us. I hear many parents asking this question: “How much is too much?”
Burnout and Boundaries
This is such an important topic, and one we tend to gloss over. We need reminders about it a few times a year. Stress can be functional and even helpful to us as humans to make us productive in the work space. It is normal. However, chronic stress is different.
How children learn: 5 strategies to optimize learning
Trying to balance being a working parent, home-school teacher and domestic goddess is no easy task. In fact, it is impossible to do all these roles in perfect unison - it is unrealistic and unreasonable to put that kind of pressure on ourselves in the midst of a global crisis.