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Jami Friedrich is a teacher, educational consultant and Ph.D candidate with a passion for supporting teachers, students, and parents.

During this unprecedented time, most of us are now working from home while our children are attending school virtually. Trying to help your children through digital learning can be quite stressful, especially when you are also trying to continue to work yourself. To best support your children, you must work as a PAIR.

Soon it’ll feel like you’re doing a synchronized dance. | GIF via GIPHY

P - Plan

Children thrive with structure. When they go to school, their day looks the same every day. They know what time they have each class, they know when they go to lunch, they know when recess is, etc. Write out a schedule for all that are isolated within your household. Within a classroom, we do not expect students to sit and work for hours without any break so we cannot expect our children to do this at home.

Schedule 30-45 minutes (or up to an hour for teenagers) of work time followed by 5-10 minutes of a brain break. It is important to write this out and communicate it with your child so they know that they need to focus and work hard on their school work for that 30-45 minutes. Explaining that they will get the break will give them the reassurance that that time will come.

I highly recommend setting a timer that the child can see as well. Brain breaks can be as simple as a dance party to silly music, jumping jacks, outside time, or free phone time for your older kids. However, when that time is up, your child should continue with the schedule. Again, having a timer gives your child a visual of the time that they get. The more consistent you are with your schedule, the more successful your child will be.

A- Ask

Ask questions. Help engage your student in the work they are doing by asking your child questions. When you ask questions, it requires your child to reflect on the work that they are doing and enhances learning. Some sample questions include:

“What are you working on in [class] today?”

“How do you solve that problem? Can you show me how you work it out?”

“Can you share a piece of your writing with me?”

“How did you figure that out?”

“How does that apply to what we do at home or in real life?”

I- Improvise

There is going to come a time where your child is resistant to do their work, or they do not have enough work during the same time that you have your big conference call, or everyone in the house just needs a break. And, that is okay! Press a hypothetical pause button.

Take a moment to let your child tell you that they are frustrated, that they are bored, that they need a break, or they just want to let out a big scream. If you need to get your conference call done, rearrange the schedule so the brain break is during that time and let your child watch a movie if that is what it takes to get your work done.

Give yourself a little bit of grace. Then, get back on the productive bus tomorrow.

R- Recognize

Recognize that this is a situation none of us have been through before. Recognize that the teachers are working as hard as they can to teach your child virtually. Recognize that this new routine has completely thrown both us and our children out of whack. Recognize that it is okay to ask for help - call a friend, call your sister, email the teacher. Recognize that, together, we can do anything.

Parents, you’ve got this. Hug your littles a little extra and wash your hands!

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