What better time to practice being imperfect?
Week one of the COVID-19 School Closing:
We had it all planned out. A daily schedule to provide routine and structure to the days at home of our four school aged children, ages 11-18. Three mandatory study hours at the dining room table, time outside, and time together playing board games, watching movies, sharing stories. An opportunity, I thought to myself, to bring us closer as a family doing all those amazing activities together that parents post about on FaceBook. All of their kids full of smiles, no electronic devices in sight. Yes - that was going be us! Pictures of the kids and I doing crafts, cooking, hiking, etc.
Week two of the COVID-19 School Closing:
A slightly raised voice calling the kids down for breakfast. Frustration as I try to figure out how to shut off their individual devices for not following the guidelines set during week one. Confusion as 4 voices at once tell me how much time they earned off their study hour with the extra incentives provided each day in the form of riddles and trivia. Mediating conflicts about who is not doing what. Enduring rolling eyes and heavy sighs. Flinching each time I hear one of the boys yell at his video game. We've learned our walls are quite thin!
COVID-19 School Closing Reality:
No child in this house has studied for three hours in one day. We max out at two hours, if that. While we've talked about playing a board game, we've yet to open a game. We've watched movies a few nights, but mostly in isolation in our own rooms. There has been some cooking and a wee bit of hiking. There have been no crafts and all electronic devices have stayed in full sight.
However, the opportunity to become closer as a family - well, I can tell you that is happening. When I do get all four at the dining room table, they talk, share jokes, and work together to solve the riddles my parents and I have been creating for them. When they trade a study hour in for a cooking class, they work together to create something to take pride in. When the weather is nice, they are outside shooting baskets or playing hockey. They welcome short car rides while I run errands and even say yes to a walk with me and the dog from time to time. They help me learn how to use new technology that allows me to continue to reach out to my high school students and my graduate students. They might sleep through alarms or "not hear me" call their name, but they are adhering to our expectations to some degree and they are not complaining. I get more than one word answers. They help me around the house when I ask them. They joke with me. They give me my space. In a house full of mostly teenagers, I feel like I'm winning.
We might not do all the "togetherness" activities I see on FB, but we do a good job living with each other and navigating around one another. For this I am thankful. My children are not doing every activity sent to them by their teachers. My children didn't step foot outside yesterday. My children are playing video games. My children are on their phones a good part of the day. And yesterday, my children didn't see me for three hours while I hid myself away and watched a movie by myself. Last week, my kids played together. This week, they've kept to themselves in their own rooms.
Today, I started to get upset. I started to get upset that they were bending the rules a bit, that they didn't all go outside, that their lack of staying to a schedule was affecting my own personal schedule/ routine. So tonight I reminded myself that all I can do is the best I can do and that goes for the kids too. I reminded myself to celebrate the small accomplishments. Accomplishments such as our 18 year old getting himself up and out of bed for 9:00, our 16 year old texting me an apology moments after a swear is heard one floor down from his bedroom, our 13 year old grabbing her camera to take on a hike, or our 11 year old trying something new to eat! These are all great things. Perhaps these are not events worthy of a FaceBook post, but these things are worthy of a place in my heart.
My feelings of frustration this morning were only there to mask my anxiety:
-when are we going back to school?
-when can we socialize with others again?
-when can we go out to eat again?
-are our lives changing forever?
-am I doing enough for these kids?
-what's going to happen to us financially?
There are so many more questions in this unknown time. This is a time when we will question ourselves often. We will question our thoughts, our actions, and our intentions. I am learning it's important to stay grounded and simply do the best we can and let me tell you that could look different from day to day. My "best" this past Sunday was cleaning my house like crazy top to bottom. The best I could do yesterday was take a "time out", watch a movie by myself, and do nothing. The best I could do today laid somewhere in between Sunday and Monday.
If there was a time to be okay with being imperfect, this is it. I need to remember to practice my skills of imperfection. I need to remember to be flexible in my thinking and my actions. There is no bell indicating the start or end of a class period. There is no urgency to have the perfect clean outfit for work/ school. There is no set breakfast, lunch, or dinner time. There are no sports practices to get to. There are not evening school events to attend. There is only time. Some days my kids and I will be rockstars, other days we will be good enough and sometimes good enough is okay.
We had it all planned out. A daily schedule to provide routine and structure to the days at home of our four school aged children, ages 11-18. Three mandatory study hours at the dining room table, time outside, and time together playing board games, watching movies, sharing stories. An opportunity, I thought to myself, to bring us closer as a family doing all those amazing activities together that parents post about on FaceBook. All of their kids full of smiles, no electronic devices in sight. Yes - that was going be us! Pictures of the kids and I doing crafts, cooking, hiking, etc.
Week two of the COVID-19 School Closing:
A slightly raised voice calling the kids down for breakfast. Frustration as I try to figure out how to shut off their individual devices for not following the guidelines set during week one. Confusion as 4 voices at once tell me how much time they earned off their study hour with the extra incentives provided each day in the form of riddles and trivia. Mediating conflicts about who is not doing what. Enduring rolling eyes and heavy sighs. Flinching each time I hear one of the boys yell at his video game. We've learned our walls are quite thin!
COVID-19 School Closing Reality:
No child in this house has studied for three hours in one day. We max out at two hours, if that. While we've talked about playing a board game, we've yet to open a game. We've watched movies a few nights, but mostly in isolation in our own rooms. There has been some cooking and a wee bit of hiking. There have been no crafts and all electronic devices have stayed in full sight.
However, the opportunity to become closer as a family - well, I can tell you that is happening. When I do get all four at the dining room table, they talk, share jokes, and work together to solve the riddles my parents and I have been creating for them. When they trade a study hour in for a cooking class, they work together to create something to take pride in. When the weather is nice, they are outside shooting baskets or playing hockey. They welcome short car rides while I run errands and even say yes to a walk with me and the dog from time to time. They help me learn how to use new technology that allows me to continue to reach out to my high school students and my graduate students. They might sleep through alarms or "not hear me" call their name, but they are adhering to our expectations to some degree and they are not complaining. I get more than one word answers. They help me around the house when I ask them. They joke with me. They give me my space. In a house full of mostly teenagers, I feel like I'm winning.
We might not do all the "togetherness" activities I see on FB, but we do a good job living with each other and navigating around one another. For this I am thankful. My children are not doing every activity sent to them by their teachers. My children didn't step foot outside yesterday. My children are playing video games. My children are on their phones a good part of the day. And yesterday, my children didn't see me for three hours while I hid myself away and watched a movie by myself. Last week, my kids played together. This week, they've kept to themselves in their own rooms.
Today, I started to get upset. I started to get upset that they were bending the rules a bit, that they didn't all go outside, that their lack of staying to a schedule was affecting my own personal schedule/ routine. So tonight I reminded myself that all I can do is the best I can do and that goes for the kids too. I reminded myself to celebrate the small accomplishments. Accomplishments such as our 18 year old getting himself up and out of bed for 9:00, our 16 year old texting me an apology moments after a swear is heard one floor down from his bedroom, our 13 year old grabbing her camera to take on a hike, or our 11 year old trying something new to eat! These are all great things. Perhaps these are not events worthy of a FaceBook post, but these things are worthy of a place in my heart.
My feelings of frustration this morning were only there to mask my anxiety:
-when are we going back to school?
-when can we socialize with others again?
-when can we go out to eat again?
-are our lives changing forever?
-am I doing enough for these kids?
-what's going to happen to us financially?
There are so many more questions in this unknown time. This is a time when we will question ourselves often. We will question our thoughts, our actions, and our intentions. I am learning it's important to stay grounded and simply do the best we can and let me tell you that could look different from day to day. My "best" this past Sunday was cleaning my house like crazy top to bottom. The best I could do yesterday was take a "time out", watch a movie by myself, and do nothing. The best I could do today laid somewhere in between Sunday and Monday.
If there was a time to be okay with being imperfect, this is it. I need to remember to practice my skills of imperfection. I need to remember to be flexible in my thinking and my actions. There is no bell indicating the start or end of a class period. There is no urgency to have the perfect clean outfit for work/ school. There is no set breakfast, lunch, or dinner time. There are no sports practices to get to. There are not evening school events to attend. There is only time. Some days my kids and I will be rockstars, other days we will be good enough and sometimes good enough is okay.
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