Stop Trying to Organize Your Days

My kids have been out of school and into the world of online learning for nearing two months now. After my initial reaction of frustration for what parents are supposed to do mixed with relief that my kids would be kept safe at home and not adding possible extra exposure to the Coronavirus, I began down a path of planning for how our days would look. I’m talking a schedule that changed each hour based on what subject my two elementary aged kids would be working on. I printed out published “rules” to abide by and activities to do during outdoor recess time. Each kid had a basket with their workbooks, school usernames and passwords, extra ipad chargers, extra sharpened pencils; you name it and I had probably thought of it. With my husband and I both beginning to telecommute per guidance of our companies, I knew that organizing our days would set us up for success.

Wrong.

Moms, weeks into this whole world of remote learning, I have really only learned one thing. It’s hard and no amount of organization is going to save me.

In my former way of life that ended about eight weeks ago, my family and I thrived off of routine and organization. In this new norm of life we are all living, there is simply no way that’s an option. We cannot plan for our dogs to throw up at our feet right in the middle of presenting on a conference call or for a kid to yell out from the bathroom “there’s a spider!!!” the moment you take yourself off of mute to make a comment during a meeting (yes, these and many more have happened to me). Sure, life in general is full of surprises and kids certainly don’t make planning a breeze. However, I think we can all agree that life right now is full of more uncertainly than we are used to.

There are thousands of articles circulating the globe on ways to make things like remote learning easier. How to work from home with kids. Activities to keep your kids busy during weeks on end of stay at home orders. I have found small amounts of wisdom that I have used but none of them hold some magic tip or trick.

If I could go back eight weeks and give myself one piece of advice, it would be to take it one day at a time. For Type A personalities like myself, this is really hard. With so much uncertainty right now, many of us long for something we can control. But there is no way to control a day that involves working full time while attempting to be a resource to our kids who are full time remote students. We cannot anticipate when they will break down because they miss their friends or don’t understand an assignment or are frustrated because the way we learned math decades ago is different than how they learn it.

Moms, sometimes it’ not even one day at a time. Sometimes we are needing to take it one hour at a time. Sometimes we have to just admit today was awful and pray tomorrow is better. Sometimes tomorrow isn’t better. We are in weird times right now and it’s not totally certain how long it will last. Give yourself grace. Give yourself permission to have a bad day. Most importantly, give yourself the strength to get rid of that dry erase board or whatever tools you are now staring at that came with good intent for structure but have simply fizzled out.