Families Share Three Lessons Learned From Parenting During the Pandemic
These past two years have been pretty hectic, thanks to the Pandemic. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t good things coming out of it. Sure, there were some bad things, but one thing positive that happened was that we became closer to our family than we ever were!
We spoke to a few families and they shared some of the gems they’ve learned during the Covid-19 era.
Here’s what they had to say:
Change Doesn’t Have to be Negative
One thing the Pandemic taught us is that change can be positive. For many parents, the pandemic provided an important reminder to be flexible in new circumstances. Christina G. is a parent of four children, ages 5, 7, and 10. She admits to being something of a perfectionist, but the pandemic helped her reconsider her standards.
She admitted that trying to be the perfect parent—giving 100% of herself 100% of the time—was not only exhausting for her, but often unnecessary for her children.
“If I carved out 10 minutes to start a project with them, they would often take it on as their own, making it an even better project independently,” she said. Sometimes kids don’t need you to give them everything. They just need you to give them something.
Another parent, Sara Peters, decided to turn one of the extra rooms in her house into an arts studio. “We decided to ditch our guest room and turn it into an art studio,” she said. Sara is a mother of two beautiful boys, aged 8 and 10.
“The boys and I are in there all the time—it’s a great creative outlet and, since we had no guests, why not?” she laughed.
Embrace More Space
Teresa Smith thought that that the everyday rituals of her children’s lives—dance recitals, team sports, swim lessons, summer camp—were extremely important. And while they were, they weren’t as important as ‘family time.’
Each of these activities felt so important to the development and joy of our children’s lives,” she said, “But as each was lost, we simply filled our time with less structured play and increased family time.”
Teresa’s children did just fine without all their extracurricular activities. “All of the structured, instructional activities that I thought were critical to my kids’ happiness turned out to be a lot less important as our family drew closer, our days grew longer, and our kids remained happy and active despite the changes around them,” she said.
Make Peace with Technology
A lot of parents were struggling with remote learning at first but were able to get around it and accept it as a need. Some believed that it would cause developmental problems for their kids.
But there is little evidence linking screen time to harm in kids’ development, and some parents learned that technology even has a positive effect on their kids when it’s used wisely.
Matthew Perkins was surprised when his 12 year old showed him all of the resources her school provided her with, and what she learned during her online classes. She socialized and played games with friends on Zoom, and as a night owl, she liked the hours she could keep as a remote learner!
Perhaps the most important lesson the COVID-19 experience has taught parents is that they now have an unprecedented opportunity to make mindful choices about post-pandemic family life.
This pandemic has helped parents see what they were doing previously that did not serve them. Now they can step back and be intentional about the decisions they make.
David Glenister understands how awful the effects of Covid-19 were on people around the world. Which is why, he wrote a book of poems called “Pandemic Era Poems” to show support for those who need it most.
This book is dedicated to all those who have suffered during Covid.
These poetries shed light on how Covid changes everything. The way we lived, worked, travelled. Everything that we did or planned on doing had to be done with precaution due to the virus.
If one member of the family was affected, the entire family would eventually be affected and causing discomfort everywhere. Those who read this book will look back on how we suffered, but thankfully somehow overcame the deadly virus.
