Everything I Learned About Surviving a Pandemic, I Learned as a Preschool Teacher
- Wash your hands
- Be kind
- Move your body
- Read books
- Take naps
- Use only what you need
- Clean up after yourself
- Share, take turns, help a friend
- Sing to make the mundane joyful
- And…how to be with children all day, every day
Families everywhere are navigating this new world order where we are home all day, every day with our children. And for many of us, we are also trying to juggle working from home with being a full-time caregiver and teacher. It doesn’t matter how amazing you are as a parent, being pretty much confined to your home with your family will present challenges (and for goodness' sake, please stop comparing yourself to the parents posting pictures of the perfect schedule/snack/art project/replica of the Eiffel Tower built with toilet paper rolls and ribbon scraps that their amazingly well-behaved and impeccably groomed children are creating).
Truly, for me, everything I needed to know about parenting, I learned as a preschool teacher (and a Kindergarten teacher and an infant & toddler teacher for over a decade before I had children of my own). As my friends and colleagues have reached out to me over the last several days with questions and expressing their frustrations and their challenges, I thought it could be useful for me to share some of the ideas I’ve shared with them. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting tips and strategies (particularly related to child guidance) here on the blog and on YouTube that will hopefully be helpful to some of you during this time. Most of all, I hope that you will be kind to yourself—cut yourself (and your kids) some slack.
For a full compilation of resources related to caring for and teaching young children during this time, click here.