CLEVELAND — It's now nearly a month with all the kids home and it's hard to find a parent who describes the new routine as "great." We can all admit it's a struggle.
"Our work from home and school from home schedule as we call it is going," says mom of three, Kelci Cotter.
Between worksheets, spreadsheets, virtual conferences and Zoom classrooms, there are only so many hours in the day and only so many devices to plug into.
“We all tend to get fatigued by the end of the day, and certainly by the end of the week,” admits Kelci.
Candace Varney echoes those feelings.
“I'm feeling OK," Varney said. "It's still an adjustment. It's going to take some time, but I'm feeling pretty ok now that we've gotten a few days under our belt."
But Cleveland Clinic psychologist Dr. Emily Mudd gives us the advice every parent needs to hear.
"I recommend scheduling kind of three parts of the day, so morning, afternoon and evening, and then some things you want to accomplish during that time. However it happens -- as long as it's done in the morning -- then that is a good expectation for children."
She also tells parents, don’t look at what other families are doing to pull off the "new normal." It might not work for you.
“I think it's important they're all just doing the best that we can right now and to not feel overwhelmed by everything that you're seeing on social media really just trying to get through the days OK.”
Varney stopped trying to stick to the kid’s “school day” and found it made the routine much easier.
“It’s safe to say today is going much smoother. I've lowered my expectations. I also took my husband's advice -- he had a great idea to do some of the homework during the day as I could handle it an save some of it for the evening when we can kind of tag team and help the kids get their work done.”
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