T.I.P.S. to Keep Creative in this Accelerated World

POST BEFORE:

• Stop making excuses. They hold you back!
• Stop letting FEARs rule your life.
• Be a scientist... They fail more than they succeed, and they keep up. Science is trial and error!
• Stop listening to the voice of others: especially about your parenting, your choice in schools, your choice in virtually anything!
• Most people are projecting their own fears and shortcomings when they judge you!
• Stop thinking that you have to sacrifice FUN to be a parent.
• Love your job and go to work thankful that you have one everyday.
• Stop trying to make your children learn in the same system you did.
• Stop thinking that learning and school has to be boring! Strive for curiosity and wonder for your children because it will take them farther in life…
• Stop sacrificing your professional and personal happiness because life is short and you want your kids to learn to be risk-takers and resilient and happy to go to work! Autoliderazgo is what we want for our children (meaning: I am the best version of myself, I try hard (and fail), I am a positive member of any community).
• If we model loving our relationship with work and life and our kids will do the same!

Healthy community habits starts at home!

TAKEN FROM OTHERS:

• The interruptions, the managing a google schedule to attend meetings was learned at work. So our kids are learning the new working environment, with WAY TOO MUCH stimulation, before they were given "front loading". And my kids school is advanced in online education and teaching Study Skills so I cannot imagine what other schools are calling "online learning"! 

I chose to focus on making sure that my kids do lots of reading (quiet time).

The most intelligent people in the world write for Sesame Street and they have been making our lives better for years. This is article gives a few T.I.P.S. for helping children, Sesame Street Helps kids in COVID-19.

My Plan of Action while kids went to Virtual Camp Quarantine:

1. Organize the household (shopping, cooking, overall maintenance, done through checklists and schedules). No one can live and work in chaos. We won't start making a difference in Remote Working until this happens!
2. Read up on how to Homeschool Sorry, it's on us! Get a teacher to be your coach, to help you organize. It takes time to see what your school expects of you and make a plan. Smart But Scattered is a great book to help kids with Executive Skills. Basically, figure out how to make sure that my children continue to learn something with me as their new teacher. I don't want the world to find out that parents are the reason for the poor PISA testing results!
   Our kids were not given the study skills to study online yet, unless they were homeschooling already. Those tools usually come as College Prep and my daughter is 10! My 12 year old is missing daily meetings and I find out about them in an email afterwards. This is partially my stress level and partially because there are WAY too many lines of communication for a Generation Xer to keep up with! I don't know how these Digital Natives do it! I counted and my kids/I have to control a minimum of 8 different channels: Seesaw, Powerschool, Moodle, google classroom/google hangout/google chats, separate chats that our kids create. We pretend that these chats are assisting in learning but then we see our kids typing in Morse Code and we worry. I don't care if they are connected (google) they all still require maintenance and check-ins.
   
   FYI...sending home worksheets is a DUMB plan and it is better for parents to find an alternative on Coursera:
   • Learning How to Learn by Barbara Oakley
   • Exploratorium Makerspace and Tinkering Courses
3. NOW I can get myself and my household prepared for Remote Working. Before doing Step 1 and Step 2, it's impossible! I tried that at first in my "sink or swim" days because I had NO other choice and I was failing miserably in all 3 areas.
   

   "Self-care cannot happen when we are FEARful and over-stimulated as parents. Taking a minute to figure this out is the KEY to survival!"