So many of you may have found yourself with an increased role in parenting those 2.0s. I know I have. Not easy. Wasn't easy when they were only home a few hours a day; definitely not easy now. Sharing a few resources that have been helpful in disciplining, teaching, and otherwise constructively passing the time. Would love to know what's working for you. #helpabrother. If your M has primary duty, ask her and pass it along (jordanabshire1@gmail.com). Or better yet post on new channel in F3Nation Slack, "DaddyDayCare", so that Pax around the Nation can benefit.
Here a few lessons learned / resources, in no particular order.
- Hydration. Apparently, they don't drink water at school. They sure weren't drinking it here. And waterboarding is not my specialty. But YHC did come up with a solution. Stur, https://sturdrinks.com. 0 sugar, 0 calories, 1 squirt and you're done (stop giggling). Didn't want 2.0s to lose the taste for regular water. So I have them drink 8 oz of water, to get 8 oz of Stur. Works like a charm. Brothers are peeing all day long.
- Power Struggles. https://www.positiveparentingsolutions.com. This resource is awesome. Gist is that kids crave attention and power and they'll get it in unproductive ways, if we don't fill their power and attention buckets proactively. There's a free overview webinar that's worth checking-out with M. Full course is worth it in my opinion. We started it last summer and had a lot of behavior / routine improvement before Covid hit. I couldn’t image how much frustration / how much yelling we would be experiencing under quarantine if we hadn’t come across this resource.
- Education Resource. Just started abcmouse.com, an educational resource for kids 2-8 years old; $10 a month; you can have multiple profiles for 2.0s on same subscription. Basically, it walks kids down a learning path with educational games, puzzles, books. You can largely set them up with it for 30 mins, hour, etc. and walk away, with the assurance that they’ll learn something.
- Tablets. We invested in tablets for the first time a couple weeks ago, largely to free up our laptops and use abcmouse. Amazon Fire seemed to get high marks, with a relatively low price. Right now, Amazon has a 7inch Fire Kids Pack for $69 (great deal), arriving end of month. The Kids Pack comes with a protective case and 2 year replacement warranty. I wanted a larger screen and didn’t want to wait so we bought a 10 inch and got the kids case separately, and got it in 3 days.
- Anxiety. Covid/Quarantine is stressful on 2.0s too; if they're young, they may not have the capability to know what they're feeling, much less be able to express it; heck, YHC is just learning to access my emotions at 42. We've been using http://gozen.com, which has a number of animated cartoon programs, to help kids with anxiety, anger, procrastination.
- Sleep. One of my 2.0s has had trouble falling asleep. The GoZen folks (above) put together a "Sleep Summit" of webinars from experts on how to helps the 2.0s fall asleep/stay in their bed/learn to sleep on their own. We've been practicing for a a couple weeks now and it's working. https://bettersleepforkids.com
- IndigoOceanDreams. 45 mins of stories that help kids relax/meditate/fall asleep. We create a playlist on tablet and put on 2.0s nightstand and it has been a big help. https://www.allmusic.com/album/indigo-ocean-dreams-mw0000756577. You can find it on Amazon and likely iTunes.
- Visit National Parks virtually. You can take virtual tours of national parks; it's educational and really helps counter feelings of confinement. https://artsandculture.withgoogle.com/en-us/
- Google Arts & Culture. https://artsandculture.google.com hosts the park tours above and has a wealth of other virtual tours of historic landmarks & cities and other segments on animals, art, etc.
- UNC-TV At Home Learning. https://www.unctv.org/unctv-at-home-learning/ UNC-TV is offering two blocks of education programming M-F. 4-8th grades: 8:00a.m.-2:00p.m. 9-12th grades: 2:00p.m.-6:00p.m. Apparently, Dook doesn't care about you or your child's education.
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