Parenting for Learning in a Pandemic: First Reduce Stress
by Rachel Schechter, PhD, VP Learning Sciences at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
This is not a snowday and we are not in an ideal homeschooling situation, needing to parent in a way that none of us have done before. A few hours after my children’s schools closed due to the pandemic, I immediately saw my Facebook feed blow up with requests for guidance on how to best support homeschooling their kids. It started with schedules (see mine below) and setting up a space for learning at home. Soon after, the outpouring of resource links and livestream invites got incredibly overwhelming!
At HMH, I guide the incorporation of learning sciences into our product development, helping us consider the research-based factors that impact the learning experience. I’ve been a preschool teacher, music specialist, and then earned a doctorate in child development with a focus on educational technology. At home, I’m a mom of two young children, parent-leader at my son’s daycare and contributor to a local parenting column. My experience and expertise are unexpectedly relevant to this strange situation we are in — and I want to share what I know with you to help minimize stress and maximize learning in your home.
Why do we need to minimize stress?
Our lives turning upside down flooded our brain with the stress hormone cortisol, which kicked off our fight-or-flight response. Our goal is to combat episodic acute stress, which consists of constant worry and anxiety. Over time, cortisol overload leads to negative effects on the brain, including a reduction in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for learning and memory. The good news is that there are research-based ways to reduce stress which include creating routines, exercising, practicing meditation, and maintaining strong relationships.
Who can help minimize stress for the family?
Being part of a community can reduce stress in many ways. Share the burden of “Who is going to do what?” with other family members, in and outside the house (virtually). Perhaps one person researches handling packages and ordering supplies, while another prepares activities for the children. Work with older teens and extra adults to meet the family’s needs — even if it is only on an hourly basis at first. Incredible online groups are forming where neighbors are helping each other, since so much help that we relied on before we must now do ourselves. Get creative! I recently sent a friend a picture of an insect I didn’t recognize outside my house and she helpfully sent me the answer minutes later.
When do you do what?
Anxiety stems from the unknown. Routines at school are incredibly strong, so getting a daily home schedule will greatly reduce stress. My family’s routine is on the flexible side, but we have a daily morning meeting after breakfast to choose and discuss the day’s happenings. Our must-dos: meals, sleep, exercise and outside time. Healthy food and enough sleep are critical for boosting our immune systems and reducing stress. Fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and a change of scenery support both physical and mental health.
Once work calls and deliverables enter the picture for grownups, planning and communicating early and often with your adult partners is key. Over the first week, we experimented with a few different methods of planning what to do each day. We let the children lead, which means that there are four rotting bananas on my counter because no one wanted to bake! After a week of iterating, you can see our latest schedule above (fun learning images drawn by the HMH creative team). During our toddler’s nap, we have Learning with YaYa (grandmother) over the iPad for my kindergartner, giving grownups 60+ minutes of focused work time. Read, Explore, Play are activity categories suggested by our public school, so we worked with those and added a few extra that are important to our family values.
For grown-ups, personal time is handwritten on the right side. Knowing when you’ll have time for self-care or work will help reduce your stress. If schools are sending packets of work home, plan to save about 10 minutes per set for previewing what they have to do and gather any materials they will need. Remember, in a 1-on-1 schooling situation, students can complete a lot more in a short amount of time (no walking from class to class, waiting for everyone to go to the bathroom, etc). Do the best you can, and you can do it on the weekend!
What types of learning experiences should we do with the children?
For some of us, having every activity scheduled to the hour and hanging it on a colorful bulletin board brings us comfort and reduces stress. For others, having a few activities in mind and improvising throughout the day is less stressful. Be ready if your preference doesn’t match your child’s temperament. Try what works for you first, tune into how your children respond and adjust to meet their needs. Also know that psychologists don’t think about learning styles the way we used to, differentiation is more about getting to know children’s strengths, needs, and interests.
For the actual activities, education-focused companies and organizations have generously offered access to online resources and published incredible curated lists of activities and materials. (Check out HMH’s Learning at Home page for our resources.) Try out different things or stick to those that are more familiar. Ask your children what they like and what gets them excited to learn more.
Where can learning happen?
Learning can happen anywhere! Don’t think that you have to create a mini-classroom and give your school a name (although you can if you want!). The key to life-long learning is feeding our curiosity with healthy questions and information. We noticed a hole in our toddler’s pants, so I taught my kindergartner how to sew. After enjoying a book about Saving Baby Fiona, we checked out Fiona streaming live from the Cincinnati Zoo (which led to a conversation comparing how humans and other mammals have babies). We participated on a neighborhood-wide shamrock hunt, counted up the number we found, and noticed how clovers grow in the grass. Remember, you can always answer questions with “I don’t know, let’s look it up!”
Your children will take the cue from you, so take it one day (or hour!) at a time. Take a deep breath (do some Cosmic Kids Yoga for lots of cartoon-inspired ways to breathe) and remember to laugh and smile (toilet humor has made a real comeback in my house) and remember you can ask your kids to help you solve problems. After all, they are experts about what they like about school — they should have some great ideas!
