One struggle story: How to empower yourself to be positive

Today is the first day of official distance learning classes for my fifth grade son, Logan. Last week was just “extended” spring break at the end of which Logan and I got to pick up his school life in a plastic sack and get his chromebook (which he was so excited for). Now on to today. My son is struggling with being withdrawn from his friends. We live in a rural part of Nebraska and for the most part we are always social distancing because our closest neighbor lives a mile away. This is different. He is becoming more moody and increasingly sarcastic (Great! Where does he get that from?). So we need to work on positivity.

A little about us, my son is an only and my husband and I have struggled with this. We 👫had a plan. Wait a couple of years to space out our children, have a boy 👦 and then a girl 👶… (💭👨‍👩‍👧‍👦) but after trying for 3 years and 2 miscarriages, we decided to leave that stress😞 and just enjoy our kid because he is awesome (👪❤️). Well, cut to the tween years and now we are dealing with his many moods. Many times these moods are a product of not enough sleep or him sneaking technology into his bedroom after hours, however, now we are also dealing with the lack of peer interaction and he is getting a little depressed.

I am in a weird place with this COVID-19 😷 situation. I am an elementary teacher by trade, but I am in a transition phase. I resigned from my previous district because I was so stressed out and then I was taking it out on my family. I needed to focus on what was most important to me and that was family. I started looking for jobs closer to home so that I was not commuting 90 minutes a day. I got the opportunity to substitute teach in my son’s school and the close surrounding rural communities.

Be realistic

When my son’s school was on spring break the second week of March, suddenly over the weekend everything was flipped on its head and spring break was “extended”. Now suddenly I have no jobs to substitute in and my son’s main form of education became distance learning. As a teacher, I understand the complexities of an elementary classroom, but as a mom this was a whole new world. Days spent with my son, both of us trying to get work done and not killing each other. I am on both the inside and outside of this educational conundrum. I am learning right along side everyone else and doing this thing where I feel alone but I know other people are doing this too. There are days when things will get done and some days when they don’t. (It is the same in a classroom) The best (bright side) of this is that there are many things that a teacher can do with students in the classroom but there are some things that kids can only learn at home. Now we have the chance to teach those things.

Know when to pick your battles and when to take a nap

So, today Logan woke up this morning to let out his dog at 6:30 and ended up in his skivvies 🩲 on the couch wrapped in a blanket. His verbal responses were less than cordial. My first response was yell and put my foot down as the parent but as I have found out in the past, that leads to him distancing himself from me and nothing getting done. So against my teacher schedule brain 🙅‍♀️ I gave him a mom 👩‍👦 hug and asked what he needed. We decided that he needed a nap 🛌. It is amazing to see the difference in behavior when he gets enough sleep. His school day was supposed to start at 9 but that didn’t happen today and it is okay because I am meeting his emotional needs.

Start your day with a positive thought

Once the day finally started around 11 we started with a loving kindness mediation🧘‍♂️🧘 to start the day with positive thoughts toward others. We have been meditating since the beginning of our time at home so that we practice mindfulness. Then he spent his time looking at the videos his teachers posted, reading classmate comments and looking at his assignments for the week. While he was working I made a quick lunch of sandwiches and then it was time for recess/p.e. because we already needed a break.

Have fun doing something you can only do at home

We decided on Sunday to go for a bike ride 🚴🚴 for recess and so that meant today we had to get the bikes out and make sure they were road worthy. Guess what? They weren’t. We needed to air up the tires, lubricate the chains, wipe off the dust and then we were off! We got about half a mile down the road and Logan decided he wanted to ride a bigger bike. (It seems like the last time we rode bikes he was much smaller…) So then we go back, get his dad’s bike and aired up the tires, lubricated the chain, wiped off the dust and we are off again. Another half mile down the road I realize my tire is going flat and we had to walk back home. So we got the slime, put some in the tire and then aired it up again. Down the driveway and that did not work. So now that garage sale bike that was hanging in the garage was the last hope and we aired up the tires, lubricated the chain, wiped off the dust and we were off again. This time seemed to do the trick and we had a great bike ride with the dog and learned a great life lesson about tenacity, working for what you want and enjoying the moment.

Be supportive, but don’t hover or try to be the teacher

The hardest part of this day for me was not trying to be the teacher. I mean come on, it is my actual job. Logan is growing up and one of the things that I am struggling with the most is not telling him how to do everything. He is also learning how to be independent. Parenting is something that I have learned from as a teacher. It is sometimes a difficult teacher. My son is very stubborn (imagine that) 😣 and likes to do things on his own. Even if he does them wrong (which he frequently does) I have to let him make his own mistakes and learn from them. It is just so hard, but I have to tell myself it is also worth it because he is becoming a better human each day.

Practice positive perseverance

My mindset is the thing that is going to make or break this uncharted time of COVID-19 😷with my son. If I can keep a positive mindset then this will be an okay time that we can get through together, but if I can’t (which I know will happen every once and a while) then I have to change my mindset Today was a pretty good day, lots of life lessons and tomorrow is a new day. I will have to see how it goes. What are you struggling with right now?