Parenting in lockdown has been particularly harder than the bygone days of normalcy. The pandemic has taught us the value of people in our lives, whereas the lockdown has taught us coexistence without interference.
What kind of a parent will I be in the lockdown? I didn’t know when the lockdown began but I knew one thing for sure – gone are the days of playing good cop – bad cop.
The schools are closed, playgrounds are off-limits and going outdoors is a luxury. While parents are working from home (or atleast trying) or those who are wishing that they were still working; alongwith managing home and giving time to the family – all of us have reached our four-question-mark territory.
We’re living through a global pandemic. There’s an increase in stress and with so much distress all around us, what are we supposed to do? The answer is – Let them be!
Being confined indoors 24/7 is so hard and to top it, being that perky, chirpy parent is even harder! There’s no way that we can be high fiving our kids all through the day. Children don’t need hovering or help from us all the time. They don’t need that. Get over the thought about being a helicopter parent!
I have always believed that as a parent, we don’t have to fall into a certain category of “parenting”. Be a parent, that’s all it takes.
Children don’t need you to be around them all the time. The idea of enriching every second of their life has been a very highly exaggerated idea that existed even before the lockdown. We start feeling like a failure the moment we are not able to give them enough time. It’s a sham – trust me!
How much time is “time enough” to spend with our children? Is there a benchmark? Is there a measurement for it? It’s a notion that we build in our mind by comparing ourselves with other parents.
My point is – Children don’t need parental stimulation, intervention and “teachable moments” all day, every day. They have been bored and they have always come up with something or the other that might seem like a time waste to us. But for them, maybe not. That’s probably their “aha!” moment. Let them enjoy!
Ok, honestly, I might be worried that my 8-year-old daughter might actually start thinking of herself as Anna from Frozen and my 4-year-old son might think of himself as the real Captain America. Even though they are building imaginary castles and fighting the imaginary evil forces, they are learning collaboration, leadership, ideation and tolerance.
Don’t worry if your child is lagging behind in the homework department, remember your days of childhood when you would pray for a long summer break with no homework. Consider your wish granted, only that it has been passed down to your children. Who said parenting in lockdown will be easy?
They don’t have to worry about long school hours, elaborate projects or grades for that matter. Now children have, basically, a long, strange, twisted vacation. Even though schools are continuing their classes through online mediums, it’s not same as going to school.
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These classes don’t take the same number of hours, and all the extra co-curricular activities are off, too. This opens up a vast swath of free time that many children and teens have never had before. It can turn into a period of growth — mentally and emotionally.
While I agree that not every child will turn into Einstein, Mozart or Leonardo da Vinci during the lockdown, I also believe that children are living the real childhood before it got so structured and busy.
So, don’t worry that everyone else’s children are making Tiktok videos and becoming overnight sensations or championing at the online game of Chess while yours is hitting his sister with Captain America’s plastic shield.
What I mean is: It’s all okay. Everything is permissible right now within reasonable limits. Let’s get this thought out of our minds that our children won’t seed even if they are sleeping, gaming and bingeing on Netflix. Their minds are coherent, they are always distracted and they observe even the minutest of the details that we don’t even notice.
The fact is that they’re growing, simply because kids are always growing and learning from everything — pretend plays, slime and clay, Nerf guns, Barbies, baths, videos, but most of all from that one vital resource that was rare before the lockdown – free time.
Don’t think about parenting in lockdown as a competition where you have to excel above your peers or friends. You are a parent and nobody knows better than you about what your children need and what they are capable of. Let them take a break while they also explore their interests.
Being confined indoors is not easy for them too. The last thing they need right now is a hovering parent always ready with instructions or critique in the name of parenting in lockdown, or otherwise.
My biggest learning during the pandemic and best parenting advice for all the parents; especially the hovering parents – think of the lockdown as an extra period in the time table of our lives. You can help your kids make the best use of it by stepping back just this once.
You can get in touch with me at prettymummasays@gmail.com
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The Blog train THE PANDEMIC THAT CHANGED OUR LIFE UPSIDE DOWN initiated by blogger Ila Varma to bring the bloggers together to share numerous experiences of #pandemiclockdown2020.
I want to thank Sudha for introducing me. You can read about experience of living through the COVID-19 pandemic on her blog
Hop on to Nehal’s blog to read about her experience.
This article is inspired by an article that appeared in The Washington Times
