Life in lockdown

As the wife of a frontline nurse, a mum of four kids, and a teacher in the local further and higher education college, we are totally in the thick of this public health crisis.

My husband has been moved back to the Intensive Care Unit in our local hospital where he worked for many years. I’m working from home trying to help my students complete their qualifications online and my children are off school so I will try to teach them what I can over the coming months too.

So how are we coping? No school, no face-to-face contact with family or friends, no workplace, no shopping, no clubs and societies.

I know we can do this, but we need to look after each other and care for our mental health.

Try and make a new normal – get up in the morning, have breakfast, get washed and dressed, make your bed, and decide what to do today.

We need to talk and be honest with our children. Some children are scared right now and it’s fine for you to be worried too but you should share this carefully with your children. Tell them how you feel and that you know that our health service will do their best and help as many people as they possibly can, explain social distancing and the new rules for staying at home. You might need to learn some new signs and there are various websites that are demonstrating these. I know that my deaf six year old (pictured) doesn’t understand that school is closed indefinitely, but she knows she doesn’t like Coronavirus because we can’t visit our grandparents or go to McDonalds!

We like to take some exercise every day – current guidelines allow you to leave your house once a day to do this but I feel if I walk down the street with my four children it might make people feel uncomfortable. Instead we are exercising in the garden (which we feel very lucky to have) or inside the house. We highly recommend the online PE class by Joe Wicks on YouTube at 9am each weekday. Yesterday this was great fun, got us moving and laughing and also provided some exercise.

Take time to care for yourselves - read books, have baths, listen to music, and set aside some quiet time. Switch off social media for a while every day and take a break from all the uncertainty. You could try writing a journal to offload any uncomfortable feelings. Schedule some social time online with your family and friends. Video calling apps are perfect as they allow us to chat and see people, this can really help our deaf children, especially in getting those extra non-verbal cues from the conversation and also lip-reading and using sign language.

With learning from home, remember that this is a new situation for all of us. While the schools want us to continue with our children’s curriculums, we must not let this become an additional stress. You can use the work that has been sent from the school, but normal daily activities can help develop educational skills too.

For example:

• Drawing pictures will help with motor function.
• Writing down their thoughts will help literacy skills.
• Reading books together and alone will develop understanding and vocabulary, they can also ask questions about the stories, write book reports, draw pictures about the characters and what they are doing, and see if there are online quizzes about that book and have a go.
• Practice numeracy through cooking together and weighing the ingredients and working out cooking times, helping with the online shopping and practicing setting a budget.
• Learning how to do chores around the house as appropriate for your child’s age.

Please take your time to figure out what suits your family best, make a rough schedule so that you accomplish something every day.