If you are anything like me, you are literally counting down the seconds until the school year is out and you are no longer your child's teacher.
Don't get me wrong – I am loving this time with my children.
However, I am not loving Mathletics. Or SeeSaw. Or Reading Eggs. Or Irish (I have never ever done Irish on school, it all sounds like double Dutch to me, and I have just abandoned trying to teach it completely – sue me!) And I am especially not loving all the log-ins and passwords and trying to juggle this all while also tending to my own job.
Which is why I am currently looking forward to the summer holidays more than I ever have before.
However, if it was up to Supernanny Jo Frost, we shouldn't be downing tools (or, you know, SeeSaw log-ins) just because school is officially out.
‘I believe children shouldn’t be back to school right now, she said. ‘[But] Summer shouldn’t be without schoolwork. Keep up that little bit of self-discipline and do some school work during the summer holidays as well.’
The parenting expert, 48, was a guest on ITV’s Loose Women earlier this week. The show’s host Andrea McClean and fellow Loose Women presenter Kelle Bryan, who is mum to two young children, asked Jo to share her advice on parenting in lockdown.
Sharing some comforting words, Frost explained she thought parents shouldn’t pressure themselves to be perfect and offered some reassuring words.
‘Everyone has the same homeschooling struggle,’ she said. ‘Parents do need to cut themselves some slack.’
Saying that she’d seen a lot of memes about parents finding their children’s schoolwork too hard and feeling stupid or ashamed, she recommended talking to friends if you don’t feel confident in your teaching abilities.
'Don’t throw the towel in but lean on friends who may know more than yourself if you don’t understand,’ she said. ‘set up a time that’s conducive and quiet for learning.’
Frost started working as a nanny when she was just 18 years old and worked in both the UK and the US, and has written numerous books on parenting and has starred in TV shows across the globe. She now lives in LA with her husband.
