What we are doing right now is not home-schooling, it’s crisis-schooling

Home-schooling has always existed, this is something else.

We are currently living through a historical event, something most of us have never experienced before in our lives. Schools have closed, most work places are shut and our movements have been restricted to a 2km radius, expect for food, medicines or expectational circumstances. Parenting through this time is particularly difficult. In the last few weeks I've written a lot of articles with tips on home-schooling. It's the term that is being used everywhere, home-schooling, except that this is not home-schooling. Is it schooling at home, absolutely but it's not home-schooling as it's been known in the past, it's something far different, it's crisis-schooling. Parents who have home-schooled children in the past research and prepare beforehand because that's always how they intended to educate their children. Right now however, parents with no preparation have been thrown in at the deep end, not only attempting to school their children, but continue parenting and working (a lot of us from home) too. Add to this the stress of not being able to get out of the house for any extended amount of time, or visit loved ones and the whole situation because extremely stressful very quickly. I'd be lying if I said that there weren't days that I felt like I was sinking under the weight of the stress, but as parents we always have to put on a brave face so we don't pass that stress onto our children. None of us knew a month ago that we would be doing this. We didn't know we'd have to take up the task of becoming teachers for our children. We didn't know we'd have to explain a pandemic to them. We didn't know we'd have to tell them they probably won't be returning to school this term. We just didn't know. To be honest, I still don't really know what I'm doing, I'm playing it by ear. All I know is that this is far from the home-schooling that we've known in the past. We're parenting during a crisis right now and we need to cut ourselves some slack. If you can't explain your child's school work to them, that's ok. If you can't get through everything the teacher emailed, that's ok. If you can't get through any of it and just let them play, that's also ok. We're living through historical times under unprecedented amounts of stress, don't put yourself under pressure to be the perfect teacher right now. What you are doing is enough.