Homeschooling and Quarantine- Be easy on yourself

As an unschooling mama, it is my duty to lay the ground with things of interest for my children to explore (and learn). My boys LOVE video games, Minecraft especially. I’m not a gamer, but I play. I play because I want to be with them, see what they're learning and how they're learning. I’ve gained so much insight by just nudging out of my own world and into theirs.

Being an unschooling mama (for me) means; no curriculum, no workbooks, and learning through life, learning through what they’re interested in. It’s a lot of fun! But during the time of lockdown they play a TON of Minecraft! We’re used to more park days, more friend dates, fun classes, and more outside of the home time. But clearly we can’t do that right now, and I can only play so much Minecraft.

I’ve been feeling a bit of mama guilt over the past week. “I should play more, I need to engage”. But what I forget, is that we’ve been in this house together for over two months now with barely any human contact away from each other. It’s ok to not want to engage all the time. And I’m just now, trying to take it easy on myself. My boys are happy! They play online, and through video chat with a friend every day, and they love it (thank god we’re going through this time with technology!). When they take breaks we’re usually snacking or giving a quick hug to each other. I do go and watch sometimes so I can be next to them, and we also read together before bed every night- its the little moments of connection that really help!

I guess through this rant I mean to say to myself, and maybe you need to hear it too is it’s ok to sit back and just be. It’s ok not to be engaging 100% of the time (this goes for non quarantine life too). I was really feeling guilty about the lack of “time” I’ve been spending with them in the past few days, but they had other plans haha (playing online with their friend)! So I let it be, went outside to get some vitamin d in my backyard and you know what happened? My 5 year old came out and asked if we could make rice crispy treats together. Guess what we did? :) And then I got some quality time with my youngest.

#lifestyle #reinventyourself #thenewyou