Maybe your children are happily ignorant of what’s going on, or maybe they’re worried, and looking to you for assurance. Many of them are home all day now, their schools shuttered into the foreseeable future. It’s a stressful time. Whenever I hear people are being told to shelter in place, I think: I’m a father. I am the shelter.
But what if I’m not enough?
My struggle in crisis is that I worry for my children (their health, their economic future, whether I’ll even be able to provide for them in a year) to the point that I get short-tempered. I grow impatient with their recklessness, intolerant of their foolishness, fed up with their sloppiness. In an ironic twist, my care for them gets transmogrified into unkindness.
Perhaps you face the same struggle.
Well, one thing I’ve learned about coping with uncertainty is that we can reduce our stress by creating domains of certainty. We can turn our attention from the things we can’t control to the opportunities all around us to fix, to heal, to teach.
But without a plan, that’s just a nice sentiment. If you’ve been looking through the resources here, and if you get my daily emails, you’ve probably discerned that I’m a big fan of the calendar. If your home life is getting turned upside-down like that of many families, you can inject some immediate certainty by helping your children put together a simple task list for the day. Ask them to come up with some ideas to exercise their minds and bodies, and to have some fun.
While you’re at it, write down some things in your own calendar that you’re going to do with them. Don’t let day after day slip by, especially now, when so many people need the simple reassurance of human contact.
And if you’re wondering what to put on your calendar, below are some resources chock-full of ideas. Whether you make a backyard mortar or find a comfy book to read together, don’t miss the opportunities in this upended world to be the shelter your children need far more than bricks and mortar.
Quarantine survival supplies
Art of Manliness DIY projects: Everything from potato cannons to paper fighter jets.
Arts and Crafts projects: 50 projects that are less dangerous than a potato cannon, but still kind of fun.
Backyard games: Cardboard forts, giant dominoes–there’s something here for everyone.
Exploratorium: Tons of science projects for kids of all ages.
Khan Academy: These people have revolutionized math, science, computer programming, even art history. Sign your kids up and watch them love to learn.
OpenLibrary: With libraries closing across the country, here’s a free resource filled with online books for all ages.
Kanopy: Movies and documentaries available with a library membership, including a host of instructional videos.