We all want to do the best possible job for our children—even in a pandemic—but we are all dealing with a lot of stress right now. It’s important to acknowledge that reducing our own stress matters too. People keep calling what we’re doing “homeschooling,” so let’s put things into perspective. 

Table of Contents

• Compassionate Curiosity
• Zones of Regulation: Getting to Calm
• Using the 4M's to Get to Calm
• Final Words of Encouragement

Regular homeschoolers, during normal non-pandemic times, do not typically homeschool for six hours a day, five days a week. In fact, homeschooling often looks more like this: 1–2 hours a day for elementary school, 2–3 hours for middle school, and 3–4 hours for high school. Academic material can often be learned more quickly in a homeschool environment, and non-academic learning can be woven into many less structured daily activities. 

But right now, we are dealing with pandemic homeschooling. All of us, including our kids, are already on a steep learning curve as we figure out what it means to be a good neighbor, how to care for one another, and how to cope with stress and uncertainty. These are important life lessons, and they deserve to be prioritized. This unusual time may also create opportunities for your kids to explore the things that fascinate them and to build useful life skills. 

 

During this pandemic, life lessons matter, and the goal is continued learning. You may be thinking, “That sounds great, but you don’t know my child. You don’t know how many meltdowns my five-year-old has every day, how hard it is to get my 12-year-old out of bed for Zoom class, or how chaotic my home, work, and life feel right now.” And you’re right—I don’t know your exact situation. But I can imagine how hard it may feel, and I want to introduce an idea that is central to my coaching practice.

 

Compassionate Curiosity

Start with this question: What if there is a reason for the behavior, chaos, or challenges that I, my partner, or my child is dealing with right now? 

 

Instead of treating behavior as manipulative, intentional, or something that deserves punishment, what if we viewed it as a rudimentary—though often frustrating—form of communication? Think of this behavior as your child’s attempt to express their emotional world when they do not yet have the words or capacity to communicate it in healthier ways.

 

It is not a coincidence that toddlers’ tantrums often decrease as their language and communication skills improve. What if we could better understand those emotions and develop more effective strategies to address the root of the issue? And what if, in doing so, we could reduce the unwanted behavior? This premise underpins my work as a parenting coach.

 

Zones of Regulation: Getting to Calm

 

This concept organizes emotional regulation into color zones to help us better understand our emotions. A critical requirement for learning is getting to the green zone, where we find calm. Calm brains are ready to learn. Emotional self-regulation is about understanding what calm feels like and how we can get there. As parents, we need to recognize what zone we are in and what we need to do to move toward the green zone. From there, we can better understand what zone our children are in and how to help them move toward it, too. 

Maintaining hydration and stable blood sugar levels can help both us and our kids reach the green zone. It is also important to remember that, in most cases, we will struggle to guide our children to a place we have not reached ourselves.

 

Calm is supported by a predictable structure. When there is order and routine, our brains are more likely to feel safe and to trust that our basic needs will be met. A predictable structure is not the same thing as a rigid schedule. Right now, all we need is a simplified and personal plan.

Research suggests that learning happens best when we are calm. Along with a predictable structure, the “4 M’s”—Meet, Move, Make, and Meaning—can help us achieve and maintain that calm. 

 

Using the 4M's to Get to Calm

1. Meet

Connection has a powerful effect on helping us become calm. Whether it is cuddling on the couch, reading with a sibling, roughhousing with the dog, or playing a game together as a family, connection helps us feel safe, and feeling safe helps us feel calm. Connection is important not only for helping our children become calm, but also for helping them stay calm. 

 

2. Move

Our bodies are designed to move. Movement is essential for helping us both get calm and stay calm. Practicing times tables may feel boring to many children, but it may become much easier—and more enjoyable—while skipping rope or jumping on a trampoline. 

 

3. Make

We are highly creative beings. Whether through play, art, music, dance, cooking, poetry, or even Minecraft, our desire to make is important both for creating the calm we need to learn and for supporting the learning process itself. 

 

4. Meaning

Our capacity to feel a sense of purpose and to experience achievement is critical to our mental well-being. Meaning helps us think beyond ourselves and our immediate circumstances. That broader view can help ground our perspective and deepen motivation, especially when learning becomes difficult.

 

Think about the care and attention your child may put into a piece of art for Mother’s Day compared with the effort they give to coloring a map for geography. The meaning behind the activity can have a major impact on how calm, engaged, and motivated your child feels while doing it.

 

Final Words of Encouragement

This moment in history can feel very long while we are in the middle of it, but we will get through it. Whether we return to the old normal or create a new one, this season will one day be a memory for both us and our children. Every school-aged child living through this period is experiencing some version of the same disruption, and they will come through it together.

 

Academically, children will have opportunities to catch up—provided they know how to get calm and stay calm. Helping them do that is one of the most important roles we can play right now.

 

If you do nothing else, you will still have succeeded as a parent or caregiver if you help your child achieve calm. Everything beyond that—a conversation about a favorite special interest, learning how to do a cartwheel in the backyard, building an epic LEGO creation, learning to bake bread, or even, miraculously, finishing a few school assignments—is icing on the cake.

 

Watch the full video here!