How many of you are working from home? Probably many of you!
I am doing some work from home, but some in the office because we are alive and well, and open and seeing clients!
Families that are working from home, we understand your stress level! We know this is a whole new world for you. You’re now an employee, you’re the teacher, and you’re the therapist! We are moving to Telehealth but we are still getting you in the system, and I know the last 2-3 weeks have been a bit of a lonely world!
I’m going to give you some very basic suggestions to help you deal with this stressful time. You may have heard this before—even news stations have been talking about this. There’s a lot of good information out there. But here are some of my best tips:
1. Make a schedule
This is my mantra! Get a schedule in place. Figure out how you can do your work around what you have to do with your kiddos. If you’re having to do schoolwork, set up a regular time. I suggest that you not let your kids sleep in during the week. They don’t need to lose the habit of waking up in the mornings. Have breakfast as a family. Do your chores. Do your schoolwork. And then maybe during their break time, that’s when you, the parent, can do some of your work. Structure that into your day.
Everyone’s lifestyle is different, so you’ll be able to adapt these ideas for what you need to do, for what works best for your family.
2. Make time for movement
Another thing that’s really important is that your kiddos need to move! They need movement. Make sure you’re building movement breaks in. You’re going to have a whole lot less frustration if you’re doing movement! I realize that with it being allergy season right now, it’s maybe not a good idea to take a long walk. A lot of our families are doing hour-long walks, which is great! They take the dogs, they can go down the street, they can be safely distant from everyone and get their movement in. But if that doesn’t work for you right now, I highly recommend doing movement activities or videos in your house. There are some really fun videos on YouTube that are movement/dance type videos. Yoga is a great one, and we have some great videos and apps that we can share with you for yoga! You can keep your appropriate distances, and still do yoga as a family! Just keep those movement breaks going!
If you have playground equipment in your backyard, use that! If you have hippity-hop balls, it’s really fun to hippity-hop down a hallway! We can give you lots of fun activities you can do so that you can keep the kids enriched and moving forward.
They already have so much screen time—that’s unavoidable. Let’s see if we can give them time that’s not screen time!
3. Take turns if possible
Build your work time around times that you know they’re doing activities that you can supervise from a distance. For those of you who have little ones, maybe you can take turns or shifts with your husband or wife, or your significant other. Maybe you can make a schedule so that one of you can work at one time while the other focuses on the kids, and then you can switch.
It’s going to be much easier if you establish a schedule because then each person knows the expectations during their shift.
Your Next Step
If you’re struggling and you’re one of our clients, make sure you reach out to us! The therapists really miss your kiddos, and they’d be more than happy to help you. Also, if you want to pursue Telehealth, that is an option. Call the office and we’ll tell you more about it!
