Surviving and Thriving

As many parents have been instructed to work-at-home, and children instructed to stay-at-home and therefore play-at-home, many households have been forced to find work and play stations, often in very limited space. Parents have had to scramble to find a corner of the house (if they didn’t already have a dedicated office space) where they could set up to carry out their work-related duties.

Yes, it has been several weeks now that schools have been closed. Parents, grandparents, and caregivers may well be at the stage of feeling like climbing the walls or pulling their hair out, while many children are in fact climbing the walls and pulling hair out, their own and that of their siblings.

Advice from a myriad of sources across the globe suggests that having a structure for each day, a timetable, a schedule, will help to keep us all sane, focused and feeling productive. As much as I agree that setting out a structure for each day can help immensely with having a sense of purpose, a sense of security and safety in this suddenly very uncertain and unsafe world, I also want to suggest that focusing too much on a rigid structure or schedule can exacerbate stress and increase tension and anxiety in the home.

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