January 2021

“Mama Mia here we go again!” Weeks of home schooling ahead of us.

Of course it is not what we would all choose to be doing, and no one says it’s an easy task, but how can we reframe it?

When we think about learning, many of us think that it has to be school based, with a smiling Teacher and teaching assistant standing in front of our children from 8.30 - 4pm.

But let’s just step back.

Who taught our children to talk? Who taught our children to crawl, walk and helped them along their way with number and letter recognition and who sung endless nursery rhymes and read stories to them? Sound familiar? 

So if we have done it before, for roughly 2 years, then we will rise to the challenge again, for a few more weeks.

Right now our children have access to a different type of education. A life education,  where they are surrounded by numeracy, literacy, science and so much more than the National Curriculum in their homes.

There is no disputing that they are missing out on seeing their friends face to face rather than on a screen, but wouldn’t life be a happier place if we looked at what they are getting rather than what they’re not?

What better lesson is there than the lesson of life itself? Key life skills, such as relationship building and problem solving, quality time together with siblings which they may not have had pre Covid. Online learning is developing independence as our children are required to be a little more self sufficient, than if they were in the classroom. 

Ironically, although most of our children are far more tech savvy than us, they are also acquiring new tech skills as they go about their day to day learning. How many of us had heard about Zoom before the pandemic?!

In the words of Ronan Keating “Life is a roller coaster and you just have to ride it.”  The media is full of negativity, times are more uncertain than ever before.  Let’s pause and look at the positives this time has brought to us. 

Time goes by so quickly, children grow up too fast. 

We have of course been given challenges and some things are far from perfect, but we have also been given many blessings too. Maybe it’s time that we all started counting them!

Sarah Jacobs
PaJeS Wellbeing practitioner