With schools suspended and the rest of the outdoors unsafe, kids are entirely homebound and tend to demand their parents’ attention all round the clock. But it is beyond one to meet such a demand when you have a considerable load of other work to be done. Some useful tips for parents during quarantine can become handy here as we all are aware that working from home when you have kids around is no joke. Attending calls, meeting deadlines, preparing presentations, and keeping up with all that office work along with looking after your kid’s meals, monitoring their studies and other activities, and spending time with them all together can get even the best multitaskers. To help you get rid of the panic, guilt, and frustration that situations like this can cause, we have devised a few quarantine tips for parents which will lead you to manage work and kids together, like a pro!
Also read: Quarantine Parents Guide: Activities for Kids at Home to Fight Boredom
Quarantine Tips for Parents
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Routine Is the Key
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The first of all tips for parents during quarantine is to make a routine and follow it. Plan out your kid’s day beforehand for a boredom-free and smooth flow of activities throughout the day. Include them while doing this so that you take into account things that they enjoy. Create a balance between free time and productive activities, and between your and your spouse’s hours in charge.
Routine is certainly a parent’s best friend and a fundamental in any parent’s guide. It is also universal among quarantine tips as it massively helps almost anyone cakewalk through it. -
Socialize with Other Parents
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You are definitely not the only one looking for quarantine tips for parents. You might have many such parents among your contacts who are impelled to manage their work while staying at home with kids. You might come across some useful tips for parents when you talk to them about how they are coping with it. With the belief that sharing leads to solutions, this bit from our parents guide asks you to be in touch with fellow working parents and exchange hacks and ideas to keep kids busy and have peaceful work hours during the quarantine. -
Introduce Them to STEM
If your kids are yet to begin their STEM journey, this is the perfect time to do so. One of the most beneficial quarantine tips for parents, exposing kids to STEM learning, will go a long way. The world is advancing at an escalating rate and this advancement stands on the four pillars of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). ‘Integrating STEM Education in Education sector results in developing curiosity, inquisitiveness, critical-thinking, problem-solving capacities, imagining, questioning and exploring, innovating, designing and making, testing and modifying their solutions to complex problems among learners.’, says STEM Learning, a facilitator of STEM education in India. A learning paradigm with a practical approach, STEM learning will catalyze your kid’s growth and you’ll soon know that this is one of the most constructive tips for parents during quarantine. -
Engage Them in Educational Content Online
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There are abundant educational videos and podcasts out there to occupy kids productively. They will teach and entertain them for a good amount of time without needing your presence. One of the easiest to implement tips for parents to keep kids busy is to introduce them to YouTube channels dedicated to fun-learning with insightful videos on STEM subjects. This is one of those quarantine tips for parents which rarely fail to work their magic as most kids enjoy watching videos and listening to podcasts given their interesting ways to present things and capture attention. Plus, the parents are assured of the educational gains it has. -
Look For an Engaging DIY Activity
For those hours when you just can’t afford to be disturbed by the screams of ‘mummy!’ or ‘daddy!’, pick an activity for your little ones that keeps them engrossed for the desired time. This is one of the lifesaver tips for parents during quarantine if they wish to have uninterrupted office hours at home. We know that at times, there is a pre-planned call or meeting which might be too important to be given only half your attention. At such times, prepare your kid’s timetable wisely and fit in something that not only requires a good amount of time but is also thoroughly enjoyed by them. You can leave them to paint, solve a big jigsaw puzzle, make paper crafts, simple DIY decor for home, DIY bookmarks, or other exciting DIY projects. -
Give Them Research Tasks
Encouraging kids to research, may it be on any topic, will prove to be fruitful in more than one way. It will not only give them access to new spheres of knowledge and information but will also enhance their research skills, help them adapt to the internet and use it to their advantage, and will make them strive for proven facts instead of baseless claims. They can research while you are reaching your work targets and once you have the time, you can ask them for updates. A rather important point in our new-age parent’s guide, exposure to research, and the internet is an effective way of preparing kids for the world to come. After all, research is at the core of science and technology, the paddlewheels of the future. This is not only one of the tips for parents during quarantine but a piece of advice for parents to teach their kids the right 21st century skills. -
Enroll Them in Online Courses
Let’s get this straight. Screen time is fine. In fact, it is more than fine in a time like this where so many experts from various fields of study are imparting lessons from behind these screens. It has become easier than ever to learn something new given the internet and the wide range of online courses available on it. So, through these quarantine tips for parents, we suggest you reap the maximum benefits out of the courses that fall in your area of interest.One skill that your kids should try learning through these courses is coding. Besides giving them an edge over other kids, learning to code can bring them closer to getting their desired job! Yes, coding is one of the most sought-after skills by employers today. And to learn this skill in the most interesting and fun way, you can head on to STEMpedias’s Introduction to Programming.
Enroll today for a FREE live demo session
A beginner-friendly coding course, Introduction to Programming has Scratch coding for kids as its programming language. It runs on our block-based graphical programming platform, PictoBlox which offers great interactivity and learning-by-doing options to learners. Furthermore, the course consists of easy-to-understand live sessions, tests, and quizzes to keep a check on progress, and an end of the course challenge which is themed as COVID-19 in order to increase awareness regarding the pandemic among kids and make them act responsibly towards it. Thus, as a part of our quarantine tips, we recommend checking this course out.
Also read: How Online Coding Courses Help Kids Learn Coding at Home
In a Nutshell
The quarantine tips for parents listed above are all absolutely doable and unfailing, brought to your aid for a comfortable quarantine with both your kids and your work receiving the attention they deserve. They are nothing less than tricks out of a magician’s sleeve. But then all parents are one, aren’t they?
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