HoweEnterprise.com
August 24, 2020
Tips for distance learning — help your children at home Hey Taylor: My daughter’s school has finally settled on remote learning for the fall semester. She did Taylor fine when school closed Kovar last spring, but I’m wondering if you have any tips for making this next semester productive while she does her distance learning and I try to work from home. — Marjorie Hey Marjorie: Kudos to you for facing this challenge head-on! Being a parent is hard enough without having to work as a part-time educator while holding down your own job. It’s important that your child feels like learning still matters even with everything being turned upside down, and there are a few things you can do to help that along. Create a schooling space. As anyone who works from home knows, it can be difficult to focus when the line between home and work life is blurred. If you have a room — either a guest space or a portion of the living room — you can turn into the “classroom,” you might help limit the distractions. If this is going to work, you need to go the extra mile in setting up the area. Put up a chalkboard or a sheet or something to serve as the background so your daughter doesn’t see the familiar household scenery behind her. Any other educational props, such as rulers and pencils and pads of paper, even if unused, can help give off that classroom vibe. Work on the morning routine. You might need to lead by example on this one. If you tend to head to your computer and start working while still wearing your robe or PJs, try getting up a little earlier to shower and put on some work clothes. Asking your daughter to do the same can help her
prepare for the school day as she would have when she actually went to a physical school building. When every part of the day just kind of bleeds into the next, it becomes harder to pay attention and get motivated to do the work. Help cultivate that morning and lunchtime routine that will give structure. Try to stay positive. These are difficult, frustrating times. You might be annoyed with your own work situation already, and with remote learning adding another burden to your day you could feel like you’re about to reach your boiling point. The more we can put on a happy face, be thankful for the blessings we have, and remind our kids that these changes are only temporary, the better our chances for success. One of the biggest hurdles is making kids understand that this version of school still counts. It can feel like we’re all just playing pretend, so you’ll want to remind your daughter that this is real life, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Keep encouraging and you should be fine. Good luck! Legal Disclaimer: Information presented is for educational purposes only and is not an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. To submit a question to be answered in this column, please send it via email to Question@GoFarWithKovar.com or via USPS to Taylor Kovar, 415 S 1st St, Suite 300, Lufkin, TX 75901.
Living with children My profession, psychology, began demonizing traditional childrearing in the late 1960s. I was in graduate John school at the Rosemond time and on fire for the promise that the proper use of psychological principles could perfect the raising of children and thereby usher in the social utopia we (young boomers whose heads were enveloped in clouds of youthful idealism) thought possible, even imminent. Children could be reasoned with. Punishment damaged self-esteem (the supposed brass ring of a good life). In the ideal family, parents and children “ruled” equally. Time-out – which takes the alltime Parenting Boondoggle Award – would correct all misbehavior. Children should be given lots of choices and allowed to express their feelings freely. Those are but a sample of the new psychological parenting narratives. Unfortunately, American parents fell en masse for this revisionism and child mental health has been in a tailspin ever since. The propaganda boiled down to “if your parents and grandparents did it, don’t do it.” One of the upshots of this was what I call “yada-yada discipline” – the attempt to discipline by dialogue, through persuasive appeal to a child’s inherent irrationality and self-centeredness. Two grandparents recently shared the story of their four-year-old male grandchild who was expressing his feelings freely by wetting his pants whenever the urge arose. “He didn’t see the point of stopping whatever he was doing to use the toilet,” they said. Indeed, he didn’t see the point because the point was a dull attempt on his parents’ part to talk him out of it. Yes, they occasionally became frustrated enough to send him to his room, which bothered him none because his room was an entertainment
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complex, a perfectly suitable place in which to spend a few minutes, even hours. To further demonstrate his disregard, he would often wet his pants on the way to his room, leaving tiny puddles of urine in his wake. After several attempts, a pediatrician was unable to come up with a remedial drug. A therapist also came up emptyhanded. Just prior to reaching the end of their wits, said parents read, in their local newspaper, a column written by a certain renegade psychologist that set forth a cure to spontaneous lazy boy bladder leakage disorder (SLBBLD). From that point on, the lazy boy’s parents did three simple things: first, when he wet his clothes, he washed them in a bucket of soapy water; second, if he left a puddle on the floor, he wiped up the puddle and then washed the entire floor; third, when his labors were done (to his parents’ satisfaction) he spent the remainder of the day in the bathroom and was in bed immediately after supper. What drugs and therapy had not moved was cured in one day. As I write, he is no longer a lazy boy. Far from it, in fact. He is a fully functioning adult who is neither beset with bathroom phobia nor haunted by nightmares of bucket monsters chasing him down labyrinthine corridors. The moral to the story is the moral to many a parenting story these days: If your parents and grandparents did it, then (with the obvious exceptions) you should follow their example. Some things never change, among which is common sense. Family psychologist John Rosemond: johnrosemond.com, p arentguru.com. John Rosemond has worked with families, children, and parents since 1971 in the field of family psychology. In 1971, John earned his masters in psychology from Western Illinois University and was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.
