Online schooling is a new thing for a lot of families and it comes with a new set of challenges. Children learning from home often means the parent will have to fill in for the teacher at times when they can't be there to help during assignments.
In my case it means at least four times a day, dropping whatever I am doing to walk through assignments that are due before her next class starts. This means I must be more flexible with anything of mine I am doing.
It means that whether it be writing, earning money, cleaning, dishes, cooking or whatever else I am doing I have to drop it to go through her work and help her through it. Instead of acting in the role of a teacher for a half hour to an hour a day after school helping with homework, I am now acting in the role most of the day as an on call teacher.
It adds greatly to my work load and at times I find myself overwhelmed because I constantly feel down on myself. If she still doesn't understand after trying to explain then I feel like I've failed as a teacher. If I end up not doing something one day that I think should have gotten done, I feel I've failed as a wife or a mother.
I try to remind myself that I'm only human but we really are our own worst critics. At times it becomes overwhelming and stresses me out. The problem is, if I am stressed, this will of course stress out my daughter which will make it harder for her to learn. If she is feeling stressed out, particularly because of me, that stresses me out more. It's a never ending vicious cycle that needs to be broken.
I need to take better care of myself but it's not so simple when the time is scarce. That's why I'm writing this. So I can try to get my emotions out and think more clearly. Writing has always been very cathartic for me. Often stress can make you feel alone but logically, I know I can't be the only parent trying to figure things out, especially right now.
At the end of the day, I am almost always exhausted by the time I drag myself to bed, usually at around 2am only to get up at 8am.
Online schooling is a bit challenging to parents particularly if the student is still very young. There should always be someone to look after him/her as schooling goes on. Well, most of things are challenging at first specially when one is not used to it. Eventually, when we all get use to it, time will make everything normal.