(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Shelli Kurth
and I'm here with my colleague, Dr. Nicole Assisi.
Today, we will be talking to you about
how to stay sane in these times of unprecedented parenting.
Our background together includes 30 years working
in schools as teachers, principals and right now
we are both homeschooling parents,
or I guess, summer schooling parents.
Our goals for these episodes are to provide you
with tools and resources
to keep your learner thriving and to keep you sane.
- Indeed, and this week we will be talking
a little bit about social distancing,
because let's be honest, it's hard enough as an adult,
let alone for kids, you know, so as we plan
on going to camp or going back to school,
keeping social distance will be part of our future
or so health professionals tell us,
and today's series will focus a little bit about
how to support your child of any age keep social distance,
be at six feet or more and stay sane and thriving.
So to kick us off, Shelli tell us a little bit more
and set the context social distances, distancing
what do we need to know?
- Well, first let me be clear as a parent and as a teacher,
I have to admit it is hard to imagine a classroom of kids,
especially little kids, physically distancing.
So many of the things that we teach,
involve interacting with each other
and now we have to get these same great learning experiences
while we're physically distancing.
That feels like a really big task,
so this means that teachers and parents
are going to have to work together more than ever
to help kids understand why we're doing it
and how we can make it happen.
The first thing that parents can do to help
is to talk to their kids about why social distancing
or physical distancing is so important
and how the virus is transferred.
You can talk about germs being so tiny
that you can't see them with your eyes,
you have to use a microscope.
You have to talk about how the germs will make us sick
as they enter our bodies.
Sometimes we breathe them in
and sometimes we might touch things.
There's a lot of different ways
that you can talk about this, and there's a lot of resources
to help give you the language or even videos
that might help explain that to your kids
and I have some of those that I will link in the comments
here in the videos so, that can be the first resource,
but also, you are gonna be able to use some of that language
to talk to your kids yourself.
When you're talking to your little guys especially,
do it like you're telling a story.
I heard a mom talk up once about it.
She was explaining social distancing in the same way
that we pull over for an ambulance or an emergency vehicle.
And she was telling her child
that the same way when a firetruck comes up behind you,
everyone pulls over, we do it as fast as we can,
and we do it because we're trying to protect
the person who needs the firetruck,
and I just thought that was so beautiful to think about
the community coming together in order to protect somebody.
You can use that same kind of language
and that same kind of storytelling
to help your little one understand
that we're keeping distance from each other
because we're protecting people who need protecting.
Everyone has to work together
when we pull over for the ambulance,
but also when we physically distance for the coronavirus.
Some of these great videos
that help us explain social distancing
and germs and this virus, one of them is from Kiwi company
and it explains what a virus is and how it's transferred?
It's great for little guys.
And there's also one from Grover from Sesame street,
again, that's for little, little guys,
so go ahead and open up your mind
to some different resources,
get some good language to help with that,
and tell a story to your children
so that they understand the why.
Nicole, you're gonna talk a little bit about the how.
- Yeah, because the big question
at least in my mind remains,
how am I going to teach my child
who can't even quite understand how long a minute is,
or how much longer until we get to our destination?
How is he going to understand six feet?
And not only that, but how will he remember six feet
when he's having a lot of fun with friends?
And so I am going to provide you with a couple of ideas
of practicing this six feet social distance,
and hopefully we'll get your kid
to be a six foot social distance spy
discovering places where there are six feet
and where there aren't.
So one of the things that we've done in our house,
we've measured out some string of six feet.
Now you could use string, you could use ribbon,
masking tape, if you don't have any of those,
just scotch tape and measure out six feet.
Now, put that on the floor
and stands six feet away from each other to start this game.
And from there remove the tape,
have everybody shuffle around
and then have them name how many feet,
or whether they are six feet apart from somebody else
in the room or not.
So the person who is the most spot on
on six feet would win this game
and basically it's just a fun way to start,
like interacting, moving around and getting in the habit
of noticing what is six feet apart.
You could do the same activity with toys,
putting toys apart from each other
and measuring with your ribbon or rope,
whether you guessed it right.
You know, guesstimating distance
or time is really hard for kids,
so this is gonna take a lot of practice.
What we actually do is my son keeps his ribbon
in his pocket and on various occasions,
you know all over town, you see these dots or stickers
that are placed in different restaurants
or outside of stores at the grocery store
that are supposed to be six feet apart
and my son has now become a six foot spy
and has noticed when he thinks they are not six feet apart
and he'll make me walk to one, he'll stand on the other
and we use our little ribbon to figure out like,
are they six feet apart?
So make it fun.
That six feet apart is easy for my husband
'cause he's just a little bit over six feet
so in his mind he can picture, okay if I lay down,
there are six feet from my toes to my head
and that's easy to see.
For younger guys, you know that that takes some fraction
and multiplication to figure out how far six feet is?
Definitely too hard, but there is a way
that you can bring math and some mathematical understanding
of addition or multiplication,
as you're thinking about six feet, here's how you do it.
Find some toys, start with larger toys, think a hula hoop,
or maybe a shovel and figure out
how many shovels far is six feet?
So you can lay them one after the other and measure it out.
How many hula hoops to make six feet?
Then maybe try some smaller things,
how many shovels to make six feet?
My son realized it takes a lot of matchbox cars
to make six feet, so start with something bigger.
But the point is play around with it, practice it,
have some fun because the more you practice it now,
the easier it is to remember when you're in a classroom,
on a playground.
My son actually, the other day on a scooter,
decided that he would hold one piece of string
and he wanted to make it eight feet
so that he could add some extra space
to hold onto the string and his friend held the other one
and they rode their scooters.
So again, have some fun with it,
get in the habit of thinking about it,
it's not gonna be perfect,
it's gonna take a lot of practice,
but again, social distance is about keeping yourself
and those around you safe,
so it's worth practicing, even if it's hard.
And it's hard with little kids,
but Shelli having been a high school teacher,
I know it's even harder with older kids
because it's not fun to walk around with a string
and tie to your scooter, what are you doing with your kiddo?
- Well, my teenagers actually have a little bit better idea
what six feet might look like,
but I will say they don't really wanna follow
that rule very much and I get it.
Developmentally it is appropriate for them
to wanna rebel against this rule.
It doesn't mean they get to do that so again,
just like with our little guys,
I try to make it really clear why we're social distancing.
We have used, again some videos that are helpful,
but we do a lot of connecting and talking about it,
actually my daughter brought
a really interesting experiment video to me,
I'll link it here in the comment notes.
It was about it had a black light and something
that simulated the virus and it showed two parts,
one using great hygiene and one without great hygiene
and it was crazy how much that virus could spread.
She was shocked and interested and knew I would be too.
So we're keeping that conversation flowing,
even though it's hard, I'm also really sharing with her
my struggles with staying six feet
in my social interactions too,
sharing some strategies that I use,
when I'm out for coffee with a friend, we sit at a park
and we use a picnic table to define space for us
because I know it's hard and it's not nearly as much fun,
but sharing and talking with my kids and my teenagers
about that seems to be really important
and gets them to understand that it's important to me,
it's important to them and it's important to our community.
Don't forget that your teenager
will get lots of information.
Some of it is going to be true and interesting
and things that they wanna share,
and some of it isn't going to be.
And so it's important to me to be able
to help her ferret out fact from fiction,
which means I kind of have to know what the rules are.
I use the CDC website for that,
and I also like California's website
"thecalifornia.gov" website for COVID-19.
They seem to be the ones that I like if it says it here,
then I know it to be true so far
and things change all the time,
so I have to stay up to date,
so make sure that you do that too.
So again, you wanna build trust and build conversation.
I think the most important things
when dealing with your teenagers are to be real,
to show them that you're human too
and share those real stories and to listen without judgment,
because they're gonna mess up,
but you really wanna know what's going on in their lives
so that you can help them course correct.
So instead of saying things like you should have done XYZ,
instead you can say something like,
oh, I see why that would be a challenge
or that must've been a really hard thing,
it sounds like you were trying
to do the right thing in the moment
and then give them the advice or tell them what to do next.
You wanna build trust, you wanna build their capacity
and mostly, you just want them to understand
that we're all in this together trying
to do the right thing.
Nicole, anything you have to add.
- Well, you know, I just want to remind
our viewers out there that everybody
is doing the best that they can, right?
So be vigilant, wash your hands,
practice social distancing, it does get easier
even for little guys, as you practice it more.
So follow local guidances, be safe, be kind to each other
and if there's more that you want to learn,
or if you have additional resources,
leave them in the comments on our YouTube channel,
let us know what else we can talk about
and how we can better support you through these times
of unprecedented parenting.
Until next week, be safe, be well,
we'll see you then, take care.
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