Effecting Parenting during pandemic:
It’s important how we think about the situation, how we frame it in our mind, and how we are dealing with our children in this period while staying at home. We are not alone in this situation; the whole world is suffering so we need to see some passions and strengths in ourselves and let’s not miss this opportunity.
As normal routine, children learn and explore several things outside in the society and at school from teachers, classmates and friends. This routine is unique and new when you, your spouse, children and in some case other family members all at home. Now all the learning of children comes from home. This brings to a point that how you are behaving, what is your routine, how you care about you because in most cases they are going to follow you. Your involvement with children is so much important which was never earlier. This is an opportunity to do everything righteous so your children also learn to do the same.
- Do not miss any prayer, Ask Allah’s forgiveness, mercy and blessings.
- Be nice to each other, attitude of understanding each other, to be positive and forgiveness will result no differences at home.
- Make a routine and give time to each other more than spending time on electronic devices. Use reliable sources of information and do not be part of spreading fake information without verification.
Care yourself and Stay calm:
It’s all starts from us to care ourselves by healthy eating, exercise adequate sleep, reduce stress. In this pandemic period your health is the most important component as a parent. We all have the same fear, anxiety and depression. With the help of my studies and experience, let me share my explorations and some ideas which work for us as parents in current situation perfectly and might be helpful for you.
It is understood that with everybody at home the workload has increased (especially for MOM’s), Plan each day with the schedule including time for “you”.
- Whenever you are feeling stressed or worried, find a comfortable sitting position, your feet flat on the floor, your hands resting in your lap. Close your eyes if you feel comfortable. Think about yourself and pay attention to your thoughts if they are negative or positive. By paying attention your negative thoughts will be visible to you and you can get of them intentionally.
- Focus on your body and notice how your whole body feels. then think, do I think differently at all? After that make yourself ready to open your eyes
- Listen to your breath when it goes in and out.
- when you find your child is irritating you taking just a pause can also be helpful.
- It gives you a chance to be calm
Meet with reality:
- Talk with them about COVID-19. Explain to them what kind of virus this is. It has nothing to do with the way someone looks, where they are from, or what language they speak.
- Talk to your child that we can be generous and caring to sick and needy people. Avoid having the news on your TV all day long.
- You should find or create some other things while children are not around. This practice can be done twice a day.
- Thankful to those who are working to stop the outbreak and are caring for sick people.
- This is a great lesson to teach children that how important is to help someone who is looking for help in these kinds of crises.
- Ask open questions to your children and find out how much they already know. According to their age give them answers to their questions truthfully allow them to freely talk about what they know.
- Respect their feelings. If your child is worried or scared, give him/her a space to share his/her feelings and build trust to know that you are there for him/her. Listen carefully with eye contact.
- In case if you don’t know the answer to their questions. Simply tell them “I don’t know” But I will try to find the answer from reliable sources and let you know soon. It is not a big deal.
- With your child you can get an opportunity to learn something new.
- They need honesty, and they can detect lies like we don’t always give them credit for. So, they’re seeing the news. They’re seeing stuff as well. So good to be perfectly honest with them.
I hope it helps you to find out the way to create a nice and calm environment at homes. I believe with these simple actions we can see a shine in our children very well.
# Stay Safe # Take Care
