Home-schooling

Home-schooling. Something every parent has had to do at some point during the last 12 months and probably most, never thought they would.

Dependent on your household, personalities, child's concentration and indeed your own as a parent; home-schooling will be very different from one family to the next.

Take the organised mum type for example.

6 am wake up call everyday, she takes the time to wash, brush her hair, have a kiwi for breakfast with fresh coffee. She runs the vacuum around and bleaches the toilet before organising the kids clothes and lays them out or hangs them up perfectly, before swiftly waking the kids up at 7am with the same routine, (minus the coffee).

By 8:30, those kids are sat hair perfect, video chatting with teachers and classmates, clothes straight, bellies full and the house is spotless. Mum sips on her second coffee of the day, before sitting parallel to her children, ready to take a zoom call with her colleagues. I say colleagues, she's the boss of course but she is fair and nice and likes to be on the same level as them; even if she does enjoy the power a little.

Then there's the disorganised parents. They may usually get there kids to school on time but its never smooth and it's never easy. Dad might try to get the kids up and dressed while he's still got toothpaste dripping from his bottom lip and he's forgotten it's Saturday, so they can all have a day off. Jumping back into bed with a smile on his face, the kids are too awake now so they jump everywhere, 1 or 2 may fight and Dad finally has to get up. Then he realises, it's not Saturday it's Friday. Another example of lockdown brain.

Rushing the kids down stairs; still with that toothpaste stain on his lips, he quickly pours the kids some rice pops and sets them down in their half creased, half cereal stained clothing, to video call with their class and teacher, It's 8:59. Dad calls that a win.

Then there's me. The mixture of organised and messy.

Sure, my home is tidy and clean. I do get up before the rest of them and do some washing up, a bit of polishing, feed the furry babies and make myself a coffee. But, I'm doing it all with my arse partly showing in the nightie that used to fit properly before lockdown, my hair part up part down all while frantically shouting up the stairs for both child and husband to get the eff out of bed. Its never before 9am, I think maybe once.

They roll out of bed, (never stopping to make them), forget to brush their teeth, (yes my 34 year old partner still has to been told at times) and walk down the stairs looking grumpy and like a certain North Korean ruler has made them stick to an unfair and insulting regime.

It's probably 11am by now, if we're lucky. The kid has already missed her zoom call but luckily for her (or not) I have always been on the ball with the work load at least. She will do all of her necessary work, after a moan here and there followed by a raised voice. Frequent visits to the bathroom will incur throughout her work and the constant echoing of "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty," Frequently followed by my response of, "Would you be eating at this time at school?" She scours, grunts, looks back at her work, slams her hand down, writes too hard, puts a hole in the paper then tries to cover it up before carrying on. Of course, my smart mouth as a child would have said, "Well I wouldn't be rolling out of bed at 11am either to work." But her 11 year old mouth is 11, mine was 16. I should be thankful for that.

Everyday these routines will incur, like clockwork. We as parents have faced challenges we didn't think we would and didn't even know would be challenging. But, we have done our best...for the most part.

So when our kids go back to school and we worry about them playing catch up and settling back in. Don't. It's us that have had to play catch up all the way through this and our children have probably been the ones laughing at us. They will be fine. You have been fine.

It doesn't matter if you're the organised, messy or mixed parent. You have done great and you should be proud of every achievement and every time you messed up to try and then get it right.

Home-schooling will be a thing of the passed one day and you can look back and say, "I did that and my kids are still alive."

That's got to be a win?