The Week That Was…

/ Theresa Smith Writes

I hope you are all well! As my first week in self isolation draws to a close, a vital delivery arrived just before the weekend:

Quaran-TEA!

And you thought I got all of my jokes from the internet…

~~~

Speaking of…

Joke of the week:

~~~

What I’ve been reading:

~~~

A new series for the blog!

I have been working behind the scenes with publishers on a new series for the blog called ‘Author Talks’. These are guest spots offered to authors who have newly releasing books that have had book launches and tours cancelled. It gives them an opportunity to give an author talk at my blog, in the way they might have done at a library or book shop launch. The first one of these went up yesterday with Natasha Lester talking about her upcoming release, The Paris Secret. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

~~~

I wrote this up mid-week and posted it to Facebook, but I thought I might just pop it up here as well. It may help some of you out there who have children like mine…that is, children who are not begging their parents over breakfast for ‘more school work’ or staging productions of musicals they have written throughout the day in total harmony with each other, because yeah, siblings really like each other so much more now that they have to see each other non stop instead of the friends they actually like. Neither of my sons are up and coming Baz Luhrmanns, so, this is more my life…

So many of my friends are posting these awesome homeschooling timetables they’ve made for their kids.

In consultation with my two teenage sons, in the event of school closure here in Qld, our days are looking like this:

Morning: sleep
Noon: eat
Afternoon: xbox + eat
Late afternoon: netflix + eat
Evening: dinner
Night: eat more + netflix more + xbox more then sleep

I post this in utter seriousness. Teenagers are so much easier than younger kids on many fronts, but on others, they are much harder to get to do things that you want which they don’t. Plus, they are looking at their own newsfeeds and taking in the world situation just as you are. I work in education and understand its value. I would love to sit with my teens and work with them on the things they may need to do if their schools close. But I’m also a realist and have been a mum for 18 years now. I am fortunate in that neither of my boys are in year 12 this year. That’s different and a whole lot more stressful. Your child is probably more inclined to work with you in this situation.

I am writing this post as a way of reaching out to those parents who might be quietly freaking out about what they’ll do if they have to homeschool their teen at some point.

Just take it day by day. The Easter holidays are soon. You have time to figure this out. The above timetable will probably get boring at some point, and then you can get to work, meeting in the middle instead of butting heads and creating conflict.

Also, very important! Teenagers work better at night. Fact! Use that to your advantage.

Also, try not to feel inferior in the face of other people’s organisation. We are all different. You know your teenager best. Do what feels right.

I have dug Scrabble out of the cupboard (literacy) and bought The Walking Dead version of Monopoly (numeracy). We’ll get there…

~~~

Until next week… 😊📚☕

20 thoughts on “The Week That Was…”

    • Thanks Fiona. Both of my boys (and my adult daughter) are talking about the current situation so much. They watch for updates, they talk about it with their friends, with each other, with us. As young adults, I’d rather encourage their awareness than discourage, although of course this means they worry too. But I still think this is preferable to ignoring and playing things down. Otherwise, how can we expect our kids to follow the rules of social distancing and hygiene if they don’t know why it’s so important?
      Pooh and Piglet have the answer to so much, don’t they?
      Take care Fiona xo

      Like

      Reply

  4. Your advice about kids and school is very wise, Theresa.
    The key to success is negotiation, and the key to that is to *write it down* with consequences both good (for compliance) and bad (for non-compliance) and all the participants sign and date it. Kids usually have a strong sense of justice, and just as they will hold you to it if you agreed to sleeping in till noon if the school work gets done between 9:00pm and 1:00AM, they will see the fairness in it if you hold them to what they agreed as well.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. Such a great post Theresa – thank you. I fortunately don’t have school age children anymore but I empathise with all those who do as I know how difficult it would have been to get my teens to do the work. And Pooh and Piglet have got it in one!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. Our high school officially started online learning yesterday, the boys are expected to check in on their regular class schedule during the day, My girl in year 12 has a more flexible schedule, though her chemistry teacher is live streaming labs. I guess we’ll just have to see how it pans out long term.

    Looking forward to your Author Talk series!

    Stay home, stay well x

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. I’m assuming that we’ll be home schooling but my approach is the same as yours! No one needs the extra anxiety… That said, I do have a Year 12 student this year, but he is relatively stress-free about all of this, and not relying on an ATAR score for what he wants to do next year (which is more folio based).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • That is a relief in these circumstances! The ones depending on an ATAR are sadly in a much more stressful position, even with assessment adjustments.
      My daughter, who has finished school, might have been inclined to stress a lot more than her brothers are.
      I have three weeks until I need to think about it beyond the cursory. I’ll make the most of it!

      Like

      Reply

  10. Quaran-TEA made me (almost) snort mine out my nose, so thanks for that! 🤪 Hope you’re keeping safe and well doll, thinking of you x

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s