Omicron Survival Guide for Parents

Yesterday’s news in the province of Ontario was devastating. We vented our anger.

Today we must plan, be purposeful. The question is about how to manage, particularly with school aged kids at home.

If you are the parent who does everything in the home and where the kids were coddled, those days may be through.

Today is about being purposeful.

Today is about discussions with your kids.

Today is about planning and assuming responsibilities.

You don’t have to have all the answers or dictate all the plans.

Consider sitting down with your kids and discussing how to manage; how to divvy up tasks; how and where to get school work done.

Include them in the planning and discussions. Use their suggestions. To do so is encouraging and enables their creative thinking and independence.

Be sincere in your requests versus angry. Come from a place of caring and concern.

Include the little ones. If they suggest their workplace be under the kitchen table, try it. If they want a bedsheets hung from the ceiling to divide the space in a room so as to make themselves an office, consider it. If they suggest Fruit Loops for dinner, try it.

Again, be sincere and inclusive.

The degree to which their input is accepted, they will likely not only follow through, but feel good for contributing.

You may want to consider sharing or swapping help or services with a friend or another family or extended kin.

Trading care or supervision for meal prep or cleaning can meet multiple needs. It’s all about creative thinking and figuring out how and with whom to get tasks done.

It’s time for our collective juices to flow and for us to be purposeful.

Where possible, kick fear, depression and anxiety to the curb through meaningful action.

This is survival mode.

If you have a suggestion or something that worked for you, please share it in a comment.

Let’s collaborate…..

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I am Gary Direnfeld and I am a social worker. Check out all my services and then call me if you need help with a personal issue, mental health concern, child behavior or relationship, divorce or separation issue or even help growing your practice. I am available in person and by video conferencing.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

gary@yoursocialworker.com
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Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert in social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations and custody and access matters. Gary is the host of the TV reality show, Newlywed, Nearly Dead, former parenting columnist for the Hamilton Spectator and author of Marriage Rescue: Overcoming the ten deadly sins in failing relationships. Gary maintains a private practice in Georgina Ontario, providing a range of services for people in distress. He speaks at conferences and workshops throughout North America. He consults to mental health professionals as well as to mediators and collaborative law professionals about good practice as well as building their practice.