SELF-INSULATION DURING CORONAVIRUS AS A PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIMENT: Life Hacks For Parents

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Self-isolation during the coronavirus. The self-isolation regime from coronavirus turned out to be a serious challenge for society in general and for each specific family in particular. Especially if the family has children. A joke folk wisdom has even been born:

Coronavirus - don't attack

adults would not be lost in self-isolation from children!

But, jokes with jokes: Let's be honest with ourselves - in the working mode of life, communication between parents and children, more often than not, is formal. Parents slide on the surface of children's consciousness, having neither the strength nor the time to understand what processes are taking place in it. Hence, a typical picture, when at a parent meeting at school, a parent is sincerely surprised to find out how many bad things his child does, who is considered practically a standard in the family. Respectively:

Self-isolation from coronavirus - although not planned, but still the ability to properly build communication

with your child, to exert a pedagogical influence on him.

I will say more: In a number of families,

Self-isolation during coronavirus is an opportunity to get to know your child better.

At the same time, allowing him to get to know his parents better.

And such an ideal opportunity in our life may never happen again! Therefore, as a psychologist, I advise parents:

Let's Treat Self-Isolation as Unique

a pedagogical experiment that is important to conduct correctly.

Because no one is sick, in no hurry, all together. And if so, I give the following practical advice:

10 tips to improve relationships with children while self-isolating during coronavirus:

1. Carefully analyze your child's communication with peers and make adjustments to it

2. Explore the information field around your child

3. Become an example for your child's everyday behavior

4. Tell the kids about yourself

5. Help children in choosing a profession

6. Leave your child the memory of joint activities in the form of crafts

7. Teach your child useful website skills

8. Learn something useful from your child yourself

9. Help your child to find his vivid image

10. Help your children become experts in relationships with others

So let's get started:

1. Self-isolation during coronavirus . -Carefully analyze your child's communication with peers and make adjustments to it. It is known that the nature of a person is shaped by the environment. Unfortunately, however, parents are a very narrow part of the environment that shapes your child. More often than not, the child's worldview is shaped by his environment. About which, usually, parents do not fully know. And here, alas: not every friend of the child is useful to him! Therefore, it is during the period of self-isolation, when your child's communication with peers occurs online, that is, in front of your eyes, pay special attention to this! Remember the names and surnames of everyone with whom your child communicates. Listen to what and in what tone they talk, what topic they laugh about, who they respect and who they condemn. It can help you understand your child.

Moreover: being well oriented in your child's friends, you will be able to gently influence the world around him, stimulating communication with the most educated children. For this, it is very important to try to get to know these children and build good relations with them and their parents. Start online with self-isolation and quarantine, then get to know each other in person.

To become a friend to your child, sometimes it's important to become a friend of his friends first!

Which, having formed their positive opinion about you, will be able to form it in your child. After all, it has long been known: we often do not hear our loved ones, but we hear those who are far from us much better. Here we will begin our pedagogical excursion with them. By the way: it is important and actively to stimulate the child's communication with peers, in self-isolation mode. Put money on his phone account, ask how his friends are doing; recommend themselves to call and write to them. During the time of self-isolation, it is quite possible to tighten the communication skills of those children who usually have some difficulties with this. Online to help them))

2. Explore the information field around your child.99% of modern children, from 7-8 years old, have accounts on social networks. And if at normal times, parents do not have time to assess the virtual world of the child, now, during self-isolation, this time has come. Register in those networks where your child is, but not under your own data, but under fictitious ones. Become your child's boy or girl and add as a friend. Start to chat with your child in a casual way. Help your child with links to interesting materials, praise him / her for the correct posts and photos, and criticize for the wrong ones. Following him, join the groups where he / she is, study the content of those materials that he reads. Perhaps this will help you not only to save the child and the family from problems in time, but to start communicating with the child on those topics that you know for sure that are close to him.

Going online every day, make it a good rule

regularly visit your own child virtually!

Even if he is in the next room!

Sometimes, it is even more productive than formalized personal communication.

Someone may notice that communicating with your own child in incognito mode is wrong. I disagree! Such communication does not replace and does not exclude communication and offline and virtual communication from your parent. However, let's not forget: the level of openness in anonymous communication is always higher than in communication with your own parents. So it was and so it will be. And to save a child from religious or totalitarian sects, groups with extremist or suicidal tendencies, all means are good. In addition, the collection of preliminary material about your own child (especially at the age of 12-18) is a starting opportunity for strengthening live communication.

3. Self-isolation during coronavirus- Become an example for your child's everyday and work behavior. My two-week observations of many families clearly show me that the most psychological problems are in those couples where the self-isolation regime has led to the complete destruction of a clear life schedule. When there is no clear plan for the day, there is no setting of goals, when children and parents go to bed at three in the morning and wake up at twelve in the afternoon. In addition, on ordinary days, parents do not have the opportunity to exert the correct influence on the child by their personal example, since in the morning they do everything on the run, spend the day at work, and in the evening they are already tired. So now, everything can be fixed:

During the period of self-isolation, mom and dad are obliged to become an example.

household and labor self-discipline for their children.

You know yourself: "It's better to see once than hear a hundred times!" Instead of your preaching stories to the children, show them clearly how to live right! Get up in the morning together, make your bed, do hygiene procedures, do exercises, cook breakfast together. Plan your day, set clear tasks for all family members on it. Parents work online. Children learn online, read books, do sculpting, drawing, music, singing, etc. As in SMART technology, everything should be reasonable, achievable and measurable. Working or studying online, parents should show children how goals are achieved step by step, how they approach, how to overcome difficulties that arise, how will manifests itself. In particular, to visualize the principle: "Business is time - an hour of fun!" Without being distracted by various temptations in the form of the Internet, TV, goodies, toys, etc.

A whole month of a living example of parents - should turn into excellent skills of self-discipline and goal-setting! This is especially evident for children, if you express it in the books they read, the growth of biceps in adolescents (when playing sports with dad), improving the waist (when working with mom), making a list of dishes that the child learned to cook with the help of parents and other useful things …

4. Tell the kids about yourself!Having worked as a psychologist for almost thirty years, I am still amazed that many children know neither the biography of their parents, nor the history of their romantic and family relationships, nor their profession, nor any organization they work for! Moreover, this applies not only to children under 12-14 years old, but also adolescents and youth aged 14-20 years. The question is, where do they get their social skills, how to learn to build relationships, understand people, find friends and make a career ?! That's right, no where!

So let's use the time of quarantine or self-isolation to form in our own children knowledge about their own parents! Let's tell them in detail about their own life, about the search for a profession and "second half", about exploits and betrayal, illnesses and joys. Especially valuable are examples from your own biography of how you overcame various difficulties that fell on you in life. Believe me, this is not only educational, but also incredibly useful for our children. Including because:

Parents' biography is always a tool for raising children

and a way to raise the authority of mom and dad in their eyes.

So let's use this dusty tool to its fullest.

5. Help children in choosing a profession! Unfortunately, the school is not engaged in career guidance now. Films and the Internet show a narrow segment of them: the heroes of TV shows are usually police officers, military personnel, special agents, bandits, prostitutes, drug addicts, shocking representatives of show business, corrupt officials, dishonest bankers and lawyers. For the outlook of children in real life, this, to put it mildly, is not always useful. Therefore, no matter how old your child is - from 5 to 18 years old, talking about what professions exist is very important! It will be doubly important if you come up with a role-playing game for each profession, or make a video call to one of your acquaintances and friends who have this or that profession. And this person will tell your child in an accessible and understandable way about the meaning of this or that profession, how work is paid in it, what interesting situations arise in it. Perhaps it is vocational guidance during self-isolation from coronavirus that will help your child find himself in life!

6. Leave your child the memory of joint activities in the form of crafts!The greatest psychological harmony always arises not simply from joint activity, but from the one from which the materialized result remained. Hence, it is advisable to intensify the production of some crafts with the children, which can be remembered, posted on photos on social networks, or even can then be presented to relatives and friends! For example, make something out of plasticine, cardboard, paper, paint a picture, write poetry or a song, come up with a design for a dress or a new futuristic car. Or even cut something out of wood, plywood and cover it with my mother's varnish)) Collect something from plastic or the remains of some household appliances lying on the balcony. Make an exotic Christmas tree for the next New Year. Decorate glasses or wine glasses with beads and

rhinestones, create your own designer jewelry, etc. The main thing is that something positive remains in the child's memory!

7. Teach your child useful website skills. Currently, more and more types of activities and services (including government ones) go to the Internet. Accordingly, it is important for a child to learn how to make an appointment with a doctor at a polyclinic; search for the required diagnostic center; learn how to analyze the websites of car dealers; determine which shopping center has clothes or shoes of the sizes you need; in which child development center is there dancing and singing, etc. You can also teach your child how to order groceries and food online. It is useful for a growing teenager to understand how an online bank works, or how to protect yourself from online fraudsters. Such joint activities will not only improve the adaptation of children to adulthood, but also raise the authority of parents.

8. Self-isolation during coronavirus - Learn something useful from your child yourself! I cannot but say that many parents would not be a sin to learn some useful skills from their own children. For example, use all the possible functions of a mobile phone, TV remote control, microwave oven; use the capabilities of TV or Internet packages, various online stores, etc. In this case, as in the well-known joke "face by table or table by face", the result is the same:

It is not so important who learns from whom - parents from a child, or a child from parents, the main thing is to improve their communication!

Therefore, honestly monitor the baggage of your knowledge or ignorance, and do not be afraid to ask children for help!

9. Self-isolation during coronavirus- Help your child find his vivid image!Self-isolation time can also be used to try to create a whole set of external images for a child, especially for those over 12-14 years old. You can shake up all your own wardrobes, giving all the best to the children; form mixes from what your child already has; explore the images of other children on the Internet; take as an example the heroes of films, representatives of politics, sports, show business. After all, teach you how to take care of yourself as a boy or a girl! Teach a daughter the art of make-up or manicure, a boy how to shave his hair, beard or mustache.

If you jointly manage to create harmonious images that your children will use for many years and even decades, which will help them to correctly present themselves in life, they will always remember who exactly helped them in this development.

10. Help your children become experts in relationships with others. It is clear that we will spend a significant part of the time of self-isolation in watching films and TV series. Including - sharing with children! In this case, it is important to use those plots, the development of which you can trace together from the prologue to the final, as some cases - illustrative and instructive! You can analyze with the children which of the heroes did what and what it led to. Thus, I use illustrative examples for children and you to show “what is good and what is bad!”. By examining other people's lives and situations, you can develop useful skills in children to analyze the behavior of other people; skills to manipulate them; skills to resist someone else's manipulation; skills of coordinated activity. All this will not only be useful for them in life, but can also be applied already in their classes, in their own backyard, in their own company of friends.

Such examples can be cited further, but they are enough to understand: a diligent parent must use every opportunity to improve relations with their children and to increase their success in their future adult life. And self-isolation at home, together with children, is a great opportunity for this! The main thing is to use it correctly.

There must, in the end, be some positive side of self-isolation (besides the obvious medical one), and so we found it! Let us regard self-isolation as a pedagogical experiment that should be carried out excellently! And then we will strengthen your parent-child relationship for many years to come! Which is what I sincerely wish you.