‘Baptism of Fire’ is the way I would best describe this last week! Navigating the challenges of us moving the business to a working from home arrangement, adapting to these new changes, assessing which communication channels work for us all to stay connected, and generally just looking at how we get our jobs done.
But as if that wasn’t enough, my whole household is now under the same roof 24-7 which means home schooling a 5 and 8 year old! If you are a working parent with young children, I know you feel my pain!
For the last week I have felt like a ‘jack of all trades and a master of none’ which is not how we can live for the next 6 months. So I thought it was time to put out the SOS call to ‘Nanny and Poppy’, bring them out of isolation and help us get through this.
No, I am not ignoring the instructions of the government around social distancing, but in fact now have a virtual classroom (the living room with a couple of kiddie desks in the corner!) set up. My parents who are based in QLD, are now able to help with the home schooling of the kids through Facetime – a medium of technology my kids are very familiar with. I have helped them set up their online classrooms and my kids are now happily reading, spelling, and asking all the questions they have to my beautiful parents 1000km away!
I can’t tell you how much of a win this is for all three generations in my family. My kids are getting the attention they need for their school work as well as spending time with their grandparents, who are a lot more patient with the kids than I am at this current moment in time. My husband and I can focus on our jobs without the interruption every 20mins that takes another half an hour of our time. And of course my parents are also happy with this situation; ‘til now they had been staying home alone to protect their health but really wanting to be able to help. Now they feel like they are doing something productive and are pleased to be involved in this new way of working (I am sure it helps knowing there are only 4 school days left ‘til the holidays!).
So there is new hope for me for next week that I will get through with a little less organised chaos!
