Stories of Strength and Creativity

This was the main thing we did in the spring 2020 that helped us as a family find success! Last spring, the first night we knew we would be home for 2 weeks we had a "family meeting" where we decided how we were going to make this work.  From the conversation we set up norms.  These norms helped us function in the shared space so we all could work and succeed. Through this week as we prepare for the fall, we all have been thinking about what we need and possible solutions knowing each other.  Today we are having a family meeting where I share explicitly the school expectations.  Through our meeting we will be creating norms again based on what worked and what needs to be adjusted based on the spring as well as the new expectations.   After creating the norms, I had to be okay for each of us to hold each other accountable.  Yes, that means the children can even give a friendly reminder to the parent.  Because these are norms created together and th...

This last spring I watched as many families struggled with virtual learning and working.  I want to begin this post by sharing I have two boys.  In the spring, they were both in middle school.  Now one is in middle school and one is in high school.  I am a single mom working from home.  I have had people ask what I would do if they were younger.  I can not answer that because my children are older.  But being older doesn't mean I don't have to support them. They both need me, but in different ways from when they were younger. Having a dedicated space for "school" or "work" is important in the virtual environment.  Physically going to that space changes the mindset from one of relaxing at home to one of working.   We originally prepared our space in the dining room last spring.  And then when we had the idea to paint the dining room over Spring Break, we moved our work space to our Guest Room.  Our learning environment worked fo...