Coping with your kids at home: There’s a good chance that kids will be spending three days a week learning from home this year. This is the Enterprise survival guide.

Plan for the best, accommodate for the worst: A lot of planning will inevitably become your responsibility as you begin to integrate life at home into the new school year. Drawing up a schedule for the day beforehand will help maximize you and your kids’ time in the months to come. This should help provide clarity on when you can expect to give your undivided attention to professional life and when you’ll need to be most hands-on helping with homework, meals or activities. Some parents have tried to model the day after the average routine kids might have at school, which schedules recreational time earlier in the day and offers periodic breaks with some form of creativity and choice throughout. A list with rough timelines can go a long way in reducing time spent wondering what to do next. As with all lifestyle changes it’s okay if things don’t work out the way you expect. Growing pains are inevitable as you flesh out what works and what doesn’t. Try to remain flexible as facts change and your needs become clearer.

Manage expectations and communicate clearly with those around you: Make sure that your managers and spouse are aware of what your general household responsibilities entail with the coming academic year and provide options for how or when you’ll be getting work or other obligations completed. Factor in the extra childcare hours and the reductions in productivity that will likely arise from having energetic youths locked up indoors and in close proximity to you. Sharing household responsibilities can help alleviate some of these pressures as well.

Embrace screen time: As much as we might hate to admit it, a little extra time spent on phones and computers are all but inevitable byproducts of shifting kids’ learning online and into the home. Managed effectively, you may be able to score yourself a few distraction-free hours of work or downtime, while the kids learn something new watching Brainchild or reading a book from Story Time in Space.

Take care of yourself: Don't forget to carve out some time for yourself to breathe, meditate or exercise, maybe even try involving your kids in a yoga practice for some stress reduction as you spend more hours face-to-face. Breaks spent reading or trying out a non-screen activity like baking or drawing with your kids could be a good way for them to cool off while requiring little effort from you as a parent to map out.

Still need your precious alone time? Find a space where you can give your undivided attention to a single task for a few hours at a time or just put on some headphones. Getting some alone time has been crucial for some parents trying to maintain productivity during lockdown. In households where physical isolation is difficult, putting up physical barriers and kid-friendly do not disturb signs were the preventative measures of choice for some parents.

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