Parenting in Lockdown; A mother's tale

The lockdown has been quite hard on everyone but even harder on parents.  Michelle Bageine Sherurah, a mother of 4 and a fresh Nakawere at that shares how its has been for her.

The quarantine "found" me already 'quarantined' because I've been on maternity leave since January. But with the closure of schools the maternity leave has flown out the window and in has come home school.

So far, our days start at 7:30 am when the children wake up (since there's no traffic jam to drive through, we let them sleep longer) we pray shower, have breakfast and at 9:00 am we begin class.

My husband and I agreed to take the classes on alternate days, so I'll share what my days have been like so far.  
As is the case with most schools our children's schools sent us guidelines on what work to do with them so we follow these in the mornings.

It is important to note that our children are all below 8 years old and at different learning levels, so I have to attend to them in turns.

The lockdown has helped so many families to bond.

However, while I'm dealing with one, the others keep calling to show me different things. So, in a space of five minutes I could have discussed properties of soil with our P.3 daughter, done spellings with our P.1 son and coloured pictures with our kindergarten daughter. On day one I believe I was dizzy by break time.

At break time they go outside to ride their bicycles or just run around as I attend to the baby. When they return, we go through what was done before the break and then put aside the schoolbooks until the next day. 

After lunch is storybook time for at least an hour. In an attempt to be creative on my second day, I played for them audio storybooks, but they said they felt like they were listening to boring news!

However, I suspect the American accent played them as it does me. I guess for now we'll stick to videos.

Whilst I wish the day would flow as smoothly as I have described it, it is important to note that in between all the orders are several intervals of the children reporting each other for everything and anything.

The use of the noun "mummy" has more than tripled which means my patience needs jump-starting every now and then.

Is the quarantine period challenging? Well, I can no longer take my 'nakawere' naps with the baby since that's the best time to attend to the others however sleepy I may be.

In addition to this it is very clear that teaching school stuff is not one of my gifts even though during class time I'm referred to as teacher mummy!

So yes, there are some challenges but nothing that cannot be handled so far. We'll take each day as it comes and rely on Christ who gives us the strength and ability to move forward.

Despite the inability to become a teacher I believe this is an opportunity to spend more time with our children, which for all intents and purposes is a blessing.

At the end of the day after the children are fed and showered I'll have a good laugh with my girlfriends about how we almost pulled our hair out.....