• GET THE KIDS TO PITCH IN WITH CLEANING. With
all that’s going on, nobody could judge you for not having
an orderly house. I doubt even Martha Stewart’s home
looks very Marth Stewart-y right now. But science
shows that physical clutter creates mental clutter.
Organization is an important part of maintaining
boundaries. Just don’t go at it alone. Everyone needs to
pitch in. Get your kids involved.
One of my best cleaning techniques to get kids to pitch in is
not to overwhelm them. Instead of saying, go clean your room,
which is an arbitrary ask, assign a small section to clean, or
limit their cleaning time to five minutes. It’s amazing how
much cleaning can get done when it’s a concerted effort. Even
if my kids are still deep into their cleaning five minutes later,
I encourage them to wrap it up. By creating finite limits, I
find my kids are more prone to clean the next time around.
• READ TOGETHER. If you’re finding homeschooling next
to impossible, you’re not alone. So we can’t maximize
their learning right now with oral book reports and trips
to the virtual museum. But if there’s one thing we can
do, I believe is to instill a love of reading. To this end,
try positive associations, like cookies and books, or read
aloud to your child. Maybe their pace of learning might
diminish now that they’re out of the classroom. But if
you can instill a love of reading somehow, they’ll more
than make up with it in the years to come. •
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