Innovative measures parents come up with, to motivate the children in learning during the outbreaks, of staying at home, and learning at home on their own, translated…
My three children were about to get out of their minds, being kept at home for days on end, going to school online. They stared into the computers, with that vacant expression of theirs; started, sighing over their assignments; and they’d, ignored my rushing them on. I’d asked myself, what can, give them that sense of energy again? Without a doubt, it’s, a surprise!
I’d started, listing out things that please my kids (popsicles, treats, balloons, etc., etc., etc.), and the privileges that they’d longed to get (the lineup for the baths, go to bed twenty-minutes later, etc., etc., etc.) then, I’d, written them on close to twenty pieces of paper, stuffed the slips into a red box, then I’d, announced to the children: “from here on out, any of you who is able to finish today’s assignments by three o’clock in the afternoon gets two draws from the surprise box, one draw if you are able to finish everything by five o’clock. Mom will enforce it!” and, from how my kids’ eyes glowed, I’d found, the results. And afterward, they were all up on their, efficiencies. And, we’d also, made the surprises, to put them into the draw box, for instance, video conference with a best friend.
children learning at home during MERS-CoV outbreak, photo from online
Once, my youngest daughter drew the “total body massage by mom”, I’d played the light music, and, with everyone in the family witnessing, I’d, used all I got, and massaged my daughter’s body. And my husband started frowning, “shouldn’t it be them, who are, massaging, you instead?”, I’d smiled, told, “I wanted to get the massages from them in the futures, that’s why, I’m, doing, a good demonstration on them!”, and surely, the following day, I saw my youngest daughter, helping her father with easing his shoulder pains.
And of course, things don’t always go as planned. Sometimes, my eldest girl drew the surprise that she’d wanted to have the least, and started tearing up. I’d told her, “if you draw this one tomorrow, I’ll give you, a consolation prize, but you need to accept it, because it’s, life.” Another time, my older son had too much homework he couldn’t finish, he wasn’t able to draw the prizes out of the box, but gladly, his older sister was, willing to share her prize with him, then, he’d started, smiling again, the surprises can be, an alternative lesson on their own too.
Learning at home, it’s, nothing easy, instead of adding the pressures to one another, why not, create more surprises, making life run smoother!
And so, this, is how a little creativity, goes, a long, long way, with the outbreaks, the kids are all, STUCK at home, learning online, and, sometimes, this can be trying to the parents, and, like this mother, who’d come up, with this reward system to help her kids get motivated with their own learning processes, and in this, she’d taught them the more important values that they won’t learn in school, like how to compromise, how to, adapt their own minds, as things don’t always work out like they wanted to.
Life, the Obstacle Course 