• Home
  • About Me
    • Media and Guest Posts
  • Topics
    • Parenting
      • Kids
      • Resilience
    • Fatherhood
      • A mans world
      • Birth Father
    • Health
      • Food
        • Hunger
      • Sexual Health Education
    • Public Service
      • Politics
    • Media
    • Dad Guide
      • Your Daughter and Her Period E-Book
      • DIY
      • Gardening
    • STEM Activities
  • Tell Me About Your Dad
  • Disclosures
    • Privacy Policy
  • Reccomended Resources
    • Resources for Talking With Your Kids About Sexual Health

Dad Goes Round

Fatherhood | Kids | Current Affairs

  • Parenting
    • Fatherhood
    • Guide to Being a Dad
  • Kids
  • Current Affairs
  • Reviews
    • Give Aways
  • Ottawa Bloggers
Image of an ad linking to recommended resources for talking with kids about sexual health

The end of March Break 2020

2020-09-03 by dadgoesround Leave a Comment

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
Reddit
0 Shares

The six-month long March/Easter/May 24/Summer Break of 2020 is finally drawing to a close. It has been a turducken kind of a break from school. Sure, there was that chunk of time in the spring when virtual learning was supposed to be a thing. Some kids (including one of mine) did some school work and attended virtual classes. Others (the other two of mine) said ‘screw that noise’ and proceeded on with six months of arguing with each other and complaining that there was nothing to do.

Start of school

Now it is a week from the start of school, give or take a week. We are only just finding out when school actually starts for each of our kids. In my family, our three kids are all starting on different days over the course of two weeks. My oldest won’t find out until Monday whether she is starting school on Tuesday or Wednesday. The ministry of education has helpfully changed the rules for secondary school formats three times in August and school boards have changed the start date for school a couple of times over the past few weeks.

School schedule 2020

A bunch of kids are going to be doing virtual learning – sitting in front of a computer for two – four hours a day watching virtual classes. Parents will be trying to make sure that their kids don’t just turn off the cameras and watch Peppa Pig on the ipad instead. Kids attending elementary school in person will be full-time in classrooms stripped of everything useful and wrapped in plastic. High school students will be doing one subject per week – every other day at home. Four hours of the same subject for in class days and uncertain what supports will be available for at home days. Not bad if you have a spare, not great for the subjects you hate, but have to take.

Mental health or physical health

In deciding between in person or remote learning, we are being asked to choose between risks to our kids’ mental health or physical health.

Parents are worn down from six months of anxiety and trying to support the mental health needs of our kids. The Minister of Education has spent the past month trying to break us with constant changes and pretend plans. School boards have been filling our inboxes with emails that amount to “watch this space for useful information” followed by emails announcing that we should ignore whatever they told us earlier in the week because now plans have changed again and they will tell us about the revisions at some future date – by the end of the day…

What will school look like?

So, back to school with uncertain safety protocols in classes of unknown sizes being taught by teachers who haven’t been given enough time to plan for all of these changes, but who will do their best whether they are teaching in person or virtually.

Waste of a break?

For me, I feel like I should have made better use of this school break to teach my kids about the world by going on weekly adventures and climbing all the trees in our neighbourhood. We did get out of the house on an RV road trip. Then we went camping for a few days with my brother in the summer. Most of the remaining 170 days we just survived and looked out the window at the park across the road that we weren’t allowed to play in until late June.

Stress baggage

I thought when I started writing this that it was going to be funny with humerous anecdotes about this crazy period of time. It turns out that I am worn out and feeling anxious, frustrated and pessimistic about the pending start of school. I hope we can get at least a month of school before any COVID outbreaks so that we can each get some recovery time before the kids are sent home again. Even though I am really looking forward to some quiet in the house during the day, I also think I, and many others are going to go through an adrenaline crash while I drop some of the strain of the past six months and shift into the anxiety of what happens next.

Here’s to the end of the 2020 turducken break!

Related

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
Reddit
0 Shares

Filed Under: Parenting

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow DadGoesRound

Facebooktwitterpinterestrssinstagram

Meet Chris

Chris Farley Ratcliffe is dad to three girls and writes about fatherhood, kids and current affairs. His superpowers include removing loose teeth on request and carrying more than one kid at a time. Read More…

People are also reading

  • Dad Guide: How to be more patient with your kids
  • Sorel Boots - an undeserved reputation
  • Stop Rushing Kids Through Life
  • DIY Phone Jack Installation
  • Snow Tunnel Safety Rules
  • Dad Guide: How to Pretend to Sleep
  • I became a father at 16

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,821 other subscribers

Instagram

dadgoesround

dadgoesround


Skating in the woods!
Skating in the woods!

Doing some #tool and #workshop organizing as I get
Doing some #tool and #workshop organizing as I get set up in my new shop. #stillnottherightsize #allenkeys

The #snowbirds swing by and circled around our pla
The #snowbirds swing by and circled around our place a couple of times today. #ottawa

I talked to #mothernature through frozen lips this
I talked to #mothernature through frozen lips this morning. She says she would really like us to stay home. #quarantine #physicaldistancing #ottawa #plankthecurve #flattenthecurve #bendthecurve

I’m sorry #ottawa. I left my snow tires on speci
I’m sorry #ottawa. I left my snow tires on specifically to avoid anymore of this nonsense. Yesterday I had a conversation about the prospect of taking them off. Now I have to leave them on until July.

#physicaldistancing games. A proper tree swing is
#physicaldistancing games. A proper tree swing is the the works - pending arrival of the straps.


Load More…


Follow on Instagram


Archives

Categories

Copyright © 2021 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkNo