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Helping your child with school throughout the pandemic

Is everything feeling a little overwhelming when it comes to work, at-home learning for your child, and other responsibilities? Here are some tips to help.

BRANFORD, Conn. — Doing your best to juggle it all? Household, work, and now remote distance learning? You want what is best for your kids but you're noticing these things: 

· Your kids appear disengaged with their online learning 

· You’re worried that your kids have trouble focusing during Zoom lessons

· You’re frustrated and overwhelmed not knowing how to support your child with school — are you helping too much or not enough?

· You’re concerned that your kids aren’t reading or writing enough and they’re going to fall behind

· You see your kids at the computer for long stretches, and even watch them getting frustrated and wonder what to do 

The Branford school district recently offered a free zoom workshop to parents in a pinch wanting to help their children learn and grow in this new pandemic meets education environment. 

Dahlia Dallal is the CEO and founder of Boutique Educational Consulting firm, Literacy Partners based out of Los Angeles. 

Pre-COVID-19, the company customarily went into schools working hands-on with teachers. Literacy partners have now expanded services online to help out parents and kids struggling with their new roles as pseudo- teachers and students learning from home.

Dallal offered FOX61 some of her top advice for parents during these unprecedented times:

  1. Too much help is not necessarily a good thing don’t feed your children the answers but rather ask them open-ended questions. Dallal says to “think about it and problem-solving when they get in a fight with their brother instead of you jumping in to help be like what do you think you should do here can you figure it out because they’re always coming to us for the answers. We want them to be able to have problem-solving strategies.“
  2. Be positive and complimentary. "When you look at your child’s writing you may be like the spelling is atrocious, there’s no punctuation, they don’t know how to paragraph! OK— the teachers are looking at that too, but what are they doing well? Maybe they’re writing with a lot of voice, maybe they know how to develop the scene, maybe they use a lot of dialogue? Try to name at least one thing they are doing well.“
  3. Practice self-care. Start with a morning gratitude ritual like journaling things you appreciate or try and meditation app with your child. "Maybe this is obvious but is your child sleeping enough, are you sleeping enough, are they eating sugary cereal and get on a zoom and it’s hard for them to focus? Do they have an adequate place to sit where there’s not too much noise around them? Could you put a little box under their feet so they feel grounded and aren’t just lounging in their seats?”
  4. Take breaks from the school screen! Take a quick walk, do a Tiktok video, have a dance party, GET MOVING.

For more tips and info and Literacy Partners' personalized options for families check out their website.

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