Lockdown (And Beyond) Hatchlings

[wendy james]

How are they doing, especially now there’s no (or little) school work?

The girls seem ok still. I’ve asked if they’re missing any friends and said I might be able to facilitate a video call or something, but neither of them is interested. Elvis is a bit disappointed that nobody has written to her after she gave out her address to half the class on the last day, but won’t let me try to find out anybody’s address so she can write to them first.

There’s been the usual disappearing off to write songs and they’re enjoying us having signed up to Disney+ before all this kicked off.

Today they have created a Christmas music playlist (weirdos), done some Xbox Kinect sports and sat out in the front garden in the small tent writing a quiz that P and I are expected to do tonight.

Elvis saved up for a Fitbit so is quite motivated to keep moving and is currently doing a 45 min exercise class. She did say something yesterday about wishing coronavirus wasn’t a thing so she could see people, but when I talked about a send-a-hug thing I’d seen on FB, she wasn’t interested.

[Smunder Woman]

Mine love it. They take after me and are hermits Joe is really sociable, but chatting to his friends on PS4 seems plenty for him. School refuser Jack has been asking when he gets to go again though, the contrary shit

[Flora Poste]

Mine aren't doing too badly actually, better than I thought to be honest. The youngest two are playing together really nicely a lot of the time and I actually feel a bit sorry for A as I think she feels much more at a loose end and is missing her friends - she's having a couple of Zoom calls with her close friends /class a week though.

A is reading a lot which is great, plus her Curiosity Box (science subscription kit) arrived over the weekend so that's been keeping her occupied. I have noticed that she cannot shut up though - I think she's missing talking utter crap with her friends.

C and E are playing together a lot and mostly keeping themselves occupied - E loves imaginative play and is really self-sufficient (she hasn't mentioned missing her school friends once).

We did get them a Switch for Christmas (best idea ever in retrospect) and bought them a couple of new games over the weekend for the holidays, so that goes on late afternoon as well.

Mine haven't actually asked to leave the house once though

[Pippedydeadeye]

Chunk is hermit and loves it. He’s playing Fortnite online with friends though.

Squeak doesn’t seem to mind much either. She’s sporadically in touch with friends but not as much as when they’re at school, like when they’ve just walked home together and are video calling within 20 minutes of getting home.

[Little My]

B took it badly that he couldn't pop out and play hockey, and so I'm thankful that neighbours kids have mostly stopped playing in their driveways. So now the only battle is getting him to accept he still needs to actually do schoolwork! He is so smart, but it's bloody hard getting him to sit down and do anything. He would rather be on screens playing or watching telly. He misses interacting with his mates, so we've let him FaceTime a few.

R is kept sane by snapchatting with her friends. We were planning on taking her off her ADHD medication in the summer as a trial, but have taken advantage of time away from school to do that now. So that may make my job difficult for homeschooling.. She is happy as a shut-in, drawing and creating. She's very chilled out at the moment.

Neither of them have been driven to tidying their rooms out of boredom yet, I doubt it will get to that.

[smalex]

By and large W is fine. He's been an absolute trooper adapting to doing some school work at home and seems to have reacted well to having a pattern to the school (we're doing things differently for this fortnight so it feels like the holidays) days. He's done houseparty meet things with his best friend a few times and twice with best friend and two others. I'm not sure what they make of it but they seem to enjoy it and I think it's better than nothing. We've also seen his best friend by chance on a walk so both families stood at a 10m distance for 10 minutes and had a chat. He does miss his friends. Our walk to the park today involved walking along a path right behind his school (you can see right in through the fence) and he looked at it wistfully and said 'I don't mind missing the learning, but it would be great to see my friends'.

We've kept the weekends busy with the work in the garden which he absolutely loves, he's so motivated by it. And then taken a walk/cycle every day. He gets to spend more time with S which is a small bonus.
I think it might get harder after easter, when the novelty of all this well and truly has worn off for everyone.

[Cerise]

Mine are doing ok although I can see ADHD traits coming out more in J now he hasn’t got the physical outlet of school. In normal holidays, we’d be out and about geocaching or visiting places. They’re out in the garden quite a lot but I can tell by his noises that he’s struggling a little. D is very huggy and has moments of shadowing me which can drive me a little mad. J wanted some extra Xbox time yesterday so he could play separate games with his school friends and Lora’s J so I said he needed to tidy his room first. It worked!

[Luce]

Mine are fine. F is also a hermit and loves it. He'll play online with his mates, then spend the rest of the day hiding in his room inbetween bouts of forced exercise.

Theo is DESPERATE to go back to school, bless him. But he's also pretty happily getting on with things, although he's crying more than usual at silly stuff so I think there are some things going on his brain that he can't articulate.

This is our 4th week and we've so far managed to make the weekends feel quite different, which helps.

[Pippedydeadeye]

Squeak is REALLY missing rugby though.

[smalex]

This is our 4th week and we've so far managed to make the weekends feel quite different, which helps.

That's really important to me. I think we all find it really helpful. Otherwise everything is just beige, isn't it?

[Kleio]

We're trying to make weekends different too.

Mine are doing ok really. They're playing together a lot and I haven't heard the phrase "I'm bored" much.

Cube is keeping in touch with his friends via the xbox but a few of them are gits and are taking their frustrations by bullying everyone. He's been on the rough end of it a few times now and I did a Thor the other day over the microphone. I'd like him to play with other kids really. He is enjoying netflix and I'm going to let him watch Brooklyn 99 after Lucy said it was F friendly.

Betty is hormonal central. She is either super helpful or melting onto the floor because I've dared to speak to her. What's App is her favourite method of keeping in touch and her teacher emails her every day which she LOVES.

Elf lives in a world on his own. He adores being at home and doesn't mention his friends at all. He's got no interest in speaking to them.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Beebie seems happy through he has mentioned a couple of times missing my parents and his wee cousin. He is incredibly full on and clingy and won't even kick a ball in the garden alone for 2 minutes while I make him a sandwich, but he has always been this way and now isn't the time to address it. I think he's still young enough that a few weeks with just his parents isn't a big deal.

[Arrietty]

MissA (16) seems a lot happier today than she was yesterday. She’s been off school for four weeks now, as she was ill with a very bad throat for a while, which at the time was definitely not CV, but honestly, who knows now? She missed her friends dreadfully for a while, but now seems to be accepting things and understands why we have to stay home. I was off work today and I made sure I spent time on her mental well-being rather than doing the housework. We put a tent up and she is currently in there with adequate WiFi and one of the cats - I can chat to her out of my bedroom window and she is thoroughly enjoying a little bit of extra independence.

She was worried about her GCSE’s for a while, but that seems to have subsided a bit. She did well in her last set of mocks and her course work was good quality, so she’s got nothing to worry about, thankfully.

She is keeping in touch with her friends and forcing me to play on the Wii with her. I wish she’d got the Nintendo Switch as she is desperate to play Animal Crossings, but there we go.

[olive]

Mine seem to be ok but as they have live classes 3 times a day at least it means they get to see their teachers and classmates and still have the structure of a school day.

I’ve also stuck to no gaming Mon- Thurs and tv only goes on after 3pm.

Our massive issue is lack of exercise. I feel like my two have always seemed to need more than the average child (T is off the scale because of his ADHD and M doesn’t seem too far behind him).

We have a tightly structured day as it’s the only way we’ll survive this. I know a lot of my friends are really relaxed about being home and sticking to a schedule and think I’m a tiger mum but for me it’s far less about academics and more about not having them wrestle endlessly, break stuff or find them in a digging in the neighbours garden.

[F'Artiste]

A2 is too young to care. He quite enjoys being around A and I, but has started nursing more, just as we’d got him down to nursing only at night .

V misses going out. She frequently asks to come to the shops with me, as she loved doing that before. She does a lot of imagination play about her friends and cousins and has been having loads of nightmares lately so I think her frustration and confusion at not going out is spilling out.

[Rhodonite]

J is being really good, and not asking to go out, at all. He's seen people on the TV telling us all to stay at home. So he knows he has to. He is absolutely not interested in any of the education stuff that's on offer though, but it's tricky because he's not at school yet. He just wants to play with me all day. He's very clingy too and is not great at playing by himself, which is difficult when I have to look after Conchie. So I feel really guilty.

I try to do crafts with him, which usually ends up with me doing them by myself. Board and card games were a hit in the first week, but he's lost interest now. And he spent about 2 days solid playing with Kinetic sand, but that's forgotten about too.

I'm hoping when we finally get some nice weather up here, we can be out in the garden more, but it's still bitterly cold just now.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Our massive issue is lack of exercise. I feel like my two have always seemed to need more than the average child (T is off the scale because of his ADHD and M doesn’t seem too far behind him).

We have a tightly structured day as it’s the only way we’ll survive this. I know a lot of my friends are really relaxed about being home and sticking to a schedule and think I’m a tiger mum but for me it’s far less about academics and more about not having them wrestle endlessly, break stuff or find them in a digging in the neighbours garden.

I so get this. I'm wondering about getting Beebie assessed when all this is over. Two weekends ago I had a long weekend and by Saturday evening I was in pieces. The Monday and Tuesday were actually much easier. Although I am relying heavily on YouTube and tablet games in addition to school work and a schedule.

[Luce]

This is our 4th week and we've so far managed to make the weekends feel quite different, which helps.

That's really important to me. I think we all find it really helpful. Otherwise everything is just beige, isn't it?

Exactly. It's going to be hard this weekend purely because we're doing the Easter holidays so there is no school work to help differentiate. But T being around on the weekends seems to be a big enough draw to make it feel different. Last weekend we got the kids a Dominos pizza which was treat like enough to help it feel like a Saturday.

I should carry on the school day, like we've been doing but honestly, I just couldn't face any more negotiations and I don't think they'll do well dipping in and out so I've declared it the school holidays. Except no cinema, Nandos, ice cream farm, swimming, playdates etc etc :(

[Jet]

L doesn't really care but is really demanding and S is really put out at me enforcing school work and not doing things for him that his teacher would never do (see today...crying because I was not receptive to him complaining that I hadn't written the date on his paper for him). In fact maybe today's not the best day for me to respond to this thread as I feel a bit unraveled and I feel like I haven't set us up well to sustain this long term. I was very focused on S and school (he's dyslexic and has ADHD so I knew this would be a challenge) and not willing to spend all day fighting a 4 year old about doing educational things (he says learning is stupid and he won't do it ) that it's resulted in too much screen time and quite a lot of battles. Today I ended up having to put headphones in an ignore everyone for an hour or so as I literally cannot get parts of my job done, even with Mr J here as well.

That said, S misses his friends but overall seems fine. L was really emotional at first but seems to have leveled out and honestly would be happy to sit and watch Zelda or whatever on Youtube and eat snacks all day long without anyone asking more of him. He's living his best life. I was talking to my boss about what happens on the other side when we have to enforce normal rules again

Both of them are missing the physical aspects of their usual lives. S doesn't care in general but his ADHD is impacted by not spending time in the playground or tanking around the gym at afterschool. L will happily go and run around outside but we've also let them do laps of the house when they feel they need to - it's absolute insanity but needs must.

I'm so shattered that the weekends haven't been much different. I need to think about how to vary it some.

[Jet]

Also - our tablet appears to have broken