Working from home and home schooling

[Lifeisbeaut]

It’s so hard. My job has to be done during the working day, it’s very reactive. I have small primary age children who are in need of reassurance and routine. How can I possibly do both things at once? I’m massively struggling and feel I can’t cope. I feel like I’m sinking Please help advise me?

I’m lucky my DH is working from home too as our DD 6yrs needs lots of attention. Work is flexible although I am missing the chat with my colleagues. I do 5am -9am and 5pm -9pm. DH Does a normal day as he needs to be “in the office” during standard work times. Shattered and don’t know how long I can keep this up.

I ended up taking a day of annual leave this week and will try to take a couple more next week. That helped massively with the wfh/homeschool stress!
Dc is early riser. I am going to try to fit in a couple of hours schooling before I start work. If that works I will feel less worried about his education. If it doesn’t I might have to take unpaid parental leave which I can’t afford. But the run up to the Easter hols was hell.

It’s so so hard! I’m not the best employee or the best parent. I feel torn in two most of the time.

DH and I are having to book calls and meetings in each other’s diaries. My work are being pretty good about not being able to reach me IF I’m booked as busy and then I make it up in the evenings. DH’s work have been ok so far (he’s being completely transparent and has the advantage of more than a decade of going above and beyond). DSs are 4 and 7 and yes, if we both have unavoidable meetings we pop a video on.

I am quite close to murdering a couple of the SAHMs at school who are saying they ‘hope this never ends’ on FB but have managed not to by remembering how blooming lucky we are that we still have jobs, have a garden and aren’t vulnerable!

We have three primary school age kids (10, 9, 7) and a 6 month old. I’m a nurse so out of the house all hours at the mo so my husband is dealing alone. We have a board up with a basic routine and the kids love it. They have a structure to follow and they feel safe knowing what will happen and when. School in the morning, play in the afternoon, set lunch time, set chore time. It’s turned carnage into something manageable

You should be eligible for furlough if you can't work due to childcare issues.

I have a 4 and 6 year old. Both DH and i work full time. We struggled massively in the first couple of weeks with both of us trying to work and look after the kids at the same time. It isn't possible. So we've changed things up. I work 7am to 1pm locked away in the office and then pick up for a couple of hours from 5-7pm. DH is on duty when I'm working and vice versa. I find it really beneficial to be able to switch off in the afternoon and devote time to the kids. My boss is also very supportive. I'm m also taking a day a week annual leave in April and May (except when there's a bank holiday) so I'm working a 4 day week until 1st June - it's only using 4 days to achieve that, so i would recommend doing that if you can.

Reading this with interest. I'm a single parent. Their dad less than useless, has said he's not seeing them until this is all over.
5 and 4 year old. One is autistic. They're extremely loud. I'm usually frontline NHS but have managed to be redeployed to remote admin which unfortunately will involve many many many phone calls and booking appointments etc. They can be distracted and quiet at times but it's in no way a guarantee. I've got a garden but it's not really safe for them to be out without supervision (extremely low and wobbly fence panels, very open to passers by, this was going to be this summers task to sort out but that's not going to happen now). Both kids normal school/childcare settings have closed so although I am allowed to send them somewhere as a keyworker it would be to settings many miles away and unfamiliar to them which would create a lot more problems and probably wouldn't be sustainable for my autistic child.
Currently we're isolating with family, which, yes it means I can work but comes with lots of other issues, including how much more upheaval and 'weirdness' my kids can deal with, inconsistent approaches from multiple adults etc. Plus I hate that my house is unoccupied and am constantly anxious about that.
Urgh, it's not easy is it?!

It's hard work. My 4 year old is relentless, he always has been so can't really tell him not to disturb me for 4 hours. The other week the computer got smashed my accident, they hurt themselves, they're boisterous and they need supervising. Under any other circumstance no-one would expect you to justify why 4 and 6 year old kids need supervising, they just do. We have a pitfall that the kids are not tech savvy, they're not used to obliterating time on an iPad or phone so that's difficult. When we've tried it takes longer to teach them how to use it that any benefit we gain. I don't really understand why there is so much focus on how tough teachers have it, when surely parents are the ones really suffering at the moment. Parents really are seem as a waste of time by society if you look at any policies or even how many schools treat us so I guess we just have to get on with it.