Be honest, are your kids driving you crazy?

[Frozenintime]

Just that. Mine is ! Always seems to be on his phone when there is any spare time and so, so slow. Cannot hurry him up and snaps at me when I try. Terrible timekeeping. I've even put a clock in the bathroom !

Driving me round the bleedin’ pipe the pair of them!

Ha, yes. Had that one day on the 4th January where they went back to school and I could solely focus on my lovely quiet little toddler and baby, listen to radio 4, drink coffee in peace while they napped... Older three have been at home ever since and it feels like it’s been bloody months. Feel like tearing my hair out most of the time.

Honestly.... no. But (and it’s a big but!) she is nearly 10, there’s only one of her and I’m on leave on full pay until 01 March with nothing to do but focus on her and walk the dog... oh and she’s not here on the weekends because she’s at her Dad’s! Perfect world. It was totally different last lockdown when I was working full time and her Dad had buggered off to his parents 180 miles away... not sure how either of us survived that

Tbh I’m not sure if it’s the kids or me. I find myself short tempted and erratic often. Considering some of the lockdown parenting they’ve had they’re fantastic.

Yes.
I have a three week old baby a 6 & 9 year old.
Only one laptop currently. Homeschool is going terribly. We don't have virtual lessons. It's all sent to me to teach to the children.
Feel a little bit stressed 😩

No, but ditto, I only have one and he’s 8 and still happy to come for dog walks/not yet into video games etc. Things are pretty stressful for me as I run my own business which is closed and losing money every week currently, with no date to reopen, so if it wasn’t for him, I think I’d be losing my mind!

Yes, but I'm a single parent trying to WFH full time and home school. I am utterly failing them right now.

Yes, but it’s not because of pandemic, DD has additional needs so there are lots of problems.

Yes they bloody are.

Yes, but to be fair to them, they are doing great, completing school work, and most of the time are lovely to be around despite the bickering... we are just bored in the house and yet another wet muddy walk does not appeal. I'm probably getting on their nerves too!

At this point most people need some time out from those they share a house with and a good face to face moan with friends.

No I just feel really, really sorry for them. They have lost so much I'm so sad for them. I'm a snappy bastard because I'm trying to balance them and work and we can't even go out for our Sunday dinner.

@Oileo

Tbh I’m not sure if it’s the kids or me. I find myself short tempted and erratic often. Considering some of the lockdown parenting they’ve had they’re fantastic.

I have one, and he's only 2, but I feel like I'm either working, supervising a boisterous toddler, or asleep. Nothing else. 8 or so hours (on my days off) of constant shouting for snacks, asking me to build a train set and then sitting on it, demanding long walks to stare at the machinery in the local recycling centre, and diving over the top of the sofa is getting to me far more than it should. Oh, how I miss the couple of times a week he used to go to his grandparents for the morning!

Yes at times and like others I think it's partly me.

I'm WFH so very distracted and always trying to snatch time here and there, so I've less patience for their little quirks and then I get so pissed off at myself.

I'm also so fucking sick of the bastard park that sometimes I just can't face it, even though I know it would help them be a bit more settled afterwards

Not quite driving me crazy but I find myself really irritable and intolerant with my DD who is nearly 10. Nothing major but just finding the constant stream of unsolicited commentary about something on YouTube exhausting. Really struggling with the long monologues when I'm trying to get her to do things.

It's not her fault and she's missing her friends etc so I feel like a right cow but every single utterance stars with: "In Minecraft" etc.

Not really but my older two are in school, baby is in nursery, my husband and I are working out of the home so we're not on top of each other all the time.
The children are bored though, missing family and their sports activities so we do get a lot of bickering and not sleeping as well as they used to.
However in the first lockdown it was horrendous. All of us at home and I think the walls must have been vibrating from the negative energy.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I love them but I need personal space, and they need their personal space, peers and fresh input.

DS (7) needs the chance to be a noisy, energetic 7 year old with other noisy energetic 7 year olds without winding up DS (10) who has ASD and sensory needs.

DS (10) has just thought it was really funny to stick his leg out, send DS (7) flying then moan at him because DS (7) is crying of a carpet burn and pulled on his leg when he fell over

Home-schooling is relentless, fine management to balance getting some work out of them without triggering meltdowns. I have to sit with them 1:1 to get them to do anything.

It's impossible to burn them out so they sleep at a reasonable time. Our local park is puddles over inches of mud across the field. The next nearest park will now take weeks to drain off several metres of surplus river water.

It's not natural to be trapped together like this

I still love them, but these are not good circumstances!

Not too bad here. 4 DC aged, 1,3,6 and 7. DH still working. We are getting school work done. My expectations have lowered and we do whatever to keep the peace. We have moments but I'm not stressing about anything as there's no point. If they take ages to do something, who cares? Haven't got anywhere to be!

Annoying: reminding them to get dressed and brush teeth even tho they aren’t at school. Live lessons 9-3.40pm so occupied. When lessons finish they go for a run or do some form of exercise (have to force them)

Oh yes

Yes! Right now they are fighting and it's only 9am

They do drive me mad if I keep the bar raised at the impossible level we're expected to keep it at. They don't at all drive me mad once I dial it all back and lower the bar to our own poor standards, which means loads of TV and Nintendo Switch, but does include our 2 hour dog walk every day (unbelievably, they are really cool about doing this). Sometimes, the homeschooling works (in small doses) and sometimes it doesn't and there's not a whole lot I'm going to do about that because it's not worth the stress. It's just not. DD (going on 11) is like a tiger ready to pounce on her brothers at all hours, so a lot of my day revolves around keeping her from going into screaming banshee mode (it's stressful but keeping her balanced keeps the rest of us balanced) and instead of setting time aside for board games (which never works for us... we never get around to that Monopoly game I so want us all to play), we just play Boggle at the table while we eat dinner or a card game like Uno or Exploding Kittens.
Keep it simple, do what you can, and just make sure they know they're loved. That's all we can do. I have days where I feel really, really low and it's hard to rally. The kids have those days too. I feel like I'm the only parent whose kids have an urgency to sign up to the NRA the minute they see a Loom video.

YES! 4yo twins and an 18 month old. Going out of my mind

Yes I think it’s homeschooling that drives me mad, not my children as such!

Yep. They are 6 and 8, so need help with schooling all the time, while I'm trying to work. The 8yo is a very social chatty child who tends to be very focused on one topic - and honestly I just don't care enough about the vikings to hear about them all day every day for the past few weeks. And because they share a room, and the weather has meant they can't really go play outside, they are winding each other up.

I also miss having a lunch break where I can just sit undisturbed and relax. I'd settle for just 10 minutes quiet somewhere between 7am and 7pm at this point.

My 5 year old is. 4month old is fine.
I suspect additional needs but nobody gives a fuck.