Why is there no clear advice on how to 'socially distance' when you have kids off school for months?

[Thelowquietsea]

The schools are shutting. Kids are potentially off until Autumn term.

What is expected of us in terms of social contact? There are no clear guidelines. I want to absolutely do my part in snubbing the outward transmission of the virus; equally, it's unthinkable that the kids don't have contact with others. Their mental health will take a real nose dive.

What are people's thoughts?

First messages whizzing around about meeting up. Not sure they get the message. I think the initial 'it's like a bad flu' seems to have stuck. Going to look like a mean parent and antisocial now.

I am in Irl, our local GAA Club has set up online challenges, they have online meet ups to be give new skills to practice and then they up load them in the comments of the Facebook page, An Artist William Sliney has set up a drawing theme of the day which has my lot checking his page every 2 seconds until a new picture goes up. Any Irish person of a certain age.. Don Conroy is joining in tomorrow.
They do do school work, yesterday we had decorated cars in parades with no near contact. Our estate has a draw a picture or write a message for a hero and put in your window, we have a lot of front line staff in our area, and people walk around looking a the pictures and we wave out🤣Mine play scrabble with their cousins over Skype. We walk the local woods in the early morning with a breakfast picnic. It has so far been good.

Technology will really come into its own. FaceTime with friends. No, it's not the same as face to face, but we all have to adapt.

My worry is how I work as can't work from home all the time (we are on a rota so some in the office and some at home, which changes on a week by week basis) with 2 kids at home.

No doubt it's going to be challenging, and we are all going to have to think outside the box for temporary solutions to things we have taken for granted

This!

You won’t need to have social distancing explained to you when we go into lockdown.

The National trust are opening their sites for free to go for walks as long as you don't get close to others. They've shut their houses, shops and cafes but if you need to go for a long walk and stay away from others it's a good shout.

What we’re doing in Ireland. Stay at home. They can’t physically see friends. If you go outside your garden, stay at least a metre away from other people. And yes, it’s tough, and homeschooling well in the circumstances is tough, especially with two parents WFH full-time. DS doesn’t have siblings, which means he only sees us and his grandparents on the other side of a window when we do grocery drops.

I don't know what single parents are meant to do unless they can share childcare with each other. None of us can take 6 months off. I agree it shouldn't be in big groups but we still have to work whether we're classed as key workers or not.

I'm wondering how I'll get us food if we lock down as I can't leave DS in the house on his own and my parents can't help because they're in the at risk group. I s'pose I'd have to try and fit it in between work and collecting him from friends houses.

@baking, honestly, jobs are vanishing here. DH and the other directors of his company have all gone on half-salary to try to keep people employed as long as possible, but as his company basically makes mass gatherings happen, all activity is cancelled for months to come, so there’s no work to do. The entire hospitality sector has closed.

This is what the Chief Medical Officer is advising and this is the advice I’m going to follow (may change in coming days/weeks mind you)

It's not school holidays. It's an emergency situation. Stay home and keep the children at home. Look what happened in Spain when the schools closed in Madrid and they decamped to the coast. Keep away from us down here on the south coast please. We don't want you to holiday here !!

I think they will need to spell it out to people as so many just don't seem to get it.

I've seen talk of playdates being arranged once school closes, shared childcare and have heard of people removing their kids from school then taking them out to restaurants for lunch.

Some people are just too stupid/ignorant to follow high level guidelines unfortunately.

No social meetings. Has to be done. Millions of children around the world have been in dire circumstances for years. I believe (hope) at least ours have an end in sight.

A vaccine will be developed, brilliant people are working on it, and even if it weren’t, viruses run their course, they mutate (sometimes becoming less not more dangerous) and immunity is gained.

No one is saying it won’t be extremely difficult and test us all but as parents we need to set the example, dig deep and help them through this in as positive and productive a way as possible.

@IndoorWeather It's so scary sometimes I can't believe it's happening. I don't think my job will go yet. I suspect we'll still trade even in lockdown because we're health based but I'm not certain. I won't stop working until I'm forced too because it'd ruin us financially as I'm part time anyway. It does mean I've had to accept offers of help from friends to cover the childcare though. I think work would love it if I took unpaid leave because they'd save money when we have fewer people through the door.

Once there are tests for antibodies, or even for current cases it will make it easier for two families to meet safely,.whether outside or in each others houses. The lockdown stage is not intended to last more than two months surely, and that would be worst estimate. There will be cases e en through just going to supermarket and eventually some adults and children will be immune. Im isolating now and I presume in a.month my kids and I.will be no danger to anyone, and wouldnt need to socially distance. But having an official proof of that would be crucial or it wpuld just be anecdotal/gut feeling

To give some insight on what it's like to be effectivley housebound for a child, I can share my experience. I was confined to house for 3 straight months (no exercise, running, anything that would raise heart rate) as a child when I was 7ish yo. It was difficult and often boring, and I was not homeschooled. It was over Summer holidays and I agonisingly had to watch friends playing in the street and hear their laughter on the sunny days while i sat inside. The difference nowadays is that we have the internet and SM for sharing many ideas on activities and schedules and home school topics - an abundance more tools than wer around when I was a child. Also, remember that ALL children will be going through the same thing (unless youre a clueless ar%e who ignores the governements advice), so I do think the pyschological effect iwill be much less when there will be no sense of one child missing out (yours) what others are doing (because they can't, they will all be in the same social limited boat). And remember, there are good days and bad days as with everything. Take it one day at a time. Find new passions. Explore learning. break the day up into chunks with things to look forwrd to at the end of the day. Run family competitions to promote good behaviour indoors. Turn off the news all day and give yourself a break from the constant fearmongering. Do your bit and your kids will be fine. There are more challenging things to face in life. Staying quarantined is doable. It's not going to last forever.

They’ll cope. It won’t be easy, of course it won’t, it won't be for anyone. Some elderly people live like this all of the time and millions of children around the world are much worse off with no prospect of an end in sight. Focus their minds on that.

This will be an extremely unusual virus if it goes on indefinitely, they usually have a natural cycle after which more are immune than not. This is a blip in an hopefully long and happy life and will ultimately make them more resilient. They are in the lowest risk group, underlying conditions notwithstanding, so shouldn’t fear in that regard. It’s only because the majority of our kids’ lives have been pretty good until now that this seems so unthinkable.

We’re employing all of the modern resources that we can, sticking to a timetable for a sense of order, emphasising home learning - they will have to go back to school eventually - and certainly not catastrophizing in earshot however desperate it seems because that won’t help anybody.

It’s miserable. The reality hit me again last night when I was explaining to my 12yo that yes, it REALLY sucks, but we are literally trying to stop more people dying by staying home. I doubt any of us expected to have to ever say stuff like that to our children.

It’s the one thing that she’s struggling with, not seeing her friends daily. But we’ve promised FaceTime will be allowed for much of the day (school closed to her year today anyway due to staffing, and she’s been on google classroom while talking to her friends about the work) - when she was home educated before we were quite strict on screen use during school hours but we’ve reassured her that won’t be the case this time, as long as we get other stuff done and have time as a family then the rest of the day is hers to chat until bedtime.

I totally agree this could make them more resilient. It is shit though. Thankfully we have enough space not to be in each other’s pockets all day and we are very near a park for exercise which will help as long as it’s allowed.

She is worrying about some of her friends though, who she knows aren’t happy at home, and now they are stuck there. :(