Working, 2 primary kids - does anyone have a workable strategy?

[MrPickles73]

I work full-time and am the main earner in our family. There's no part-time option and we have a project deadline at the end of Jan. 1st day back to work yesterday and my boss read the riot act - there will be no extensions etc. It's a really good job and the sector's having a bad time so there's no option to find another job.
DH has ill health retirement so us at home all day but not able to do home schooling. We tried it last time he gets v stressed and it is miserable for the kids. There was total melt down on day 1 last time and I had to take over home schooling. We have 2 primary aged children.
Given my deadline I cannot do the homeschooling this time.
How are people planning to survive. Should I try to find a nanny to help with the home schooling? I think you can have people eg cleaners working in your home. Has anyone else got a how schooling nanny / tutor? We don't have any relatives living near us.

I wanted to offer some
Support here. I don’t work full time, I work part time (3 days) but I’m currently recovering from long shitty covid so until recently not been working at all. I’m sad that now I can’t go back properly still as have my kids here! I’m self employed however so that will help with the juggle.

Anyway last lockdown I was literally in bed or in hospital so DH had to work FT and do homeschool. It wasn’t possible. We had no childcare options as nobody knew if we were all infectious.

Please give yourself a break, even though I’m here with my kids (9 &5) I’m not going to homeschool properly, fully on my days off. I can’t, it’s stressful and I’m not a teacher and they are unhappy with me trying to be.

At best I’ll aim to get them outside daily (one of us will do this on our lunch breaks when both working) and I’ll get them doing PE with Joe or yoga daily. We will probably do 1-2 hours of proper work a day on good days. That’s coming from a parent who has the time and could drop work etc and focus solely on schooling if I wanted to but I know it would send both my kids and me mad. They hate it. I hate it.

The fact is all Children across all years are behind now in terms of where the curriculum is at. Nobody is advancing because nobody is in school. Key workers (as I understand) in our school are provided more with childcare that structured learning. Children won’t be behind eventually because it’s all relative and at primary I believe they will catch up quickly. Both mine made amazing progress in the autumn term.

Please be kind to yourselves. This is an unprecedented horrendous situation. Nobody is doing it well unless they already homeschool!

Our plan is to buy a Nintendo if they do a couple of hours of work a day. That way I know they can play on that for a couple of hours at the end of each ‘homeschool day’ and I can work / rest uninterrupted. We also do shifts on call as the parent (husband 8-12 and me 12-6) it allows me some clear time and is just about manageable for work.

BilboBercow he had a traumatic head injury 10 years ago so can do certain things but isn't mentally very flexible and can't cope with new things like learning. I hope that answers your question!

Martinisarebetterdirty this sounds like us. Last time I was starting at 7am, doing 2 hours with the 6 year old before starting work at 9am, checking in on them over lunch from 12-1pm and then again at 5pm. But the rest of the time they were or were not doing work sheets etc. When the children were pre-school we had a nanny. I may need to investigate for the afternoons.

ViewsAreMine thank you. Its a torrid time for families.

longshot thank you. Good luck!!

I’ve seen lots of tutors offering their services. You could hire one to work with the children at home. Then any time you have with them would be quality connection time not barking homeschooling orders at them.