No school and working from home

[Kronie]

So, wife has decided to stay at home and look after kids, home school etc until covid 19 all sorted and kids back at school. Im working from home.

However she home schools our 5yo daughter about 3 hours a day and expects me to occupy our younger one who is 3 during that 3 hour period. Happy to do of course as family time is precious.

However this means i lose 3 hours work a day which i make up by working early mornings and evenings. Great solution.

However, i get phone calls and emails in that time which i have to ignore. Some i have to answer and deal with which can take time but my wife doesnt like it when i do work rather than occupying my son.

I get its tough looking after children all day long but im not exactly having a spa session. Just trying to get the work done.

How does it work for other families at home? If you are working from home, do you still somehow look after children simultaeneously? Its not as though my work have said dont worry we know your juggling family lives. They are pretty much saying business as usual.

The five year old should not need 3 hours a day. A couple of half hour slots here and there should do it.
Ask your wife how much time she thinks a 5 year old actually works at school?
Let her play with her sibling, help with cooking, etc.
Your wife is wrong here and I was a h educator myself, long before the virus.
Ask her if she wants you to get the sack, you are working for an employer they expect you to do the work.

Does she have another job or is a SAHM to youngest DC?

If so, she will need to do things with both DC and include learning tasks for 5 year old as part of the normal day.

She isnt a stay at home mum. She is a contractor but as work is quietened shr wanted to be a temporary sahm.

So with it being easter and there being less school work, she is now moaning that she is having to look after both kids during day while im having an "easy life" in front of laptop. I couldnt help out as half the day was conference calls. She wasnt interested in that, just says im dumping kids onto her. Trying to explain that work is still demanding. If it wasnt demanding they would be laying people off.

I would havr thought she would enjoy spending time with children, especially as she doesnt have to simultaenously deal with emails, calls, deadlines, "Need this", "can we discuss..." etc.

Honestly? My 3 year old watches the iPad whilst I do school work with my 5 and 8 year old. The 5 year old does whatever we can get through in the 26 mins it takes him to watch zog and then I normally send the two of them off to play whilst I’m doing a bit more with the 8 year old.

Your wife is doing well managing 3 hour sessions a day. I have a five year round old who wouldn't be able to focus for anything like that time. What I am trying to do is incorporate learning within regular game play as he has no resistance to spelling and counting in that kind of environment. We do some formal learning but no more than 20 minutes or so at a time. In fact, a teacher told my wife that 20 minutes or so is the maximum that they will focus on a particular subject for at that age.

I think 3 hours does feel too long for a 5 year old. Deep down i dont think my daughter wants to do that long but doesnt help that school are being super keen during a time of survival mode. I wish i could persuade my wife to do less but she is strong minded. She doesnt do screen time either.

I just wish my wife would understand that we are in a crisis right now. Lets just get the basics right, enjoy some quality time together but yes fit in school work but not to the point where it causes arguments. Most importantly, lets not give ourselves a hard time if we didnt achieve what we set out to. Be grateful for our health.

Absolutely and your daughter will doubtless slot straight back in to the school routine once they reopen. Unfortunately I don't really have any advice except that all our friends have a teacher as one of the parents and I don't think that any of them find it easy to teach their own kids at home. As an adult, I'd find it hard to work from home so I can understand why children don't find it easy with all the distractions.

Your daughter is only at the start of her education. It's not a critical time IMO as a lot of it is play anyway so incorporating learning into play with some bedtime reading is definitely a good way to go.

I have DC3 and DC5. DC5 does school work, probably and hour max. Your wife seems to be expecting too much from a 5 year old, doing 3 hours a day

DC3 will happily draw, colour in (read: scribble) or do kids maze type things while we're doing school work. Why can't DW do this too? It's hardly like your 5 year needs silence etc to revise

My situation is practically identical to yours but I'd never dream of asking DH (who works from home, has done for years) to look after DC3!!

YADNBU

Don't sweat it. These are weird times and they won;t last forever; most businesses will accept that working from home when everyone is asked to stay at home is not going to result in a big output when there are kids running about the place. You're doing really well, I think, in making up lost time diligently.

Your wife should absolutely be looking after both children. She needs to manage the toddler while doing some more stimulating activities with the five year old. Getting you to care for the younger one is ridiculous when you’re working. If she’s not happy to look after the children all day she should have carried on with paid working. And things like screen time are a ‘needs must’ in these times in my opinion. Great if she has parenting ideals but if she requires you to have one child each in order to enforce them, effectively stopping you working and losing you your evening, I think she needs to loosen up. Screens do zero damage to children if used in moderation. Some people’s snootiness around screens really irritates me.

If your wife wishes to be a sahm then she needs to sort out both children as that is what a sahm does. I would be mentioning that during general working hours you are unavailable for childcare as you are working and it is her responsibility to care for both children, if she is unable to do that then she needs to change her expectations in order to care for both of them, or go back to work and then you will share the childcare during work hours with her. Shes being very unreasonable here, but maybe shes realised that staying at home and educating and entertaining younger siblings is not the easy option it looked like in the beginning.

My husband isnt doing kid stuff between 8 and 4.30. That's work time - you know, the stuff that us keeping us afloat currently.
After that, its half and half, but work hours are for working.
Your wife needs to deal with both kids while you work.