I don’t exactly remember the first time that I saw the words “home schooling” in the context of a thing society might actually expect me to do. But I have a feeling it was a mention from someone on Twitter, and that I smiled fondly at how earnestly they were taking the rapidly deteriorating “situation”, as the coronavirus pandemic shut Britain down for more than three months.
This is not to say that I’m a lazy parent. I love spending time with my two-year-old and my five-year-old. But it’s probably true to say that my main role was to drive them to stuff and go with them to the park. I took a very dim idea of such newfangled ideas as “screens”. So the thought of being left solely in charge for an extended spell was nerve-wracking, but fanciful. Honestly, the five-year-old’s imminent first six-week school holiday was a worry. But it’s not like anybody would expect me to be solely in charge of him for all that time (or more).
As it turns out, for much of the past few months, trying to relate to those worries felt akin to connecting to the worldview of early Neolithic civilisations. A lot happened. First I had to work from home with my wife. Then the schools and nurseries shut. Then everything else shut. Then I got furloughed, while my wife didn’t. It rapidly became apparent that our briefly untenable domestic arrangement had suddenly become very tenable: I would be in charge of the kids, all the time.
Parenting felt both overwhelming and simple. On one level it was obvious what I would have to do. I would take them to the park as much as possible, while trying to educate the older one and stop the younger one from destroying stuff. And I would absolutely get over my fear of screens – data would be my friend.
Fortunately, I had three major early breakthroughs. One, my wife pointed out that every week the school bunged a load of classwork on its website that I could print out to form a rudimentary “lesson plan”. Two, I successfully unearthed, recharged and remembered the password for the iPad we bought aeons ago and immediately ignored entirely. And three, I made the discovery that our TV – which we’ve owned for three years – has a YouTube Kids app installed.
Things started to fall into place. A loose but functional day of teaching was cobbled together from the plans provided by the school, interspersed with a selection of webcasts (Joe Wicks, Maddie and Greg’s Let’s Go Live) and some learning sites disguised as fun games (Teach Your Monster to Read, Carol Vorderman’s The Maths Factor). There was also the heavily rationed daily bribe of a Jurassic World game downloaded to the iPad, which the five-year-old was nuts for and the two-year-old was hypnotised by. It was definitely a tiny bit ramshackle, not least because the five-year-old is a small boy and the two-year-old is a shambling monster of pure id, and their priorities don’t always overlap.
More importantly, it was actually fun. Although I covered all the bases, I tried to make the learning lean on what the eldest enjoyed more, ie maths – thanks to the Vorderman website, his powers of adding and subtracting have come on way beyond what’s expected of a child in reception. If his attention was waning on phonics or handwriting, I could always look up some sort of dinosaur-themed variant on my phone.
Above all, as we emerge from lockdown (fingers crossed) I feel like a much better parent/tutor than I thought I was. I don’t think for a second I’m in the same league as the teachers at the eldest’s school, blessedly now reopened, but the fact is we survived. Some learning happened, and everybody basically had a good time. Lockdown could have been quite traumatic for the kids, but I think they actually had fun, and I suppose I did too.
And it’s not like things have simply reverted. When we go out – especially to meet my child-free friends – I’m not worried about breaking out the iPad or passing over my phone to keep the big child happy after a while. Do his maths or watch a video or download a new game on the Playtime Island app? Yes, absolutely, high five to unlimited data.
The new normal is still tough for kids, with playgrounds remaining shut in England, and confusing distancing rules to abide by. A quick shot of parentally supervised data can make them feel safe and familiar in still-strange circumstances. And while “How was school?” is a question that continues to get a very abstract response from the five-year-old at 3pm, when we get home we both look forward to playing his Jurassic World game. Sitting side-by-side, united by the screen, the details of his day trickle out. Because school must be a bit strange right now, with all the handwashing and attempts to social-distance small people who frequently forget. While we play his favourite game, we talk about what matters. We’re connected.
Looking at child-free friends’ anxiety-laden tweets, I wonder if I really would have had a marvellous time twiddling my thumbs through an unoccupied furlough – perhaps me and the kids actually got each other through it. Would I do it again? Well it looks like I’ll be able to deploy the grandparents come the summer holidays, and that more stuff will be open than closed. But whatever the case: I’ve got it covered. I know I can look after my children, and that knowledge is a wonderful thing.
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