With the arrival of COVID 19, co-parenting challenges gained another line item: online learning. It is quite possible that assisting your child with 2nd grade math as the stand-in assistant teacher never entered your mind when you first became a parent or co-parent. It takes so much time, effort and patience to get your child set up and connected at the appointed online class time, to foster attendance at “community” time with the teacher to stay in touch with classmates, and to complete all the worksheets and assignments.
It certainly doesn’t help that most teachers are learning this new way of doing things right there along with you, as co-parents. There may be some moments when you are more forgiving of the teacher’s learning curve. As you “teach” your child at home, you may find you are gleaning new insights into your student’s strengths and weaknesses - at least in this learning format – even if you attended all your parent-teacher conferences in the past. You also may have a new appreciation and respect for the job of a teacher, wondering just how the teacher manages a room full of students like your own.
While you are having all these revelations about the teacher-student side of things, quite possibly you are also feeling some frustration with how your co-parent is implementing online learning during his or her parenting time. If you have different parenting styles and lock heads frequently about things like homework, study space, and expectations associated with education, the odds that you are now having some conflict with your co-parent about online learning are even greater.
This is a perfect moment to remind yourself of one of the golden rules of co-parenting: giving the other parent the benefit of the doubt. Yes, it is easier said than done. However, this new supporting role as assistant teacher is new to both of you. The role may be more natural to one of you, but quite possibly neither of you have been trained and have experience in teaching second grade. Additionally, it is quite likely that you and your co-parent do not have the same household. One or both of you may live with other adults. One or both of you may have other children who reside in the home. These other adults and the children may have work – school or employment-related – that they are trying to complete during the same times that your child is expected to be appearing in the online classroom, attending community time, or completing assignments.
There’s also a real possibility that someone in the other parent’s household is sick. After all, the whole reason we are sheltering in place is because there is a novel virus among us. But there’s always still the usual chronic physical ailments of the season like allergies and migraines. Really, a host of potential physical or mental health issues could be impacting the “learning environment” in the other co-parent’s home.
So, if you are finding yourself frustrated with how your co-parent is handling your child’s online learning experience, my first suggestion is to reserve judgment. We’re all just doing the best we can in every regard during this unanticipated pandemic. Online learning is just one of many arenas where a deep breath helps before charging forward.
I hear you saying that you are concerned about how all this is going to impact your child’s education and intellectual development in the long term. And it may to some degree. However, the lost classroom time is going to affect nearly every student in America – and absolutely every student in your child’s class who is experiencing the transition to online learning that your student is navigating. Some children may appear to be flourishing. It may also seem that other families are hitting all the benchmarks. Resist the competitive parenting streak within you. This is not a race. There may not even be any grades. And there certainly is no prize for over achievement in online learning, when remaining alive and in continued good health are the real measure of success at the moment.