500 grams of pasta for seven Esser, four video-conferencing programs and tents in the garden. Large family Hills experienced the time of the lock downs as a particularly exhausting and extremely rewarding.
How will we remember back to this Corona time? How will we evaluate these strange months, as in Germany, thousands have died, even more economic hardships were and the entire public life collapsed? I don’t trust it to tell me, but I enjoyed the time, all the challenges in Spite of, to fight with our family budget was.
Five children to keep the fun
We have a daughter in the seventh grade, twin girls in the fifth grade and two boys in Kindergarten, three and six years old. Five lively children, including a Hyper active autistic, we serve suddenly all tags, care for, and had to keep the fun. Seven good eaters that wanted to be cooked in a time where there is pasta, no flour, yet, still have to buy toilet paper gave. The Lockdown led us to our limits and gave us new rooms. But after the series.
summer camp-mood
on Friday, 13. In March, the school closures will be announced, come to our three girls beaming with joy, home from school. For you is clear: “We have Corona holidays!” Also, I’m immediately in the summer camp mood: The prospect of a couple of unexpected days off allows us to directly make plans. We could renovate some of the fun baths canvass, well-Known to visit and a few rooms. A few days later, is clear: nothing will come of It.
at the Beginning of high
motivated The first few weeks of the home schoolings beautiful bring creative results and us to the brink of despair. The girls throw themselves highly motivated for their tasks. An essay in Religion about four pages? “It has been so much fun,” proclaimed Amelie (13). And the two fifth graders in the inner Aurelia and Valentina make vile book reviews epic works of art, 13 pages. I rings with me: Should I use the brake, in order to divide your forces better? Or you should promote joyful learning-seizures, because the fun of the thing is more important than any cost-Benefit calculus?
The decision is going to be removed. When the girls realize that more and more tasks arrive, giving way to the enthusiasm of sheer panic: “How are we supposed to do all this, dad?”, you moan, while the printer spits out the worksheets by the dozen. It is obvious that your teachers are highly motivated in the thing.
Homeschooling + home office = home katastrop hung
I’m also a teacher and is also very motivated to make the Best of the remote schooling to get. And since you do as a teacher anyway, a good part of the work at home on your Desk or kitchen table should be a few extra hours of work at home is actually not a Problem, I think.
I think wrong. Instead of Home-Officer, I am an office clerk (“dad, can you print it?”), Tutor (“I do not understand the math task!” – “What exactly do you not understand?” – “Everything!”), IT specialist (“We need to install the Zoom, our video conference starts!”), Audience (“I’ll read you my story, Yes?”), Educators (“stop hitting your brother!”) and children’s nurses (“ABPUUUTZEN!”). In addition, each shopping suddenly takes hours, because you have to scour a half-dozen supermarkets, until you can get six rolls of toilet paper, a Kilo of flour and nowhere to yeast. I note that all the supermarkets are convinced that 500 grams of a budget noodles for a seven-member family, the usual amount present.
Work until two o’clock in the night
And finally, our little guys need a lot of attention, especially our autistic Constantine (6). That is why my own teaching preparation does not move far into the night hours, before two o’clock, I was coming to bed. Note: anyone Who thinks that the home office and child services were easy to connect with each other, not both understood.
technology is a drain on the nerves
Especially the technical side of the home schoolings nerve-rackingly. Many schools used the learning platform moodle collapses under the massive onslaught, is in the first few weeks, hardly usable. The teacher of my children, looking for Alternatives, in short succession, two learning platforms and four different video conference be used in programs that must be installed on the Smartphones of children and do not work-sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes not at all. How much Stress, frustration, and suffering feel all the students that have no support by tech-savvy parents?
A week plan must be
After the first, chaotic week, we decide to bring more structure in our Corona everyday. Every Sunday night we do family Council. While the little boys sleep, we reflect on the highlights of the last few days, addressing the problems (duration of topic: the always upgradeable in the kitchen) and plan the next week. There are now in the morning, fixed learning times and break times. The warm meals are set so that we don’t have to decide every day what there is to eat. And it is with great pleasure we consider special activities: Bicycle tours, craft afternoons, games or movie nights, Spa treatments with homemade cucumber mask by candlelight in the living room, reading-evenings, Nights in the garden, Raclette evenings, work assignments … Here we learn an incredible enrichment of our family life! So many beautiful and intensely used of hours with my children, I have not experienced in the last ten years!
The most intimate Celebration
one of the highlights of our 20. The day of the wedding. So far, Catherine and I, our wedding day had committed a rather unspectacular with an evening visit to a restaurant. Now what? We take the bull defiantly by the horns. Grandma and grandpa, we live in a house, be invited formally by a card – “to a festive wardrobe is requested”. Throughout the day, a sumptuous Three-course menu, prepare Katharina and I in the kitchen, the living room is cleared out and in a ballroom transformed into, where we reactivate after Dinner, the wedding dance, and move with the children a cheerful Dancers.
Nice And quirky it was. It was the first day of the wedding, we really celebrated. And it was simultaneously the most intimate Celebration, we have aligned ever.
mowing the lawn, Mopping, window cleaning
Whether it will give the family and the week’s plans, even after Corona yet, I don’t know. An action we will, however, remain in any case: the labour office. This activity was born out of necessity: Since our five children, ravage the apartment faster than you can clean up after, we have noted at some point all the tasks on Post-Its and with asterisk. Then all compete, so a lot of Work to do as possible, with the collected asterisk coveted prizes (movie, choose a Snack choose to get more phone time, etc.). This is an absolute Win-Win-Win Situation. The apartment is clean, would have a lot of “The-will-we-done-sometime-be-Working screw-on”and children learn by the way, mowing the lawn, Mopping and window cleaning.
What will stay with me in memory? In addition to the sense of threat and concern to my I would like to think, especially to the beautiful sides of Love: In the weeks without countless dates, at the later Breakfast, to grow together as a family. And the fact that we are all here, hopefully well out of this crisis.
This article was written by Hauke Hills
*The post “”How are we supposed to do all this, dad?” – The father of a large family tells the story of the Corona of everyday life” is published by Family.de. Contact with the executives here.
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