27 Mar Run Your Household Like a Business During COVID-19

Run Your Household Like a Business During COVID-19

Use these strategies borrowed from work to help your family thrive during coronavirus!

Video conferencing Run Your Household Like a Business During COVID-19

Daily “Team” Meetings

AM:

• Discuss plan for the day
• Make sure each member has a schedule that includes work time, play time, rest time, fresh air, socializing and age-appropriate chores
• Tell kids about important calls/video conferences that cannot be interrupted, ask for their cooperation and give reminders as the time gets closer

PM:

• Reflect on the day @ dinner by asking “What did we learn?” and “How can we make tomorrow better?”
• Use 3 ups, 1 down, and 1 cheer to start a dinner conversation. Each person names 3 positive things that happened, 1 negative thing that happened, and they “cheer” 1 person for something they did that was nice
• Use this time to invite your kids into decision-making conversations, they will be more cooperative when they’ve been a participant in making the decisions, such as:
• How much TV/phone time is too much?
• Meal ideas for the week
• Family time ideas such as movie suggestions, board games, crafts

Build Up Team Morale

• Compliment your children’s efforts to cope with change, celebrate moments of kindness, and emphasize that “we’re all in this together”
• Look at COVID-19 as a challenge to conquer instead of a problem to hide from
• Go-to mantra, “We can handle this!”

Create Opportunities for Team Building Activities

• Discuss household chores and identify age-appropriate ways all members can help keep the household running. Consider picking a time frame when everyone does their chores at the same time, put music on, make it fun!
• Position older children as “assistants” to help out younger siblings instead of relying on parents for everything
• Choose a household spring cleaning task and let everyone choose their role, make it fun, celebrate when it’s completed with a special snack, activity, outdoor time together

Define Personal Goals

• Parents: choose a daily or weekly goal such as:
• Committing to 20 mins (or more) of exercise per day
• Establish better boundaries by shutting down work at a designated time each day to embrace family time (even if your work is not completed)
• Meditating each morning for 1-5 minutes using an app like HeadSpace or Calm

• Kids: help them identify an area for improvement for the day/week such as:
• Establishing better skills for staying organized
• Practice self-initiating tasks for school
• Creating a schedule for themselves
• Daily fresh air (for those kids who are resistant)
• Teaching kids skills for new technology they’re using so they can set themselves up on the computer/access necessary materials without your assistance
• Empower kids to self-advocate with teachers via email instead of relying on you to be the liaison

Schedule One-on-one Meetings with Each Other

• Spend 1:1 time with each child everyday for 10 minutes doing an activity of their choice
• Let children lead during this time, you follow along
• This helps you “fill their cup” with focused and undivided attention from each parent, creating a bond that supports greater cooperation, mood regulation, and connectedness
• Seize the opportunity to tell your child positive observations you’ve made of them during this challenging time

Blow off Steam!

• Make sure laughter and fun are a fixture in your day every day
• Laughter will help big emotions evaporate allowing everyone to reduce stress, have more patience and be more forgiving and tolerant of each other

Business During COVID-19