Helping the children we love with their homework is not only central to their intellectual and emotional development, it also teaches self-discipline and, as Steve Jobs suggested, one of the most important determinants of happiness in today’s fast moving world, i.e.: perseverance. Sure, it can be a hair pulling exercise, at least for those mere mortals among us with no teaching experience, but its a duty that we must lean into.
This is especially true when we’re apart. Not only can your loving assistance help to foster a stronger connection between you and the children you love, but it can also serve as a massive dose of ‘over the horizon relief’ for the caregiver left behind – who often feels like the unappreciated task master, while you get to skip in and out (virtually of course) with fun calls and carefree interactions.
But what to do? Simple. Try ConnectedApart’s ‘top five’ for starters:
- Check in on homework: make sure, during your interactions, to supplement fun times with session on schoolwork, extracurricular activities and homework (not that this shouldn’t be fun too!). Offer to help with homework remotely, ask to see something that the child you love is doing in class – for example in terms of reading, writing, science, maths – and ask for a special demonstration of their favourite sport. You could make school work questions part of every call and/or schedule a special session once a week, to work on a particular subject/activity.
- Start up ‘Problem Solving Central’: In addition to checking in on homework, hold a special session on problem solving: use child/age-friendly examples from your life and invite the children you love to share problems from their lives too. Its a nice way for you to connect with the real day-to-day challenges of the kid/s you love, and to teach problem solving skills at the same time.
- Read books to the children you love – either take them with you, download one via amazon, or use an online service such as Levar Burton Kids’ Skybrary (just pick a book and hold the screen of one device up to the webcam of another) or something like readeo (with its ‘bookchat’ feature).
- Ask the child/caregiver/s to install a particular educational app on their/the family’s tablet/iPad/computer, which you can play together. Then spend some time together with the kid you love, via video chat, while s/he plays the app, or play the game together.
- Ask the school of the children you love whether they use, or would consider using, Seesaw. Its a great app to stay connected with what, and how, they are doing at school.
Check out some more free ideas on this and other topics under ‘Commitment Three‘ at ConnectedApart.
Stay connected with the children you love when you’re apart by bookmarking ConnectedApart.com, by joining the ConnectedApart Community on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter (and share your ideas!) and by signing up for ConnectedApart’s free idea-letter, delivered once-monthly, directly to your inbox.
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