2020 is the strangest year I have ever lived through, and there are still almost 3 months to go. Had you told me back in January, at the beginning of the year, that we were going to be in lockdown for 6 months, online schooling for a term and that my two skware pegs would have to deal with all that, plus job worries, cancelled holidays and other things, I would have panicked and I would have catastrophised. My goodness, how I would have catastrophised. I would have imagined meltdowns, panic attacks, anger, frustration, sadness and so much more.

Luckily, in January all we knew was there was a novel virus causing problems in Asia and in small hotspots around the globe. We had no idea the impact it was going to cause, and that we would still in in the grips of its effect 10 months on.

Many people have found 2020 unbelievably hard. Many have lost loved ones, either directly or indirectly due to C-19, and many have been unable to say their goodbyes. Weddings have been cancelled, holidays postponed, celebrations put on hold. Jobs have been lost, people have gone into debt, and cases of mental illness have increased.

However, for us, 2020 has made us stronger. Yes, there have been worries. Yes, work and money was a huge worry for a while. There were health issues (my grandmother was ill for a few months we were her carers) and we had cancelled big birthday & then wedding anniversary celebrations and holidays. There was the stress of juggling online schooling with working from home (& doing twice daily visits to Granny) and we did have some very dark moments. Nevertheless, out of the darkness has come a strength we didn’t know we had. Our family unit has become stronger than before. We have supported each other through bad days, we have talked, we have found new ways to celebrate and we have been through it all together.

My children have grown in mental strength and self belief. They know the uncertainty we have lived and continue to live through, and they know that we can do this together. We have been all been more honest & open about our feelings and our worries, and we have allowed each other more space too. We have found a real balance, and it’s been great!

I want C-19 to disappear, I want some certainty to return and I want to not be worried by increasing numbers and politicical rhetoric. I want to be able to go for a coffee with my grandmother and not have to worry about who else may be there, and I want to be able to hug friends I haven’t seen for a long time. I wish that friends who have lost loved ones to the virus hadn’t, I wish friends who have had the virus recover without ‘Long-Covid’, I wish businesses to recover and I wish that the people who are suffering from mental health issues, or are struggling right now could feel normal again. But I am pleased that C-19 taught us how to be a strong, resilient family, and I am glad that it has made us stronger.

I have friends who have young children, and they post pictures and comments on social media, and their friends inevitably comment. One thing that has really hit a nerve over the last few months (and maybe it’s just lockdown making me more sensitive to stuff) is people commenting on what a good baby/toddler/child it is because he or she sleeps, eats, uses a potty, goes to school without a fuss, and then that makes mum a good mum too. I need to point out that these posts have been from female friends hence good mum, but dad, grandparent, aunt/uncle or carer are interchangeable here.

My children didn’t sleep through (or at all), and my 15 year old still struggles with sleep when he’s anxious or going through tough teenage times. They were both picky with food, they didn’t always like school, they were (are) messy, they didn’t get As in all their reports, so does that make them bad children or me a bad mum? Actually, my sister and I were bad sleepers, so was my husband, and so was my mum. Were we all bad children, or just not ‘good’ children?

The way society perceives good is linked into normal or conforming behaviour. If your baby sleeps through the night from 6 weeks (or younger), and still does now they’re a toddler, plus they hit all their milestones early and were talking by 18 months and dry by day & night by 2, that’s great, it really is. No sarcasm at all here, I am pleased for you and your baby. But if your baby was still awake every night at 4 (years), refusing food, hating school and leaving the house with a winter coat in the middle of the summer because you HAVE to get food shopping and that’s the only way you could get them out of the house, then I see you, I hear you, and that’s great too.

There is so much societal judgement when we think about becoming parents (and an equal amount of judgement if we decide not to). If you dare to have a sip of wine, or a Mr Whippy ice cream when you’re pregnant, you will be judged by some. Work right til the end of pregnancy??? Don’t you think you should rest? Take early maternity leave??? What kind of example are you setting? Go back to work after 3 months?? Tut. Take extended maternity leave?? Tut. Decide to be a stay at home mum (or dad)?? Tut. Breast or bottle? Co sleep or separate rooms? Sleep training or feed on demand? Baby led weaning or pureed everything? Disposables or reusables? Nursery, childminder or grandparent? School, homeschool or unschool? And so the list goes on and on and on. We are judged by our peers (and ourselves) and so the comments about the ‘good baby’ who sleeps, or the ‘good toddler’ who eats cabbage and the ‘clever preschooler’ reading and writing can do harm.

We are bombarded with advice through the early parenting years (although that seems to dry up as they get older and turn into hormonal teens when advice would be very useful) and we do our best for our children. At the end of the day, whether you chose breast or bottle, co sleep or have a night nanny, become the puree queen or use fish fingers, if you and your baby are happy most of the time, and if your routine and choices suit you, then that’s enough. I had two amazingly good babies who grew up to be amazingly good adults, and they still don’t like cabbage, or sleep, or wearing coats (even in winter), or following the rules or societal expectations, and we’re doing just fine!

So, it’s finally here. After 5 months of schooling at home (I am really unwilling to call this home schooling) schools in England are opening in the next week or so. I’m lucky that our school is small, the year group bubbles aren’t too big, and they’ve asked the students to wear masks in corridors so I’m not too worried, and neither is the teen. However, lots of parents, teachers and students are understandably unsure about what’s going to happen.

The main worry in this house isn’t Covid, it’s the not knowing and the huge change in routine. Most children were last in school around 24 weeks ago – almost half a year. We were off from the 13th March because the teen, and then I, had a bad cough that may or may not have been ‘it’. By the time he was well enough to go back, schools had closed. He had completed about 60% of year 10 before lockdown, and then 33% was online, so we have a missing 7%, but compared to many, we are fortunate that there were online lessons for the summer term that he found engaging and so I don’t think he’s too far behind. That saying, he is going into a new year with a new routine, timetable, regime and so much more. Although he is going back to a school he has known for 12 years (his brother was there before him) everything is going to feel different.

As parents, how do we help our children through this? For us, it’s all about talking, listening and really hearing what our children are saying. We’ve had a tough week or so, with lots of sighing and shoulder shrugs, which means we’ve had a week or so of listening and doing whatever the teen wants us to do. He’s spent lots of time in his room watching whatever he wants on TV, but we’ve also had walks, he’s come with me to the recycling centre (oh, the excitement) so that we could chat on the way there and back, and we’ve let him choose what to watch in the evenings when he’s come to sit with us. We’ve acknowledged that this is strange, and that everyone is going to find the next few weeks odd as we all get used to the new normal in schools, colleges and universities. We’ve also acknowledged that there isn’t a right or wrong way to feel, and that there can be a mix of emotions – they can look forward to going back AND feel worried about going back AND feel pleased they can escape from us for a day AND not want to leave us for a day, all at the same time. No one has ever been through this before, we are in new territory, and we have to find our own way.

I am lucky that my job has quite flexible hours, and so I can take the time to sit and chat, or sit and be ignored, but if you work, if it’s possible, over the next few weeks, please make sure you check in on your children when you have time. Sometimes when I know something isn’t quite right but he doesn’t want to talk about it, I’ll take my laptop and sit on his floor and work while he watches telly or plays a game, and then at least I’m there. However, if he wants to be on his own, I respect that and leave him for a little while.

Parenting when there isn’t a global pandemic can be hard, and parenting at the moment really feels like wading through treacle wearing lead boots at times. This post may resonate with you, in which case, use the bits that you find useful, or it may not, and may seem utter nonsense – and that’s fine! We all have our own parenting styles and we all have our own highly individual children. However, whatever you think of my ramblings, I hope that if the next few weeks (??months) seem hard, you will message me here, or via social media (find me on FB, and Twitter) if you need someone to listen. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I am here, and I will listen and I will hold your hand if you need me to.

It seems strange how quickly we adapt to a new normal. When schools shut down 5 months ago, we had no idea how long the schools would be shut for, we had no idea how much the country would shut down or the impact all this would have on our mental health. So here we are, a week away from schools returning in England and Wales, and a week or two after schools going back in Scotland.

To be honest, I’m still not convinced it’s all going to happen next week. Today on the radio there have been discussions about wearing face masks in schools in England (it has just been introduced in secondary schools in Scotland for communal spaces) and social media is full of people saying it’s all a hoax, or that it’s never going away. There are reports about the R number rising, and scientific advisers telling us that this new normal is probably going to be here for at least a year. My gut says something is brewing in the media or government and there will be an announcement in the next few days……

But, for now, let’s ignore my gut and assume the schools go back. The teen is anxious and apprehensive, but not much more than in other years. He’s worried about going in to Y11, he’s worried about Y11, GCSEs and what teachers he will have, and he’s worried about the changes that will inevitably happen when he goes back, but he’s not actually worried about the virus (however, he woke up with a runny nose, and had a bit of a wobble, but he doesn’t have a temperature, isn’t coughing and his sense of smell is as sensitive as ever, so it is just a cold). I trust his school to do everything they can to protect the students and teachers, and it helps that it’s relatively small with lots of outside space. Unless we have to isolate, or there’s a local lockdown I won’t be keeping him at home as he wants to be back and learning. He’s spent the summer looking up degree courses and he knows what results he wants next summer, knows his A-level choices and knows what grades he needs to get into the courses he’s interested in. Although I teach and tutor, I don’t have the facilities to get him the grades he needs (unless anyone has an empty science lab I can borrow??), so for his long term mental health, he needs to go back.

However, I understand that many parents and children are worried. I also understand that many parents and grandparents will be torn right now. They need a little down time, they have been juggling home life, work life, home schooling and lockdown, and in a week or so, they may get a little bit of breathing space and are probably counting down the days. They will also be worried about what happens when their children go back to school. Will the children come into contact with the virus? Will they get ill? Will they bring it home? Will they cope with the new normal in school with bubbles and staggered timetables? Will they have done enough work at home? Will they be behind? Will there be extra homework? What exactly will the new school routine feel like?

So many questions, so many feelings, so many worries and mixed emotions – and that’s just the adults! There is an inevitability to the anxiety and feelings that we are feeling at the moment. In our house, we talk about our feelings and thoughts and it helps. This came from a need to articulate emotions and how we process feelings that I first blogged about here. We acknowledge that there is often no logic to anxiety – although I think there is logic to being worried at the moment – and that we all cope with anxiety in different ways. It’s OK to worry, and at the moment, it’s to be expected.

I’m afraid there are no words of wisdom to end this post – just to let you know that we’re all in the same boat; mixed emotions, worries, uncertainty and the juxtaposition that we want to wrap our kids in cotton wool while letting them go back and be kids again. It’s going to be interesting, it’s going to be tough at times, but the virus isn’t going anywhere, and we need to find the new educational normal to let our children be children. If that means they go back next week with masks and face shields, that’s fine. If that means that you have decided home schooling is the way to go, good for you. If that means that you’re just going to spend too much time looking at the news, school websites, and eat too many biscuits, hey, that’s where I am right now too!

I have read a few posts this week talking about sleep, potty training, weaning, feeding teenagers, screen time…….and the list goes on and on and on.

Our children didn’t sleep, at all, ever. I joke that I have had 24 years of sleep deprivation as at the end of my first pregnancy I was so big and our baby was so wriggly and 1996 was a hot summer, so I found it hard to sleep. We tried sleep training (nope, did not work at all), co sleeping (1 would sleep well, 2, not so well, guess who slept (hint, they were under 4)), cots, cot beds, futons, lavender, baths, lavender baths, baby massage, cranio-sacral therapy, early bed times, late bedtimes, no bedtimes (going to bed with us), and nothing worked, our kids just did not like sleeping on their own.

However, for us, potty training was sooooooo easy! Both boys were out of nappies in the day by 20 months with no accidents. Our eldest took longer to be dry at night because of a kidney problem, but our youngest was dry at night at two. It just worked and was easy! Lots of no nappy time, then we bought them ‘big boy pants’ and that was it. Unless they got very distracted, they were dry.

Food – argh!!! As long as we cooked the same kind of food, they ate. I remember when our eldest was in hospital for a week when he was 7 months and everyone was amazed that he ate whatever was on offer from the children’s menu rather than baby food, but then he started nursery at 2 and started to hate food. Similar pattern with our youngest – eat anything and then eat nothing. I think they both survived on beige food from 5 to 15.

Feeding teens – endless beige food with fruit seems to be the norm in this house, although that is improving.

Screen time? Yes, they have lots of screen time (obviously our eldest does what he wants now, but this refers to him as a teen). They are dyslexic, and YouTube is for them what the local library was for me. They watch highbrow videos, utter trash and everything in between, pretty much like the books I read when I was 15.

Every family is different, and every child is different, and as long as the child is loved, fed, looked after and clean, nothing else really matters. When they are little, breast vs bottle is an odd argument. Feed the baby, love the baby and look after mum (& dad) too.

No one knows your baby/toddler/child/pre teen/teen/young adult as much as you do. Trust your gut, but if you are struggling or have a question or just need reassurance, please ask someone you trust rather than a stranger on social media and above all, do what works for you.

So, we are 19 weeks into lockdown (we had to isolate a week early due to a persistent cough) and although society is starting to ease out of it, we are still pretty isolated with minimal trips into the land of people! We haven’t just coped, we have thrived.  There have been some dark days for all of us, online schooling was stressful, the drop in income for 3 months was terrifying, but our little family unit has come through it stronger than ever, and I think I know why.

For the last 24 years (how is it that long???) our lives have been governed by one, and then two demanding individuals. They both have additional needs (or protected characteristics, hidden disabilities, SEND, however you want to classify things), and so, as parents, we had to adapt very quickly. Sleep deprivation was the norm from the last 3 months of my pregnancy with the older one, until he was about 7, and then I had a very nauseous pregnancy with the younger one, and the sleep deprivation continued, and still continues today, so for the last 24 years, we’ve had about 6 months of decent sleep.

Because of the sleep issues, separation anxiety, general anxiety, ADHD anger and ASD meltdowns, nights away for me were impossible, so we have only had 2 nights away child free since May 1996! Nights out were often brought to an abrupt end or cancelled as new babysitters were rejected.

My husband has always stayed away for work, so the boys were used to him being away and he has been able to escape on nights out with his friends a little more often, but still not as often as his peers.   I have had to turn down so many nights out that people stopped asking, and then I read social media posts about other people having fun, having holidays and living a vibrant, busy life, and I really felt I was being left behind.  It was so hard at the time to see my peers off having fun while I was holding a sick bowl or dealing with a meltdown, or just sitting with my glass of wine.

Thanks to Covid, however, I can look back and see it differently.  In our house there are two grown up adults (me and my husband), a 23 year old with ADHD and a history of mental health issues such as depression and OCD and a 15 year old with ASD & clinical anxiety. We have been together 24/7 (more or less) since the middle of March. 

However, we really have had a great time in lockdown. We’ve built a wildlife pond, made a bridge out of a ladder and planks to get to our wildlife pond. We’ve enjoyed our animals more, found zen-ness with equine therapy, laughed as we’ve chased hens round a field and cursed as we’ve scrambled through brambles catching escaping cockerels.  We’ve grown veg, read books, binge-watched new series and rediscovered old ones. We’ve established a family movie night, created amazing meals and tried new food. We supported new ventures, learned sign language (although that’s ongoing) and we’ve supported each other through the darker days.

What I used to see as being left behind wasn’t at all. I was building. When other people were out partying and having fun, we were building foundations for our quirky, amazing children, and for ourselves. We were building a life we don’t need to escape from so that when holidays are cancelled, we shrug our shoulders and carry on living at home. When we can’t go out for meals, we create interesting meals at home. When cafes are closed, we make our own cafe outside, next to the outdoor gym which was made when the public gyms closed. When we can’t go to the cinema, we watch films together, sitting on the sofa, laughing or crying together.

I have not missed out on anything over the last 24 years. I have been building my castle, and now I can stand at the top, look around me and love everything I see. 

We are at the end of week 2 of lockdown, but as we were in isolation for the week before, this is actually the end of week three for us. It has been hard – much harder than I anticipated, and not in the ways I expected.

Our teen has sensory processing issues, so food can be major stumbling block. Smells, tastes and textures are the main issues, so there is one preferred brand of cheese, limited vegetables, and most veggie stuff is a big no, so when lockdown happened, this was my biggest worry – how would he cope with not being able to pop to the local supermarket when something ran out? Actually, this part has been a breeze! He has been so good about trying new foods, about not keeping to our regular routine and has been so flexible. He is coming up with suggestions of meals to try knowing what is in our freezer, and so far, so good.

Even schooling wasn’t too bad last week. We set up a little pod for him at the top of the stairs with a small table and light, and each day when I got back from sorting out the animals, he was sitting there getting on with his work…..but then the novelty wore off, and he felt he couldn’t do this any more. I know what he means. The Sunday before the home schooling started, I cried. I cried because I didn’t want to be in this situation. We have considered home schooling for both of the boys, but in both cases decided no. With our teen, it was his decision. School had to be school, home had to be home, so we kept him at school. Now, though, the timing is bad. He finally has a tribe, he has friends, he has a social group. He comes out of school and tells me what this person has said, or that person has said. He has been in education for almost 12 years (if you include his time in nursery) and this is the first time this has happened, and now it’s lost.

He won’t call people, doesn’t go online, and is actually happy on his own. It is far too easy for him to isolate, to shut himself off. That part of lockdown isn’t a problem, but lockdown will end one day, hopefully not too far away, and then he has to go back. He has to leave his solitary bubble and go back and be a teenager, and that will be hard. The noise, the people, the conversations……..will it all be too much? Will it set him back? Or will he just carry on from where lockdown started and go back to his social behaviour?

Although being on his own isn’t a problem, home schooling has been this week. On Sunday he said that he couldn’t do this week. Every day was the same, and he just couldn’t do it. He had Monday off, and then I spoke to our wonderful Senco on Tuesday, and he has had a very low workload this week, with the idea that he will catch up over the Easter break. That has made a little bit of a difference, but this week has been hard. We have spent the last three nights on the sofa, he is struggling to get to sleep, because, as he told me last night, ‘If tomorrow is going to be the same as today, I don’t want to wake up to that so I don’t want to go to sleep’. We are in Groundhog day, I suppose. Anyway, to solve this, today we are baking, and then having a bonfire in the garden (teen and fire is a worrying but happy combination), so I am hoping that will make today a little better. We have decided that each evening we will choose two things that we are going to do the next day, so there is the motivation to go to sleep. It definitely worked last night as he (& so me) was asleep before midnight.

The priority for me for the next couple of weeks is his mental health and well being. School work will wait, mental health and well being will not. Usually in this situation, I would take him for a long walk in the Peaks, or to Sherwood Forest, but this isn’t an option, so we will do what we can in this strange, novel situation, and we will take one day at a time, and we will find our new normal, and hope it doesn’t last too long.

We live in very strange times. Nothing is certain, the news is scary, the supermarkets are full of people fighting over loo rolls, and there is a global pandemic of a new virus that in many cases is mild and is no more than a bad cold or mild flu, but in up to 4% of cases is fatal. Globally, hospitals and health care systems are being pushed to breaking point because of the volume of patients who need intensive care treatment. Some leaders seem as lost as we feel, and the advice coming from the top seems to change on a daily, or in some times hourly basis.

This week, vulnerable people have been advised to self-isolate for up to 12 weeks, and now schools are shutting to most students, possibly until September. That’s 5 months of our darlings at home, with limited places to visit and to explore and a changing world that we need to explain to them.

I am going to do a weekly blog, on top of any other ramblings I may post, to talk about how we are doing, to share information and ideas, and to try and build a sense of community. As you will know from previous blogs, my children are now 23 & 15, but between them have a variety of learning/social barriers including autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, anxiety and Irlen Syndrome, so we are used to thinking outside the box, or even like there is no box. Hopefully my musings will help you all, but please either comment on the blog or on social media if you have found good or bad things that would be good to share – and things that didn’t work can be as useful as things that do!

This week, our youngest and I have been on house arrest as we both have a cough. Is it C-19? Probably not, but it is a persistent cough, we are both really tired and were achy at the start, so we’re not taking any chances. To be honest, he hasn’t really been well enough to look at the work school have sent through, and until last night wasn’t really that interested in what was going on. However, as the school closures became official, he started to rant about everything the government could have done differently, how the closures are too late, how all the governments should have worked together more….and so it went on. It’s good that he’s feeling better, but this anger will be around for a while.

I’m not going to start home schooling properly until Monday as he still isn’t 100% and I’m not up to the battles. However, I do need to plan at least an outline of what we will be doing over the next few weeks. We need a timetable or procrastination and distraction will mean we’ve baked a lot of scones, but haven’t really progressed with higher level GCSE maths! I think a couple of hours a day schooling, with a break in between, and then time outside gardening, walking the dog, going to the local National Trust property (while avoiding people), meeting up with friends, if we can, and whatever else we may decide to do, that fits into the government guidelines at the time.

I am not dreading this – there is a little apprehension – but we have become obsessed with being busy, with rushing from one thing to the next, to have the latest, to buy the latest, and that’s not an option right now. The first thing on our non-school list is gardening. Plant seeds, nurture them, and eat them when they are ready. We are going to watch the seasons change, and we are going to make the most of this enforced break, and we are going to listen to the earth, and listen to ourselves.

This year has been tough on our teen, and we’re only at the beginning of March. There was an issue just after Christmas which I mentioned here, and although school handled it incredibly well, we had ongoing issues because of the effect this had (also discussed in the post). It was a long half term up until February, half term itself was not relaxing as it was just a countdown to going back, and then the anxiety, worry and expectation of a downturn hit again as soon as he was back.

I emailed school and I spoke to the SenCo. I explained the situation and they were very understanding and put support in place in lessons where needed. However, they couldn’t sort out what was going on inside his head, and neither could I. It then occurred to me that a year ago when I was GCSE Options time, he sorted out a clash of subjects while I was exchanging emails with the head of year. Earlier this academic year there was another problem that I was trying to sort out that he gave a concise and logical argument in favour of his point of view.

I deferred the battle to him. I reminded him of his successful track record, and I told him that if this one small aspect of school was as bad as it felt, do something.

He did.

He emailed the SenCo and Head of Year and asked for a meeting. At the meeting he was a calm, composed and eloquent. He explained the problem, explained in detail about how it affected his mental health not just during the lesson, but before and after. He explained why their measures that had been introduced to help him wouldn’t work, and he got the outcome he wanted.

I wouldn’t want to repeat the last few weeks, but I also wouldn’t want to take it away or stop the bad things happen. Our teen is a different person. He is stronger, because he took control and sorted out his problem. He is more confident because of sorting out the problem, but also because he found out he had the backing of the sports team. He is even walking with more self belief and attitude – and his rugby has suddenly reached a new level. I’ve even had a glimpse of teenage grumpiness and grunting!

Dealing with this situation, deciding to sort it out himself and finding a bigger tribe has been invaluable for his mental well-being. He has come out of this stronger, and it’s a fabulous thing to see!