One day at a time

Kate Peers - 20 Apr 20

I went to the local shop yesterday and asked the shopkeeper why flour is in such shortage locally. “Bread making, of course.” She replied. The lady in front turned round and commented, “They obviously don’t have my children.” I must admit that it made me feel a little better, I wasn’t the only parent not baking and doing daily crafts with the boys.

The whole thing started off pretty well.  Two of the boys had coughs, so we had to suddenly pull them out of to self isolate. There was some excitement amongst the bewilderment.   They were keen to draw up a home school timetable. This involved painting rainbows, watching Horrible Histories and working out how many V. Bucks (Fortnite currency) it would take to buy new skins in Fortnite; essential life skills.

Schools went into lockdown soon after and What’s App was buzzing at a rate of every few seconds. Timetable suggestions, live art classes, craft ideas, cookery lessons, meditation classes, animal feeding from Zoos and of course Joe Wickes, PE teacher to the nation.

They lost interest fast. Teaching a five, seven and ten year old at the same time, near on impossible and one with autism and adhd; it quickly became clear that we needed to focus on mental wellbeing for all, and not worry about schooling.

My son loves structure. He adores school for this very reason. At school he has the same teachers, same class, same subjects. When things are different, he finds it hard. Not knowing what is happening causes him immense stress and anxiety. Think of it like a panic attack and not a badly behaved child because this is how it is for him. His anxiety can display in several ways but mainly by shouting, crying and throwing things. We live in a bungalow. It can be pretty intense for us all.

As adults, we are struggling to compute the world around us but my son is finding it very frustrating. You can see your friends but only on a computer screen. School carries on but at the kitchen table with Mummy. We can’t go to your favourite shop because it is closed. A supermarket slot is like a lottery win, our normal snacks aren’t in the local shop.

We came out of self isolation after 14 days. The world as we left it had completely changed. People were wearing masks and gloves, no-one was hoarding toilet paper anymore, they were queueing down the car parks at 2 metre distances with their trolleys waiting to go in. I muted the What’s App groups to take control of the constant noise. The school timetable we created was binned. As my sons anxiety increased, so did mine. Things were getting worse and not better. He was not adapting to this new bizarre normal. I asked for help from our usual child support teams but with no home visits it wasn’t easy. In the end I emailed school who responded immediately and have allowed him to go in. The teachers are my heroes right now, providing him with some kind of normal, except it’s not as only about six children are there each day.

My husband and I are both still working. The ten year old is getting really good at Fortnite. The five year old is creating art masterpieces, he’s becoming excellent at crying at the slightest thing too. The boys built a two storey cardboard box fort, they also dug a massive hole in the garden which kept them busy for two days. I painted myself a new shed (my quiet zone). We have had some good moments but I’ve realised that for us, time does not need to be filled, space to breathe is more crucial. Just because there are incredible resources doesn’t mean we have to use them all. Who knows, maybe we will try to make bread at some point, but not today. We simply need to take things one day at a time.

Kate is owner of Department Store For The Mind. £3 from the sale of every One Day At A Time print goes to NHS Charities Together.

Kate Peers

Mum to three boys under nine. Writer, sea swimmer and social media manager.

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