School administration is encouraging parents to focus on building strong family relationships and their children’s core skills amid concerns of the impact the coronavirus(COVID-19) pandemic might have on their academics.
In a letter sent out to parents Caldwell County Schools Superintendent Nate Huggins states that if parents are concerned that their children might be missing out on academic content it’s best to remember that at a time like this, less is more. He is encouraging parents to focus on quality instead of quantity and center their child’s day around playtime, family time, and downtime when required. He adds that parents can think about how to develop their child’s core skills as opposed to trying to re-create school content by assigning extra work.
Superintendent Huggins notes that critical skills for all students include reading, problem solving, and communication, as well as social-emotional skills like resilience, collaboration, flexibility, and positive coping. He states that a child’s day-to-day schedule can include such things as social time – children are more likely to be missing the social aspects of school more than the academics so a great thing to do would be connect with friends near and far through Facetime, social media, phone calls, and even handwritten letters; reading for pleasure – time spent reading is strongly linked to academic achievement and re-reading childhood favorites, reading aloud, reading interactively with a family member, or listening to audiobooks are all excellent ways to support literacy skills; spending quality time with family – while it may feel like there’s nothing but family time right now, making sure to spend actual time together like preparing and eating meals together, playing games, or taking a long walk, will help calm fears and let children know parents are there to keep them healthy and safe; personal interest projects – find time for children to explore their own interest areas by giving them a choice to explore something they are curious about or have always wanted to learn; helping around the house – contributing to the family by doing household chores can build responsibility and independence; helping others when they can – as a family discuss ways to be of service to someone else like organizing a food drive between neighbors or reaching out to seniors to see what they might need; daily exercise for the whole family – go for a run or walk, coordinate with friends to do virtual workouts on Facetime, or put on some music and dance; balancing screen time – try to balance work time, both for parents and children, with ample breaks and time to connect; and make sure the whole family gets sufficient sleep – most children do not get the 8 to 10 hours of sleep they actually need so use this time to develop good sleep habits by keeping electronic devices out of bedrooms, getting to bed early, or even letting children sleep in a bit longer than usual now that they don’t have to catch the school bus.
Superintendent Huggins stresses that setting up a daily schedule that includes some of these suggestions will help children learn important academic, social, and emotional skills that will prepare them for returning to the classroom as well as help them become successful outside of the classroom. He is also urging parents to communicate with their child’s teachers, counselors, or principals if they feel the workload given to their child is too much for their child or their home situation.
Superintendent Huggin’s full letter can be found below, or you can visit the school district’s website here.
