Surviving at Home

As we all adjust to much more time within the walls of our homes, we have to find ways to maintain a healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy spirit. Several daily schedules have been posted on various online platforms, and having a strict daily schedule is not a bad thing and for some, it works ideally. But it is not required in order to remain healthy overall. We all have to make things work for us, in our circumstances, and with our specific family unit. So here are some basic guidelines for routines that are important to help families stay positive, cohesive, productive, and healthy.

1. Make a routine and stick to it. Just as you would if kids were going to school and if parents were going to work. Get up at a certain time, do chores and school work at a certain time, have family time and personal down times at certain points of each day. Go to bed at a regular time as well. Do not cave to the temptation to shift into a vacation mindset where schedules are abandoned. Save it for the weekends at least. Regular routines offer stability and instill confidence.

2. Alternate active times with less active times and group time with personal time. No one is at their best when they have been in one mode too long. When kids get antsy and irritable, try altering the activity to something opposite of what they've been doing. Alternate independent time, with small group time, with large group (family) time. Alternate physical activities with mental activities and person to person interaction with alone time. Having this variety stimulates much stronger engagement and growth.

3. Continue self care. As tempting as it may be to slide into lethargy, don't do it. Get up every day, wash face, brush teeth, and get dressed, just as you would have before. Keep the morning and bedtime routines that you had before social distancing was implemented. Not only is it healthier, but also it is better for the mind as activities are completed that get your mind and body set for another day.

4. Remember personal down time for everyone. Everyone needs alone time to process, reflect, and decompress. This may be hard to do with everyone home all of the time now, but some kind of designated personal time each day is important. We are better together when we have it. It could be that every family member goes to their own corner and has "alone time" for an hour each day where they can do completely as they wish or one space in the house is used for everyone's designated alone time on an alternating basis.

5. Limit electronics. It would be all too easy to allow our youth to spend 6-8 hours on their devices. I understand how this can happen on occasion but it really cannot be the norm. This is not healthy, not productive, and would not have been allowed before, don't allow it now.

6. Be sure to work in family time. A portion of each day should be dedicated to spending time together as a family, eating, playing games, doing puzzles, watching a movie, baking, or just talking. Time together as a family unit fosters positive relationships, facilitates unity, and supports resiliency and perseverance. Plus, it can be a lot of fun!

7. Keep what routines you can to build consistency; there is confidence and resilience in some semblance of consistency. Alter what you have to, but don't change everything. Surely there are some parts of a regular day that can remain as they were before social distancing. Build a new daily routine but use several activities that are the same as in the past as well as several others that may be new. Build what is changing on what is staying the same. This is especially important in a household with toddlers or other youngsters that do not handle change well.

8. Encourage input from all members of the family. Get suggestions from everyone, even if they are hesitant; it is important for everyone to have input into what activities are done each day. We may be cooped up together for awhile so buy in from everybody is helpful to maintaining some sense of peace and harmony in the house. Maybe there are things someone else wants to learn about but hasn't had the chance. One of my kids wants to learn Japanese but it is not offered at school, so he is now taking it as an online course. I didn't have to force it or mandate it; he wanted to do it, all on his own. Maybe there are places outdoors that they want to explore. Be an urban explorer.

9. Consider a family project. Think about a family book study or if there's a book out on video that everyone has read, then do a compare/contrast of the book and movie. Paint a room or bathroom, plant a garden, clean out the garage, clean out all the bedrooms and closets, make a family photo collage on poster board, or make a nature scrapbook of interesting finds outdoors. Find something within your family's common interests and plan a way to highlight it in a culminating project, bringing it all together.

Daily Routine

When planning a daily routine, the variation of activity is actually more important than specific minutes assigned to each. Try to get in a variety of activities each day; a healthy daily routine incorporates at least two of the following each day: cognitive/academic activities, social time, physical activity, personal time, and perhaps spiritual activities. Listed below is a way to have blocks of time in your day with appropriate variety for good health.

• Morning Routine: Get up, have breakfast, get ready for day

• Learning Activity: This may be online course work from the school; it could be viewing any one of the beautiful virtual tours that are now available, or it could be reading a book. There are a lot of educators and educational organizations posting free opportunities and ideas for learning at home. It could also be writing letters to those in isolated nursing homes or writing positive messages on the sidewalk or drive way outside your home for others to read or on your front door if in an apartment building.

• Physical Activity: indoor calisthenics (some times our kids do some Marine Corps PT), relay races in back yard, kicking or throwing balls around, basketball hoop if available or street/yard soccer, playing catch with baseball, Frisbee, or something else to throw and catch safely, walking the dogs, Yoga on YouTube (I think Yoga with Adrienne is awesome!), dance party or sports kinex type games on gaming systems. We have a family backgammon tournament going and an ongoing Monopoly game. Many coaches out there are posting at home workout routines tailored toward certain sports.

• Independent or Small Group Time: Basically, down time, either together if there are siblings or other children in the household, or independently. Depending on ages, but they can hang out, talk, play games, or with toys.

• Lunch

• Learning Activity

• Physical Activity

• Independent or Small Group Time

• Dinner

• Family Time: Watch movies, board or card games, talking, verbal games you'd play on a road trip, charades is hilarious and can be played with no tools other than an online word generator, or discuss your faith. We've even had the backgammon tournament going, xbox going, and cooking going on all the same time, but we are in the same location in the house; we are interacting and engaging one another.

• Evening Routine

The key right now is to have some level of routine that can be relied upon to build stability, confidence, and normalcy. If this is best established through a strict schedule - great, but parents and care givers do not need to add to current stress levels by worrying about maintenance of a tight schedule. Not accomplishing all of these things every day or only loosely following these guidelines is okay. But having something, some level of structure or routine in place for the family to count on is important right now.

In the words of the United States Marine Corps, "Adapt, Improvise, Overcome": As we adapt to the changes we face each day and improvise in every unprecedented situation, we are overcoming. As we demonstrate and model realistic and calm reactions, responsible social distancing, and family resilience, we are nurturing our youth and teaching valuable lessons about family, community, country, and duty.

With a relentless focus on family and on maintaining healthy bodies, healthy minds, and healthy spirits, we will persevere.