The Distance Learning Playbook for Parents. Rosalind Wiseman
your child’s behavior is on display for all of the other parents who have children in the class. That’s not the norm in physical school, which is why it’s another reason to reinforce the etiquette aspects of live lessons. These are key messages:
➔ Know the teacher expectations and support them.
➔ As part of the routines discussed above, make sure that your child knows the schedule for live sessions.
➔ Encourage your child to use the camera. Show them the option to hide the self-view if that alleviates anxiety.
➔ For the first several live sessions, take note of your child’s actions. Was the mute function used appropriately? Was your child respectful? Monitor the live sessions periodically but avoid the temptation to hover.
➔ Talk with your child about the live sessions and their behavior and actions. Encourage your child to reflect on their participation and learning.
Source: Courtesy of Jessica and John Hannigan.
Ensure That Your Children Sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Yes, that’s a fragment of the Shakespeare quote, but it’s the part that gives us hope. Sleep is important. It’s as important as food, water, and physical and emotional safety. There is evidence that an extreme lack of sleep contributes to behavior problems, mood disturbances, emotional instability, and even obesity. In terms of the research, lack of sleep is one of the few things that has a definite negative effect size, or impact, on children’s learning.
There are two interesting outcomes from school closures. Some people are sleeping more, which is good—to a point. But some people, especially children, are not sleeping in a predictable pattern, which is not good.
SIMPLY SAID, CHILDREN WHO DO NOT GET SUFFICIENT SLEEP LEARN LESS.
Speaking of adolescents, there is some folklore that their natural circadian rhythms require that they go to sleep later and wake up later. To a point, that is true. Experts suggest that it is about an hour difference. The other shifts in their desire to go to sleep late are more social in nature. Importantly, teenagers need more sleep than adults. The National Sleep Foundation examined the research and gathered experts from the fields of psychology, anatomy and physiology, as well as from pediatrics, neurology, gerontology, and gynecology to reach a consensus. These are their recommendations:
Source: Adapted from Sleep Foundation (www.sleepfoundation.org).
As we noted earlier, routines are important. Sleep routines are especially important. To avoid a dramatic scene every night that results in tantrums (younger children) or highly irritating arguments (older children and teens), create an evening routine. Ensure that the TV and all tech devices are off at least one hour before bedtime. (A lot of online bullying occurs in the hour before and after lights-out.) We recognize that impacts you as well, but it is critical for quality sleep. Blue light can be stimulating and thus prevent our brains from sleeping (and there are special glasses and screen protectors that you can purchase to reduce the strain from this light during the day). As part of the bedtime routine for younger children, engage in the same quiet activities each night, such as reading a book together, singing songs, completing a task—just make it familiar and routine. For older children, set expectations and be aware of their use of technology in their bedrooms after they have supposedly gone to bed. Some families have found success by instituting a routine about collecting devices at bedtime and keeping them in the parent’s bedroom until the following morning.
If your child is not getting enough sleep or is going to bed too late, develop a ten-day plan to improve this. It’s too hard to suddenly change the bedtime as your child is likely to lay in bed unable to sleep. Instead, identify the number of minutes gap between the ideal time and the current time (for example, 8 p.m. versus 10 p.m.). That’s 120 minutes. Divide by 10 and move back bedtime by that amount each night.
LACK OF SLEEP IS ONE OF THE FEW THINGS THAT HAS A DEFINITE NEGATIVE EFFECT.
Sleep, both in terms of quantity and quality, is an important yet often neglected aspect of schooling. Simply said, children who do not get sufficient sleep learn less. These are the key messages:
➔ Sleep impacts learning.
➔ Add nighttime activities and expectations to your list of routines.
➔ Establish bedtimes and stick to them.
➔ Avoid electronics that emit blue light one hour before bedtime.
➔ If necessary, keep a sleep journal, or ask your child to do one for two weeks, to determine if your child is getting enough sleep.
Monitor Screen Time
It seems strange to discuss monitoring screen time, when distance learning demands more screen time—but this is the point—monitor for best use of screen time noting that now even more time is spent on devices.
There is some debate about how much time children and youth should spend looking at a screen. The same debate raged decades ago about TV. We know that they should not be on screens the hour before sleeping. But what about the total number of hours that are acceptable? Distance learning requires that children spend more time looking at a screen. And this is in addition to the amount of time that they are looking at a screen for entertainment or social purposes. The World Health Organization suggests that children under five have no more than one hour per day of screen time. But after that, the recommendations are murky.
Perhaps it is less about the number of minutes and more about the tasks that students are doing. And perhaps it is important to consider the things that are not done when students are always on a device. Are they playing? Are they interacting with others? What about art projects? Do they do their chores? Do they talk with family members? In sum, there is no clear evidence about how many minutes of screen time a child should have. However, the two extremes of laissez-faire and digital teetotalism are not helpful, especially if we want students to learn from a distance. A good rule might be to ensure that your child spends as much time doing something active or productive off a device as they do on a device.
A few facts come to mind as we focus on screen time. First, not all programs and apps are educationally sound. There is a vast knowledge base about learning, specifically about how people learn. Some programs and apps are designed in a way that is consistent with this evidence and others are not. Look for recommendations from educators about which apps are likely to impact your child’s skill and concept development. For example, codeSpark Academy is highly rated by parents and educators as a tool useful in teaching coding.
Second, children should take breaks away from the screen. In part, it’s good for their eyes. And in part, it’s good to get them doing other things and not sitting down. Look at the schedule of events for the week and identify times when your child can take a break from the screen and do something else. If at all possible, get them to move. Sitting in a chair all day is really not good for any of us.
FOR COMPLEX TEXTS AND TASKS, THE BRAIN PREFERS PAPER.
Third, for complex texts and tasks, the brain prefers paper. Your child’s reading should not be limited to that which happens on a screen. You may be thinking about your own reading using a device. It’s likely that you are reading things that you can easily read. And you probably have some topics or text types that you learn more from when they are on paper. In general, readers