What did you use?

  • a piece of card
  • Post-it notes or pieces of coloured paper cut into small squares
  • Blue Tack
  • coloured felt tips,

What did you do?

  • First I titled my piece of card “When Corona is over I want too?”.
  • Then I decorated the card (however you would like, glitter etc. )
  • Then together as a family you decide what is important to you and write this down on a piece of coloured paper (e.g. what would be the event or place you want to visit when this is all over?). It can be as big or small as you like e.g have Fish and chips Takeaway.
  • Also for very small children who maybe are not at the writing stage, can cut out pictures from magazines of what they want to do (e.g go to the beach, cut out a picture of a beach).
  • Then use blue tack to stick it up on the wall.

The reason I chose to do this activity was because I was concerned about my children’s mental health. Not knowing when this lockdown is going to end, I felt we needed to plan ahead for when this is all over, to have something to look forward to. A positive in the negative.

I totally understand an activity like this is not for all children as it reminds them of what they are missing, but for some children it will give them a positive.

Have you got anything else in the pipeline?

My next project is a well-being chart, with smiley faces, sad faces, all expressions with the children’s names. They then put the face that best describes how they are feeling each day, then hopefully that will prompt me to pick on their cues and have a chat if possible to help them through this hard time.

Please tell the community a bit about yourself…

My name is Clare. I have two children, ages 6 and 8 and I’m from the UK.
I’m a key worker, so I work part-time in retail. But I find being housebound stressful and homeschooling even more stressful.

Do you have any tips for others in a similar situation?

Trying to find things that interest the children is key for me. So, weekly, the children find a topic that interests them – then we do work on that topic each day in homeschooling (e.g Dinosaurs).

We went outside chalked out the length of dinosaurs so we could see the length of them, and then we made playdough models of dinosaurs.

Also, I’m very lucky I live right next to woodland, so fresh air and a walk is key to my mental health.

I feel that with the Housebound With Kids community I’m not alone and the meltdowns my children have are normal. All the helpful tips are great to get me through.