Our town was not in a hot spot for the Corona virus, thankfully, but we were still required to social distance. Here are some of the ways we coped with social distancing:
1. Focusing on what we could control and not dwelling on things out of our control
This is a big one for us. When watching the news brings too much fear and gloom, please turn it off. Kids, specifically, should not be subjected to unfiltered news stories. It is our job, as parents, to give them the bits of filtered current events we know they can handle.
2. Board games and family car rides
We have one child who LOVES board games. This child is content to stay home and play games indefinitely. We used the down time as an opportunity for the family to play games together. Some of our favorites during this time have been Star Wars Monopoly, What Do You Meme?, Scrabble, and Catan.
Our other two children prefer to get out and explore. While riding bikes in the neighborhood is great, some times they needed a change of scenery. Family car rides were a hit. We are fortunate to live by a historical city with lots of interesting places to see. We would grab take out (usually from Chick-fil-A) and sit in the parking lot of the old building and eat dinner.
3. Chocolate Chip Cookies
Let’s face it, we all need a sweet treat once in a while. Our family loves chocolate chip cookies! We found a yummy recipe on Pinterest for incredible soft chocolate chip cookies and our girls baked them multiple times over the last 10 weeks.
4. Grace
While it seems “easy” to stay home all the time, there were days when we all were not in a good mental place. To cope with these tough days, we first acknowledged the emotion, then dealt with the emotion, and finally tried to make the day better by doing something to make the emotional person feel better.
5. Staying connected with our family and local church
When you have a close knit family, it is difficult to stay away from them for lengths of time. To help keep us in contact, we would send silly videos of the kids and FaceTime random things we were doing throughout the day (even singing happy birthday). As the weeks wore on, we would have lunch dates on the front lawn just to see each other in person.
The most important way we survived ten weeks of social distancing was relying on our faith in Christ. We talked with our kids about using this “down time” to strengthen their/our walk with the Lord. We kept up our Sunday morning worship time as a family, although this time, in our pajamas and through a computer screen.
We are thankful that the world is opening up a bit back to “normal.”There is no doubt that the year 2020 is one for the history books, even though we’re only half way through it.
We, the Sweets 