It takes a village to raise a child the proverb goes, and it couldn’t be more true during this pandemic.
Bernice Williams, of Cooksville, was chatting with a friend one day who had young children at home who mentioned she was really struggling with both working from home and home schooling.
“She was feeling the pressure of everything that was happening around her, there were a lot of things to manage and home schooling is a challenge for many parents,” she said.
That got her thinking-how could people work together to ease the pressure? After some thought she was willing to bet that grandparents would love the opportunity to get involved. Parents have been receiving E-mails from the school board about learning packages and resources but most grandparents Williams has spoken to knew nothing about that.
“I thought it would be really interesting to start a campaign to teach grandparents that they have the tools to help-for the first time ever they will know what’s happening in their grandchildren’s schools. It is really an opportunity to have conversations and those are needed because people are looking for solutions all over the place,” she said.
Williams is no stranger to finding solutions-she runs a coaching and consulting business called Intentional Connection-so she wrote a blog post on her website detailing her idea Home Learning Heroes and sent it to the school board to help people get traction. The response she got from several guidance counsellors and Principals was positive, who saw it as another way to support students through these challenges.
Williams says that this has been hard on kids, because despite the complaints about school they miss it, they miss their friends and they miss the routine.
“The school board has so many things on their plate and parents have so many things on their plate. This is the first time we have had to deal with all the issues created by a pandemic and nobody was prepared for it.”
She adds that grandparents don’t have to use technology to help, they can simply pick up the phone and call. Reading a story or sharing ideas or discussing homework will also be a way to feel connected when so many families are separated by social distancing rules.
The blog post can be viewed on her website at www.intentionalconnection.ca
