What has been the impact of working and home-schooling on our mental health?

Today is the final day, for many of us, home schooling our children (massive sigh) as we are lifted out of our third lockdown. But are we prepared emotionally for the coming weeks?

Now that we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, many working parents are concerned about the impact of the last 12 months on their mental health, with many of us for the last 12 months running on pure adrenalin alone, from one crisis to the next.

As well as our businesses being severely impacted by the pandemic and the fear of losing our livelihoods, the fear of the virus itself, we were also tasked with managing our children’s education, and for many of us that means being expected to juggle 2, 3 + different levels of Math's, English and science lessons, to protect our children from falling behind their expected age level. 

I am sure that for a lot of us, the sense of relief is great, but what about the other emotions we may be feeling and what impact will all of this have on our mental health in the coming months as we are all moved out of the safety bubble we have created and grown accustomed to throughout lockdown.

From personal experience I have not had a minute in my day to think long enough about the impact that having my kids at home 24hrs a day 7 days a week whilst in a major health pandemic has had on my life.

A few weeks ago my In Laws kindly offered to take the kids and home school them both once a week until the they returned to school... 

Total exhaustion.

I had planned to get through so much on that Friday. Get up at the crack of dawn, walk the dog, eat a big healthy breakfast and then power through the day, planning another big meal for dinner, all because of the sheer excitement of being able to cook by myself without having to turn around every 5 seconds and help my 8 year old write the final stages of his story map for his majorly important “Ice Palace” Novel (accidentally dropping 3tbs of hot chili powder into my curry instead of Paprika, oops!) and then to settle down with a movie or good mag and an early night!

In actual fact the day that I had planned couldn’t have been more different. I slept through my alarm clock, just waking up in time for the in laws to collect the kids, grab a coffee and get to work. I was so behind with my administration that my working day was spent catching up in between 8 meetings that I had deliberately booked for myself (because I had the time!!) All the while worrying about what the kids were doing, are they safe? should I call them? By 5pm I was completely wiped out. By 6pm I had cooked a very basic meal and crashed out in ben by 8.

The kids were back the next morning.

I know that my experience is totally different to many, but my point is, that we have no idea how we will/should feel until we allow our body and mind the chance to feel it. I woke up this morning with a wave of actual pride (and again slight relief as Granny and Grandad are picking them up in the next 30 minutes as I write this). We have managed to get through this time, the kids have done fairly well, we can look forward and start to plan for life after lockdown and meet our friends and family again.

I am sure that we will all feel many emotions over the coming weeks, maybe anxiety at the loss of time at work, sadness for the loss of parental time with our children whilst we school them instead, total exhaustion, pure and simple relief and many others. 

We have just gone through a period in our lives that no other generation has gone through. How many of our parents can say that they have experienced something similar? working from home full time whilst being homemaker, mother/father, educator, cook and full mental support to our families whilst living through one of the biggest health pandemics our country has ever seen.

Whatever emotions we may feel over the coming days/weeks, I sincerely feel we are entitled to those, as we have earned them. We must remember to talk to each other, to share our experiences. Even where our personal situations are different, we have all gone through struggles of our own over the past 12 months. There are also all sorts of professional help and support out there, so don’t be afraid to use it.

On to the next challenge!!!