Hooray Health & Protection

What happens when your kids can’t go to school?

What happens when your kids can’t go to school

What happens when your kids can’t go to school

“Your child has a cough…”

Tell a parent that in 2019 and they might not have worried much. Now, however, something as seemingly trivial as a cough might mean 2 weeks isolation, 2 weeks off school and maybe even 2 weeks off work for you.

But what are you supposed to do if your child can’t go to school for 2 weeks? How can you afford not to work for 2 weeks?

It certainly isn’t ideal, but here are some tips to make it a little easier:

Home-schooling help

The number one expert advice for home-schooling is to keep your child’s routine as normal as possible. Some great ways to get around the fact that these times aren’t normal are:

Sticking to a timetable

We aren’t saying 8 hours of lessons per day but keeping everyone on a rough timetable will help children to distinguish between playtime and worktime.

Separate the classroom

If you have the space, a separate area for home-schooling is another way to keep children engaged while learning. If you don’t have room to keep a separate space, a visual change in the area might work well (a specific tablecloth for lesson time, for example).

Get help when needed

Your child’s school should be able to tell you what they need to be doing, and there are loads of online resources to help parents through this tricky task.

For more in-depth information around home-schooling children, the UK Government has set out advice for children of different ages.

Mental health worries

Being a parent is hard. Being a parent locked in with your children 24/7? Even harder.

Above all else, it is important to make sure that you and your family are coping. Although it is important to keep up their education where possible, it is simply not feasible to think that your children (or you!) will have the patience for a full school week at home.

Try to spend this time connecting as a family and focussing on your health, inside and out. It might also be a good time to work on non-work-related hobbies or projects that you usually can’t make time for.

Try to maintain a healthy diet and exercise frequently. Encouraging your children to join in with daily workouts is a great way to look after their health and yours. As a little bonus, directing their energy into exercise might also help keep you sane!

Income protection

A major worry for parents with children off school is how to cope with the increased financial burden, sometimes also on a reduced wage.

Here at Hooray, we don’t only provide income protection to businesses – although employee benefits are our bread and butter!

We also offer income protection to individuals, meaning that a long term COVID diagnosis does not have to cause financial stress on top of everything else.

For a free review of the market, or your current policy, give our friendly advisors a call for unbiased, expert advice.

We hope you won’t need any of this advice, but if your children can’t go to school – for any reason – try to maintain some sort of routine and remember to look after yourself too!

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