Coping during COVID-19

Like a lot of other people at the moment I’ve really been struggling mentally. I’ve been experiencing major anxiety, obsessively cleaning, not sleeping, feeling emotional and un motivated. We’re all facing various challenges during this unprecedented time.

Before all this began, I was finally feeling like myself again. Our schedule was busy but balanced between work, school, exercise, therapies, self- care, play and socializing. Now all of our routines have drastically changed.

The kids have been coping fairly well so far considering. Lots of walks, bike rides, singing, dancing, coloring in and watching movies. It’s been just an extended school holiday. Madi has mentioned school a few times but we explained in basic terms that we’re all having an extra-long holiday and can’t go back to school for a while because lots of people are sick.

We’ve actually enjoyed not being so busy and the opportunity to spend more quality time together. We’ve been thinking outside the box and successfully working on independence goals at home.

However, the real test for us is about to begin and even just contemplating home schooling our two children with additional needs for the entire second term is devastating.

We’re extremely lucky to have an incredible team of professionals usually supporting us, conducting ABA, speech and social skill programs producing ongoing progress.

We’ve all worked so hard to achieve these results. It would be an absolute tragedy to see the kids regress and for all our recent hard work to go to waste.

There is so much added pressure and expectations surrounding online schooling and therapies at home, all while working at the same time too.

After connecting with our professionals last week and discussing our individual needs, I’m feeling better and more confident moving forward.

We’re working on a temporary new routine with ongoing online support from our team that will initially be a flexible experiment. They will continue to closely monitor the kids and adapt processes and programs accordingly.

I’ve been told not to put too much pressure and expectations on ourselves.

We’ve been facetiming daily with family and friends to remain connected and practice and prepare for more screen time communication ahead.

We all need to find support and alternate ways of dealing with our difficult situation.

I’ve been trying to maintain regular exercise and attempting to relax, unwind and be more kind to myself.

I’ve always been better at writing about my feelings than talking about them so putting everything down on paper really works for me.

This week we’ll also be commencing online dance classes and meditation that will really help!

For now, we’re going to enjoy our Easter long weekend and then prepare for this week with lots of visual and verbal reinforcements. It’s not going to be easy but we can only try and do the best we can.

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