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So a quick update on life in the Kennedy household - we just finished week 3 of self-isolation here in Vancouver. This past week would have been the first back at school. Teachers have reached out and just this week, have started to assign work. Luckily, it appears that the teachers in our district are pretty lax and focusing on the mental health of the kids, trying not to overwhelm them with work and not stress out parents who may or may not be home with the kids and able to help them with any work. Last week I talked about how it would be our first week of implementing a daily schedule. Well, I am happy to report that it went relatively well! I believe this to be in large part because I was quite flexible with the kids about what their individual schedules looked like. I gave each of them guidelines rather than a strict schedule and I let them choose individually when they did things. This week the teachers have begun assigning work. I will begin to micro-manage this less and let my teenagers ensure that they get their work completed as required. I have worked hard with them over the past MANY years to instill in them a desire to do well as school. There is an expectation that they do well in school in our family. They want to keep their grades up and do the work that is needed to ensure that happens. Even so, I have let them know that school shouldn’t be stressing them out. We have talked about how they can expect to do about 2 hrs a day of school work and that that would be reasonable. Keep in mind, that I believe the younger your children are, the less they should be doing! Most importantly, the one key thing I believe all parents should be on the lookout for is that the amount of time they spend focusing on the computer needs to be balanced with physical fitness...which leads me into the topic for today’s podcast! One thing that has become CRYSTAL CLEAR to me as we navigate this new and uncharted territory of parenting through COVID-19 and this global pandemic is that our number one priority needs to be the mental health of our children. And the number one way that I believe we as parents can manage this is by ensuring that their PHYSICAL HEALTH is being set at the top priority. I truly believe that now more than ever, behavior problems, conflict, stress between family members - all of these things often stem from the basic principle that our children aren’t moving their bodies enough to manage the stress, to ward off the depression, the boredom, and the likely feeling that they aren’t accomplishing anything. In today’s episode I discuss the importance of sports in our family both before & NOW in the middle of this crisis. I dive deep into how my children are managing not having practices and the schedules associated with their sports and how we as parents need to work towards bringing the benefits that sports afforded them before into their world now. And, if you children were not into sports before this happened, WHY IT IS IMPERATIVE that you find a way to get your children to SWEAT each and every day for their mental and physical health! LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: Visit the Lazy Parenting BLOG HERE Join our #lazyparenting community on IG HERE Join our #lazyparenting community of FacebooK HERE Follow Stephanie Kennedy on IG HERE SIGN UP FOR THE LAZY PARENTING WEEKLY NEWSLETTER HERE --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lazy-parenting/message