Education has taken a major hit during these past few months. The Coronavirus pandemic has thrown our children’s schooling into a state of uncertainty and chaos that inhibits students’ ability to learn and focus. But the march of time requires each of our children to get back on track as quickly as possible in order to take full advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead. Helping your child deal with the difficulties packed into a world shut down by the coronavirus can be incredibly difficult — after all, this public health crisis is unprecedented in our modern world. However keeping your child motivated, calm, and on target doesn’t have to be an insurmountable challenge.

Here are the tips

Focus on positivity and mental health.

Positivity is one of the most important things you can teach your children – even in the middle of a life changing pandemic. This is best done through example, so maintaining your own positivity for them to emulate is a great place to start for parents struggling with a child hit hard by school closures and a shift to online only educational attainment.

Positivity should be your first port of call, but the notion of a positive outlook goes far beyond a simple smile. Introducing positive thinking into the daily life of your child is critical for healthy development regardless of the external stressors, but it’s particularly important these days. Forcing your child to identify all the good that surrounds them at intervals throughout the day is a great place to start. Making them think about the positive things in their life and give their thanks and respect to these blessings is a great way to ground a child that is flailing mentally. Providing this loving and supportive atmosphere that focuses on all the good in a world full of chaos can help your child right their own ship and get back on track themselves. Children are incredibly resilient and often just need a slight push in the right direction in order to track themselves back toward their goals.

That being said, this is certainly a unique time, so seeking professional help with this task should not be something taken off the table. The Ross Center is an excellent mental health resource with professional therapists standing by to provide additional guidance and support to a child in need. Your child may needs the nurturing push of a mental health specialist, an assistant who can listen to their troubles and help them work through their new schedule and new format for school work. A therapist from the Ross Center can offer a treatment plan that is non-invasive, offering a simple helping hand so that your child, whether in kindergarten, middle school, or high school and preparing to graduate to the next level, can get the help they need in combatting ticks in their behaviors, outlook, or overall happiness that the pandemic has affected.

Speak with your child about their goals.

Sometimes, children are suffering from a depressive episode as a result of uncertainty. As your young child grows into maturity, he or she will begin to consider career opportunities and possible pathways to achieving a wide set of goals. A setback like the closures we are seeing today can derail these plans and make their outcomes feel unlikely. For a student invested in law school or higher mathematical studies, this can feel like a blow, not only to their future plans, but to their identity itself.

Speaking with your child about careers for logical thinkers in order to gain a grasp of what they hope to do as they continue to grow and reach for their dreams is a great way to help them understand that there are many ways to achieve nearly any goal that may be in front of them. As an adult, you have the foresight to assist in steering them toward that goal, via many different paths that may not yet be apparent to your children. However, as parents, we know how difficult it can be to get our young ones to open up to us on issues like this. Acting as a trusted companion during hard times is one of the most important roles a parent can play in their child’s life, and you must try your best to be this guiding friend. During times of trouble, it can be a refreshing perspective for your growing children to see you as another human struggling with largely the same sorts of issues that they do. Showing your vulnerability and grace in approaching those problems that you combat throughout your daily routine can act as the impetus that your child needs to forge ahead in their schedule and plans and get themselves back on track.

Try an innovative approach to reintroduce or replace the lost opportunities.

The truth is, children (and adults) all learn through a variety of methods, and no two people are the same. Learning styles fall within four large groups: Auditory, Visual, Reading and Writing, and Kinesthetic. Children often gravitate toward one or two styles as their preferred method, so students craving a hands on learning experience may feel especially lost during this transformed time of learning. Replacing that loss is something you can achieve with some additional time working with your child, or with a new online tutoring platform that replaces the cold feeling associated with many of the outdated models built as a supplement to in-classroom learning (see Kumon reviews for more on how a tutor with a Kumon math program can make up for these shortcomings).

If all else fails, try enrolling your child in a supplemental tutoring course that circumvents these barriers in learning style preference that so many other platforms are unable or unwilling to breach. Trying a new tutoring aid can give your child a new impulse for learning with the help of a novel teaching source. This can get them excited to learn again in the short term and boost their productivity throughout all of their regular activities and school work assignments.

Children of all ages crave mental stimulation and opportunities for critical thinking, so helping them to get their mind working again is one of the best ways you can reverse the downward spiral that may have taken hold alongside rising cases of COVID-19 in your community. A major shock to the community plays out in many different ways, and can take its toll over months or years. With an outage of scholastic attainment, your child risks falling behind the curve and losing out on opportunities that he or she would have easily achieved under normal circumstances. Many communities are pushing through as if nothing were wrong — to the detriment of the overall health of their residents — while yours remains in a holding pattern. Without continued educational activity, your child risks falling behind others who are still in school or are being forced to continue on in some other fashion. Each child exposed to this new reality will react in a different way, but rest assured, a reduction in your child’s learning output will cause its own knock on effects that can hinder their ability to gain entry into certain colleges or applications for scholarship opportunities.

This is why it’s so important to mix mental health considerations with the educational needs of your family. Each plays a role in the development of your child, so administering to both must be done for continued healthy growth.