I had barely shared the angry red map of Ireland on my social media – and in every WhatsApp group I’m in (and that’s a lot of WhatsApp groups) – when the private messages started coming in. “What about the schools?!” the frantic texts read. The island of Ireland comes under a red weather warning on Friday, due to Storm Éowyn, and the nation’s parents are seriously unimpressed.
Perhaps it’s residual trauma from pandemic lockdowns. Or the fear of having to reset a password on the school communications app Aladdin. But a deep unease has set in across the country at the prospect of having the kids home from school on Friday. “This is ridiculous. Schools closed again,” one parent wailed. “Well, I’ve no official confirmation from our school yet,” another replied in deluded hope. But my favourite was perhaps the one that reflected the sentiment of many parents as they accepted their fate: “It would want to be some bloody wind”.
Indeed, it looks like it will be some bloody wind. But we can take solace from being in this together – or some slightly less triggering catchphrase. And we will get through it even as we may slowly lose our minds trying to work while our feral children run, not free, but repeatedly, through the double doors between the sittingroom and the diningroom, slamming as they go.
Here are our essential survival tips to help you navigate parenting while you work from home during a red weather warning.
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Let sleeping dogs lie
The same rules apply to children. Especially those of primary school age or under. If, by some miracle, they sleep beyond their usual rising time, let them. There is a small chance their body clocks won’t have recognised the disturbance in the Force, meaning they’ll think it’s a normal school day and will be impossible to get out of bed, unlike the dawn risings of Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, their teachers may have set them work to do at home, but do those same teachers have to spend Friday listening to your children complaining and squabbling? Minimise the number of hours you have to spend listening to this too. Leave them in bed.
Take no chances
So, apparently we can’t even let them go out on the trampoline during the red weather warning. But the upside is we can’t be judged for the amount of time they spend on screens for the duration. The problem is power outages are anticipated.
A world where you’re expected to get on with your job, but your child’s tablet/hand-held games console is out of battery is just too awful for most of us to contemplate. So don’t get caught short. Download some movies. Charge every single device you own. And your portable chargers. You have no idea how desperate you might become.
Loaves and fishes
It’s important to remember that in school, your child has both a lunch break and a little break each day, during which they likely eat very little to none of the lunch you lovingly prepared for them. Transfer that logic to the home environment and it translates into needing about 256 snacks per child on Friday. Double, if you have teenage boys. These are not insignificant quantities and if you haven’t already stocked up in anticipation, you should probably panic buy lots now. But shop smart. Consider snacks that they can prepare independently, and will go as far as possible, so that you are interrupted while you work, as few times as possible. This is a national emergency, so crisps count.
[ 10 great films to watch if you’re stuck indoorsOpens in new window ]
Hide all lightsabres, Nerf Guns and wands
Especially before online meetings. It’s cute when a child wanders into a room, all smiles, during her father’s live broadcast on the BBC. Less cute when warring siblings come in mid Zoom swearing vengeance on each other, and they’re armed.
Bribery
The secret to good parenting. Promise to do something nice together such as play pool, football, unicorns, a board game, go to the park, recover the trampoline from your neighbour’s garden/motorway, a trip to Disneyland, whatever, if Johnny or Mary could just stop rowing/complaining/looking for food long enough to let you get some work done so your boss doesn’t think you’re taking the proverbial.
And finally
After a day in the work-from-home-while-the-kids are-trapped-indoors trenches it’s only right that you get to treat yourself. So, presuming you paid close attention to tip two, or still have power, why not relax and spoil yourself watching some these recommended movies? Or have a read of these short books.
Godspeed.
