The coronavirus forcing social isolation does not bother me too much because I’m an introvert—although I’m also, at this point in time, considered essential, so I’m still going to work as usual. I’m just taking histories and delivering advice in the parking lot. I just have to resist the urge to ask every client if they want fries with their pet’s rabies vaccine.  Or a supersized blood workup.

What does bother me is the fact that my fourteen year old son has now been home from school for three weeks and is driving me up the wall!  On top of that, the school is now geared up to do teaching from Zoom (yet one more internet thingie that I don’t understand.) Thank goodness my husband is tech-savvy.  It has only taken him several hours to figure out and get everything set up for remote learning.  If it were left up to me, I’m afraid Darion would just have to repeat eighth grade. But no matter how you figure it, this basically means homeschooling, a word that causes me to break out in nervous hives.

If I had wanted my kid home with me all day, I wouldn’t have paid big bucks to send him to private school where the teachers get paid to deal with him.  It’s bad enough making sure his homework is done every night, with all the drama, wailing and gnashing of teeth that that involves, but now we have to make sure he is “in class” remotely and not simultaneously playing his X-box.  Plus, did I mention, my work schedule has not changed?  And my husband’s work has more than doubled as he figures out how to take care of the church’s needs from afar.  Sooo . . . here we are.  Granted, this is a teacher’s dream come true—being able to teach a class without having to be in the same room with the students. No more having to separate the two class clowns who disrupt the lesson.  No more having to tell the kids to quiet down and get to work.  No more supervising and hovering over them to make sure they are actually working.  No, this is now the parents’ job!  I realize the schools are doing the best they can with a totally unfamiliar scenario, but really, I’m fine with just sending my kid to school and letting him take his chances with the virus.  He’s young and healthy.  (Okay, just kidding.  Sort of.)

Now we can’t sleep in on our day off.  We have to be up to get Darion on the computer in time for his eight o’clock class.  We can’t do our own work on the computer because Darion is “in class.”  We will probably have to “sit in” on his classes to make sure he understands how to do everything properly (as well as to make sure he hasn’t snuck something else in front of the computer to occupy his time during online class.)

I suppose there is a plus side, in that we don’t have to beg, threaten, cajole, and force him out the door every morning, praying he actually has everything he needs for the day and we don’t get a call from the school asking us to bring something he forgot.  Plus we don’t have to fight the morning traffic, hoping to hit all green lights so as to get him to school on time. And we won’t have the last minute search for the belt and shoes he can’t find.  Now when he leaves his homework on the coffee table, he can just run into the other room and fetch it.  Not to mention the fact we won’t be judged by the school staff because, as usual, he rolled out of bed two minutes before he absolutely had to leave the house and failed to brush his teeth, put on deodorant, or comb his hair. In our defense, we really do try!

Now if we can just get him out of bed and in front of the computer in time for class, this thing might actually work.  But I’m not counting on it.  Does anyone know if Swiss boarding schools are closed?

How to Cope With Quaran-Teenagers

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