A Fine Parent

A Life Skills Blog Exclusively For Parents

110+ FREE Resources for Kids to Use During the Coronavirus School Closures

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(This article is part of the Coronavirus Support series. Get free article updates here.)

Main-Image-school-resources-copy.jpgUnexpectedly homeschooling because of Coronavirus school closures?

Overwhelmed by the unrealistic Instagram posts of people’s daily schedules?

Deep breath. You can totally do this!

We’ve compiled for you a list of 110+ awesome free educational resources to make this super easy.

And here’s more good news: homeschooling doesn’t have to be anything like actual school to be educational. 

Click on a link (or three) below and start exploring with your younger kids.

And if your kids are old enough, you can give them the reins and let them explore what they find most interesting on this list. Language arts, math, chemistry, art and finances, it’s all here!

As a homeschooling parent, I’ve utilized many of these resources myself and have chosen these for you because they are:

  1. easy to use
  2. engaging and educational for the kiddos
  3. and best of all, free!

(Many of these are free all the time, some only while the schools are closed).

In my experience, I spend about 15-20 minutes per subject for elementary kids, but I don’t stop if they’re engaged and we’re delving into something in which they are showing a lot of interest.

Alright. Time to dive in. Click on any link below and let the learning joy begin!

PS: Do you have a favorite resource that I have not listed? Please let me know about it in the comments section below. Thank you! [Read more…]

Had Enough of Coronavirus Worrying? Here are 10 Creative Ways to Relieve Anxiety

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(This article is part of the Coronavirus Support, Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

Main-Image-Anxiety-Crafts.jpgThe world has changed in the space of a few weeks.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused drastic upheaval in our lives, and we are all searching for ways to relieve anxiety during this trying time.

Whether we are in quarantine, imposing self-isolation or practicing safe social distancing in an effort to flatten the curve, we are all struggling to make sense of the greater implications of the worldwide pandemic.

At the same time, we must deal with our day-to-day lives, which in many cases have been completely disrupted as our kids are required to stay home from school and we ourselves may be working from home.

Naturally, we are all stressed and anxious about the health and safety of our loved ones and the long-term social and economic fallout of the pandemic. As our own anxiety and worries clash with those of our children, the home front can quickly become a hotbed of uncertainty, worry, fear and stress.

How can we reduce our family’s stress levels? What can we do with a houseful of worried people and nowhere to go? What are some creative ways to relieve anxiety?

Doing creative activities together as a family is a great way to diffuse some of this anxiety. Art therapy has long been touted as a great stress reliever. Doodling, painting, cutting and pasting have all been shown to lower our cortisol levels, which are a marker of stress. Art can help put us in that meditative state known as the “flow” or “zone,” letting us escape, if only for an hour or so, the relentless anxiety-provoking news cycle.

Here at A Fine Parent, we have put together a list of art projects that you can do with the entire family to help get you through these trying times.

[Read more…]

How to Help Your Kids Move Beyond Their Comfort Zone

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(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

Main-Image-comfort-zone-copy.jpgWhen I was a sophomore in high school, my parents sat the family down in the living room, opened up an enormous binder and asked my younger brother and me to pick a sister, any sister, from any country around the world.

We chose an eighteen-year-old, trumpet-playing, tall and strong-minded Finnish student who did, indeed, become a real sister to me over the course of the following year.

My parents had made rumblings in the past about hosting a foreign exchange student. We lived in a tiny, rural town in Central California, so they saw the exchange experience as a double-blessing: My parents could share the wealth of our small-town lives and the beauty of our diverse state while culturally enriching their own children’s lives. We had previously hosted a German teacher for a summer, and my brother’s baseball team had provided temporary housing for players from Russia — the USSR at that time. We were no strangers to strangers in our home.

But when the day finally came to choose the exchange student, I was nervous about the change. My life was filled with academics, sports and other extracurriculars, and my parents both had busy jobs in addition to being key participants in their children’s activities.

This experience was going to put me outside my comfort zone, and I wasn’t sure I would like it. Would there be enough room for another sister?  Would my parents have enough love to go around?  What would we gain by shaking up our seemingly comfortable lives?

As it turned out, quite a lot! While that year certainly came with ups and downs—as they do in any family—the lifelong friendship, the bond of sisterhood and the cultural experience I gained from having Karo in my life outshone all the extra squabbles over the shared curling iron.

It was such a worthwhile experience, that here we are, over 30 years later, preparing to choose another sister. Only this time, it’s my own family—my husband, myself and our three daughters. And this time, there will be no binder, no leafing through pages of possibilities, since we have already chosen our sister-for-a-year: Karo’s daughter from Finland. [Read more…]