Parents’ stories

Harassed @ home

Six harassed parents talk about work at home and home schooling.

Lack of learning progress, lethargy and conflict at home are their main concerns.

Working, whether at home or outside, makes life even more difficult but monitoring education is hardest.

• 6 位身心俱疲的家長跟我們分享在家工作以及子女 在家學習的情況。 • 他們最關注的是子女在家學習進度緩慢、缺乏學習 動力以及長期在家帶來的相處問題。 • 無論在家工作還是在公司上班，工作本身都已經帶 來壓力，但家長認為要兼顧監察子女學習進度最令 人頭痛。

Wendy Six months ago, we decided to move in with my parents-in law: me, my husband, my son aged six and my one-year-old daughter. I work part-time in sales for an environmental company and in the past, I could take the children with me to work. The virus made it too dangerous but looking after them at home as well as working was too much to handle. I needed help. Imagine: doing all the cooking when the restaurants are closed, doing all the teaching Monday to Friday, getting any work done and playing with them. Impossible.

Bella Our five-year-old is at in a government kindergarten. I can help her with online lessons most of the time while working at home. The school provided video clips for the children via the school app but they can’t be played on a mobile phone and have to be downloaded on a computer after copying and pasting the URL via email. It is clumsy system.

IvyWe have a seven-year-old who is at an aided primary school which implemented BYOD (bring your own device) in his first year. The school arranged for purchase of iPads so we were lucky and he had his own at home during class suspensions. Since both my husband and I have been working at home most of the time, one of us could help him with online lessons.

Mazzy I have two boys aged eight and 12 at a government subsidized school. My husband is a civil servant and I usually work part-time in a restaurant kitchen. These days, I spend most my time trapped at home with the boys. At the very beginning, when they used Zoom for the first time, I helped but after that, they didn’t need me even though the school didn’t offer much support.

AngelMy two daughters, aged 13 and 16, are at two different schools. My husband and I are in the insurance business, so we can usually work from home. Both girls are quite grown up and can take care of themselves. The older one is quite self-disciplined and has her own computer. The younger one uses the home iPad. Both of them are often bored at home and tell me how much they want to go back to school. They miss their teachers and friends and find it hard to concentrate on their own.

Libby I’m a researcher for a company and although I could work at home, I found it difficult during school suspensions. My children, who both went to an ESF school, are 18 and 19. The older one had come home from university and was doing courses online and my younger one was originally working towards her IB exams. There were some technical issues to begin with, usually relating to online access to resources or incompatible formats. Either the school or the children sorted them out.

Spare time was much more of an issue. My daughter was increasingly reluctant to go outside and get fresh air or even to leave her room on some days. With my son, the time difference between his university location and Hong Kong meant that his hours did not always gel with ours.

Mazzy The network at home is ok, but we have only one computer and it’s a problem when both of them need to do online learning.

The older boy has to use my phone instead. Once they are on the computer, they stay there as

long as possible, I have to make a schedule and try to make sure they share fairly.

Bella I find working from home very stressful. I have to deliver with the same quality at the same speed as usual and with a five-year-old kid running around there are a lot of tensions. He expects my attention all the time when I am at home, even when he is doing art or crafts, playing or watching his favourite shows and videos.

Wendy It is very difficult. Not just for us but for many parents. After six months living with our in-laws, we had to give up. We are too much accustomed to a different lifestyle and living together didn’t work out.

There was no online learning at our boy’s kindergarten last term. Instead, the school sent worksheets and other material by mail. Parents have to do the teaching. I buy exercise books and games too but it is all really time consuming. Still, we feel lucky to have relatives. They still help in various ways.

Ivy Conflict has become a problem in our family because we are all together at home all the time. Hong Kong flats are so small. We don’t have much personal space, let alone personal time. I try to make home life varied. My son and I read and watch TV together and I make sure he stays busy. Exercise is very important so we always have an hour or two in the playground every day.

Angel My older daughter reads and help me cook. She finds recipes online, we buy the ingredients and sometimes make a cake together. My young daughter is more difficult. She just sits on the sofa and plays online games. She uses it far too long and I don’t know what kind of friends she is meeting online. We have fights, over too much screen use, going to bed late and getting up late. But I am not the kind of parent to add pressure. I want them to be happy and make their own plans.

Mazzy I worry about their schooling, their progress and their chances of going to university one day. I worry that neither of them really seems to be focusing during online lessons. They go to the toilet all the time, play games, watch TV, eat. Actually, I’m often not sure what they are doing. This would never happen if they were at school.

I worry about emotional health and communication skills. It is really a long time since they have seen and talked to either classmates or teachers face to face. There has been a lot of conflict at home, between the boys especially, fighting for the computer, for toys, for the TV. I have no way to solve this problem. What can I do? I try not to shout at them, but sometimes I lose my temper. If they ask why they can’t go out, I try my very best to explain about the pandemic. Sometimes they are ok with it, but sometimes they just keep asking.

Wendy My son started primary school this year. I bought him a laptop for online classes for when they use Microsoft Teams. I don’t want him to use a tablet. The screen is so small

and not good for his eyes. I also worry about him not going to school for so long. I am afraid he will never catch up and will become withdrawn. When I take him to play with my friend’s 8-9-year-old, he is so shy. He was never like that when he went to school every day. Now, his eyes are always glued to a screen. I am so afraid about this.

Libby The biggest problem was the time they both spent online. I also found that without any designated break or lunch times my daughter remained on her computer literally all day. Some of this had to do her homework and class work which increased compared to when she was at school but it also had to do with being connected online with her friends. For my son, it was very similar.

Bella Lack of physical exercise due to staying home is one concern but the main one is lack of social interaction. Without it, my kid finds learning uninteresting. I cannot help wonder how long the pandemic will last and I the only way I find relief is to share my worries with friends.

Ivy Practical knowledge is easy to learn, but soft skills cannot be learned at home, even in interactive lessons. What he has missed out most on is developing of social skills, soft skills, self-discipline, how to assert himself.

Now his school will try to do interactive online lessons. I hope they include discussion time but how can a teacher to lead a discussion through video conferencing, especially with a large group of young kids?

Angel My worries never go away but I worry most about too much use of digital gadgets. I don’t even know what the apps they use do. Is it all games? Is it for communication? My older daughter talks to me more, but my adolescent younger girl always keeps things to herself.

In the real world, I think I can recognize risks and know how to prevent them. But in the digital world? I feel lost and I wish someone could teach me. The girls have both started to use foul language. I suppose they must think it is funny.

Libby Before the IB exams were cancelled, and when the workload was very heavy, my daughter had an excuse not to anything but sit in front of her computer. This was especially so about exercising. After the cancellation of exams, she became used to comfortably lazing around, not really making an effort to do anything. It made being at home very stressful and led to more raised voices than before. Definitely not a relaxing environment.

Mazzy I am still trying to find a way to stay calm, keep my voice level and explain to them that we all need a break sometimes. Standing in front of the air conditioner helps a bit. Sometimes it is just too hot and we all feel trapped at home with no place to go. We have never been together at home for such a long time before. We get on each other’s nerves. I think it is inevitable and nobody’s fault. The teachers agree but say marks have gone down. It makes me feel sick at heart.

Libby To be honest, I’m happy that they have gone to university where classes will be online and tutorials will be face-to-face. The stress was just getting too much. Home conversation deteriorated and so did general enthusiasm for doing other things. I would say that anxiety and irritability increased as well. My real worry is actually not about education, but about general mental wellbeing. Not going to school really did become an excuse to withdraw and engage only online, especially for my daughter. I hope their experiences at university will be different, in close proximity with others in the same situation. But of course the worry will then be safety and health.

Wendy Actually I feel sad all the time, I didn’t like living with my in-laws. Our way of life is so different. Even though my husband works full-time in construction I cannot give up my job. We have to pay our rent and support both families. Even though we have moved back into our own place, I depend on my mother-in-law. She cooks all the meals but she said it would drive her insane to live any longer with my little boy. He is too naughty and the arguments were endless.

Ivy I feel hopeless whenever I watch the news about COVID-19 around the world. When will it end?