Finding your footing in uncertain times: Balancing multiple kids with multiple schedules

The broadcast is now starting. All attendees are in listen-only mode.

Hi everybody, thanks so much for joining us today. I'm Vicki Lang. I'm our learning scientist here at Khan Academy, and I'm joined by Dan from our marketing team who will be facilitating our Q&A toward the end of the broadcast, and a special guest, um, Lindsay, Dr. Lindsey Portnoy. She's a cognitive scientist from Northeastern University who recently published a book called Design Tool Large. She's an expert in using design principles to work with kids in schools, and she's a parent of two children herself. So she's home working, managing multiple kids, and is a great expert to draw from for this broadcast today.

Before we launch into the topic, um, I just want to thank our sponsors, Bank of America, Google.org, Novartis, Fastly, and AT&T for supporting um this broadcast, as well as other webinars that we're providing during this time of crisis.

Um, so we've been getting a lot of questions um about how do I survive at home with multiple children who have different schedules and different needs and different assignments, and there's only one of me, or there's two of me, or however many. Um, and how do we do this? Um, so we brought this expert here to talk with you about some ideas for that, and I'm gonna let her kick it off.

Thank you, Vicky. Uh, thank you for having me, everyone. I'm excited to be here today. Uh, so yeah, as Vicky had mentioned, I um I have been working in education for quite some time. And when this whole event transpired, uh quickly, we moved to sort of figure out what it was that we were going to do to help support our kiddos and create some sense of scaffolding and support in a time of serious uncertainty.

And so what I have shared for you today, um, is something that I like to call the five C's for bringing your A game. And what I realized is that we really are a very grateful family, and we do very much um seek the joy and all of the learning that we try to do at home. And so the C's that I've that I'd like to share with you, um, are clarity, creation, creativity, curiosity, compassion.

And I'm going to go through each of these and sort of how they address those mean questions that Vicky had shared previously. And Vicky, hopefully you can help me along here, uh, to make sure that we're that we're getting at the most important pieces. But the idea is that we're trying to keep it as simple as possible. We're trying to be as realistic as possible given the current constraints. As I'm speaking to now, we have lost power, so it's always something exciting and new.

Um, but simplicity with consistency and always leaving room for iteration. So the first C for clarity I think is, you know, a really big overarching concept which is basically about establishing expectations, um, understanding communications and resources. And it was really to address this question here about, you know, what ideas do you have for scheduling with such a diverse group.

So as Vicky and I were talking, you know, I shared with her my game plan, right? So we knew gaming is sort of the analogy, what's the game plan with our team? Um, so at the beginning of each week, if we have a teacher that's sending a, you know, a week, okay, so what has to be done and by whom, kind of created this uh really simple and sort of fun looking calendar that my kiddos are now at this point quite used to in week eight.

And they know what's happening at every time, um, where they will find what they need, and where we will find what we need to help support them, where everyone will be in the house in terms of space. We'll talk about that later. Uh, and then when, you know, it's time to stop what you're doing and have a break and eat and relax and sort of stretch and just, you know, check in with us.

Um, also another really important part of clarity for us has been why are you doing what you're doing and when are you going to get feedback on the work that you're doing? And that really is about communication. And I'll show you later on. This is the just the big game plan sheet that we have, but later on I'll show you a little bit about how I share feedback with my kids as they're working without necessarily getting up and having to physically go to them and sit with them every second of the day, which became pretty burdensome pretty quickly.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, that makes lots of sense. And it doesn't work perfectly; we just stopped. I was distracted because my six-year-old came in and had a question for me just now. So it doesn't work perfectly. But we have a schedule also at our house, and we've done another webinar on that with Khan Academy. And um, this idea of clarity and just the kids kind of being on the same page as the adults of understanding what's happening when and who to get help with and um, why they're doing what they're doing is really, really important.

So how do they know what to work on, Lindsay, and how do you prepare it for them?

Very good question. Um, that's a great question. So the next C is curation, and curation is really all about preparation, right? So predicting what they're going to need and when and planning ahead. And this reminded me of the question that I saw which is, you know, how much active caregiver engagement should I aim for, and when should I be available? Because you know, like many folks out there, we're working full-time, and so we have to, you know, we have to ensure that we're doing our work.

So again, this is a similar picture to the other one, but this is our schedule, and the idea is we have to know ahead of time what the work is that they have to be doing in each day. Um, but we also have to predict sort of what problems may arise and whether it's my two boys getting in an argument over who gets to use, you know, the computer at this time or, you know, figuring out, you know, what hang-ups they might have to log into one of the platforms they use in my kid's school is clever.

Uh, so if they have trouble logging in, where can they go and sort of just anticipating what potential issues they may have? Um, and then also making sure that the materials that they need are accessible for them, right? That they know which space they're gonna be sitting in and when. Um, in terms of timing for each child, we try to figure out a day, a day in advance if we can, sometimes the week, and that way we can sort of see, you know, who's going to need more time and when.

Um, I mean, I don't know how you are feeling with your kiddo, but for us this has been really helpful just to sort of know ahead of time what information we're going to need to give to them so that we can have it in one place. I circled here for you the um, the hyperlinks. I'm a big fan of hyperlinking because that way they know where their schedule is. Everything is in Google Docs, and then they click on the hyperlink, and it takes them right to where they have to go.

Um, and there's no questioning; they don't have to, you know, come and ask me for the website or the access or whatever. It's already all there; it's like baked into the document.

Mm-hmm, yeah, and this makes me, oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, I was wondering, is this similar to what you're using?

Yeah, um, and it makes me think of when I was in the classroom. I was a fifth and sixth grade teacher, and uh, one of the most fundamental things you're doing when you're a teacher is anticipating roadblocks that kids are gonna hit and questions that they're gonna have and trying to set them up for success in advance. Because can you imagine if there's 27 students and they all have different questions, and you haven't anticipated that? It's a management nightmare.

Um, so it's, this is a skill that teachers have, and um, when I'm baking with my daughter is another thing. It makes me think of um, if you think about cooking with your children when they're young, it helps if you sort of, I know it's easier for me if I set out the measuring tools and the ingredients ahead of time, and maybe I already have a list of how much of each ingredient we need, or maybe I've already measured it out, and they can just help me by mixing.

That goes much more smoothly than if I just say, hey, let's bake cookies, and we go into the kitchen at the same time, and I'm looking for stuff, and she's like eating the chocolate chips while I'm not looking, and there's like everything at once. It helps a lot. It's hard sometimes to find the time ahead of time to invest to make a plan, but on the weeks and days when I am able to do that, the actual day, the rest of the day goes much more smoothly.

That does sound very familiar. Absolutely. No, I mean for sure and that's super familiar, and again, that was like using the game as the frame here, knowing the different players and knowing what they're going to need. Because every kid is going to need something different. You know, one of my kids is much, much faster sort of going through the writing part of his work, um, and the other one needs a little bit more help and support and scaffolding.

And so even just knowing where in the day they're going to need a little extra sort of love and encouragement so I can go and make myself available to them or maybe switch where it is in the day. So if, for instance, I know that there's a big writing project, maybe I'll put it at a time when I know I don't have meetings with my colleagues so that I can be available to him and help them out. So yes, know your players.

Um, the next one, if it's all right if I move along, is creativity. Uh, and here I'm talking about multiple opportunities to soar. And again, you know, the folks that were asking questions about what happens in multi-age families, how do you create a schedule where when there's an older kid and they see their younger sibling play they'd rather play?

Um, and that is very real. Um, so again following along with the game analogy is leveling up by being creative and being flexible and thinking outside the box about, you know, for instance where people are working at different times of the day. So we have sort of quiet spaces where we know that we can go to if we have a meeting, if we have to do a go-to webinar, we know that nobody's going to bother us there.

And then there are other spaces that are more open, and of course, this isn't easy every place, and it's not a perfect panacea. Um, but just being creative and flexible about where we should be at different times of day and then sort of setting aside when we know we're gonna have lunch together, for instance, which is a lovely thing. But you know if we don't make it for them we have to make sure that we have, you know, Snapchat for the kids.

We really they become so, so much more independent about finding what they need. I don't know if you're having the same experience, but it's been quite impressive. Um, flexibility in the resources and who has access to devices also in communicating.

So one of the things we talked about earlier and teachers do this in spades is give great feedback, right? And so how do we continue to help them get feedback? Their teachers are still giving them feedback in many instances, and during the day, we need to sort of be helping them with that as well.

So I have on the screen over here the morning reflections. I have my kiddos, right, um, morning reflection, and I have them reflect at the end of the day with what I call today I learned. And there are a bunch of questions for them just to think about, and as they're writing them sometimes I'll give them feedback in there or I'll just sort of write a little note to them like, wow, I was really impressed to see, you know, when you when you flew through that.

Or my older son wrote this beautiful compelling argument for uh why the U.S. women's soccer team should get equitable pay to the men's soccer team, and I was really taken with it. And so I gave him feedback here, and then I could tell, I mean he was so excited, and he came running in, and we had a great conversation about it.

So I think communication is key. You can do it in Google Docs, you can use post-it notes. I have a whiteboard here. I think it's fun if you have a space for a family whiteboard. We don't, but it would be a really great thing if we could. And also being creative about the responsibilities and reflecting on what is working and what's not working.

Yeah, and I'm seeing just um, I totally agree with all those suggestions, and I wanted to say I'm seeing some questions about um some of these resources in particular, and I wanted to say that we're going to share some links to some of these resources for morning reflection and schedules and things at the end so you'll have those.

Yeah, they're um, all the templates are available for free. You should have access to all of them. Um, we'll make sure that you do afterwards. Um, the next one is, uh, the next C, I think it's very important that sometimes it's okay for us to just let them say. I think that this moment is a very um tense moment for many of us, um for a host of reasons, and so I really think it's important that we allow our kids to sometimes just just play. Just go outside, if you can. Go ride a bike; go read a book.

Um, we have certainly, uh, had more hours on Fortnite and Minecraft than probably I'd like to admit, and I'm okay with that right now. Um, in fact, I'm okay with that in general—that's a different conversation. But I think that one of the really important pieces here is that it's okay for your kids to play.

Um, the next one is curiosity, and I say game on to curiosity. Um, one of the things that I think we should be more curious about is that feedback piece we were talking about earlier. Um, I have a whole, so my kids were doing these reflections and they were like, well mom, you know, you're not telling me if I'm doing it right or not, and I was surprised that they actually wanted the feedback. They wanted to know if they were doing it, what else they could do to make it better, or did I see it?

So I created for them sort of a super simple one-point rubric that I shared, and I'll share with you all as well. Also being reflective on what they're learning while they're learning it—what did you love? What is something that you never would have thought that you would have been excited to learn about? My kids got so excited about studying, um, they're studying ancient Greece, and he was so excited and inspired to learn about it. And he said, you know, if I hadn't had the time to sit there and watch that documentary, I don't know if I really would have gotten invested in it.

So I think that, you know, game on, be curious. Um, silver linings for us, I'm able to spend time having lunch with my kids maybe, you know, once or twice a week, but that's once or twice a week more than I ever did before, and to me that's incredible. Um, also in finding new ways to play, I have this sheet that I'll share with you as well; it's called while you were waiting, and it's basically there are two columns.

So if you have an internet-connected device, you have a host of things that you could do; if you don't, you have a host of things that you can do, and I'll share them with you as well. And so there are amazing opportunities that our kids can be doing if they're waiting for us. They need us to help them before they can move along. They don't have to stop playing. They don't have to stop learning because, as we know, we are always learning, especially when we're playing.

How does that sound?

That makes lots of sense as well. Um, there's so many great suggestions in here. Um, so we're ready for, I believe, the last one and maybe the most important one. We probably should have started here, but compassion. And I think, um, you know everyone's asking the same questions about how do we serve all of our kids, how do we meet their needs? And these are the questions that teachers ask every single day.

And so I think we're getting a really important glimpse into the life of what it is to be a teacher, and I think that in terms of compassion, the most important thing right now is that we are compassionate. Maximum XP is to to level up to get, you know, to achieve a higher score, be compassionate with our kids and their teachers and ourselves. And I have an asterisk here because not only is it made for it, it's also teacher appreciation week.

So I wanted to just sort of call out that we have these incredible humans that teach our kids all day, every day, all year, and we really are now seeing—I mean always—but how, how important they are in our lives. And I just wanted to, as we're compassionate with ourselves and our kids, also reach out to our teachers. Um, also be compassionate in communicating the reality of what's happening in this world right now.

And also being flexible with the expectations. If you need to reach out to your teachers and let them know that your kid is struggling and, you know, can't do the work or just needs a break, that's okay. And I think we need to have permission to do that. And again, you'll notice I said don't forget to fly because I think that's important as well.

Yeah, this is so important, and it can be really hard to because we wear so many hats. We want everything to be just right, and it also is very emotionally draining, especially if our kids are fighting or if our kids don't want to do what they are supposed to do. It can be very emotionally exhausting for any adult, and at those times, it can be really hard to maintain compassion with yourself or with your kiddos as well.

It's really important.

Yeah, I mean I think it's important to remember what is most important right now. And, you know, if you are together and you do have the ability to be together with your kids, I think that's a great gift. And just, I guess, taking a minute to just breathe and be okay with where you are and forgive yourself and hope that the world around you is going to be as compassionate.

Um, and if you're not, let me know because I would like to help them find that compassion. Um, the next piece that I really wanted to share is that there are over 76 million students in K-12 higher ed schools in the United States right now, and many of those individuals are currently learning at home. And why is that important? It's important because we're not alone, and as we're struggling and as it's important to have these scaffolds and as it's important to have all of these great resources to sort of tap into and ways to give our kids feedback and help them keep learning and stay on track and make sure that they're not losing any instructional time, it's also important to remember just as if we're being compassionate that we're not alone, that we really are in this together.

And that together we can move through this, and hopefully my goal is all of us should be better on the other end than maybe we were going into this in terms of education.

Um, I wanted to share also with you um, a quote that is one of my favorites. I have no idea who said this when I had my first son. My husband bought him this postcard; it didn't have an author, but it was, "Survival is the new success." So let's just keep moving one day at a time; there's no such thing as perfection.

Um, Pinterest makes everything look easy; it's not. Um, and it's okay to be messy; in fact, I think that that's for the best learning happens. So what I have for you here are a couple of different slides on resources. The daily activities that I made for my kiddos with the game plan is available, as are the morning reflections in the today line. There's some really incredible content that we have from Khan Academy that my kids have gotten engaged with in terms of, um, you know writing. Pixar in a box was incredible, and what I did is I created a, um, a document for them so that they could document their learning as they were using the Khan Academy content.

But there's also the MIT work there; there is an extraordinary so it was the big history project. There's just, there are tons of amazing resources. I also shared the feedback for the win, so if you want to give your kids feedback in a Google Document, very easy. Just take it, copy it, download it, use it, you're up for yourself.

And a list of while you're waiting, whether or not you have a device, um, there's plenty of stuff to do. Um, and then here are some non-tech and tech toys and games and sort of playful experiences that you might want to check out, uh, in this interesting time. And one of the things that I wanted to call out here is that you could challenge your kids to create their own versions.

I don't know if you've ever played, you've ever played slapstick with your kiddo?

No, I don't know.

It's a great game, and it's a great game that you could you could play and have her create a version so you guys can play together. Um, all of these are games that are pretty easy for your kids to hack, and then they themselves can play the game that they've created, which is also very fun to do.

Yeah, I wanted to end on a light note because it's a very heavy time. Um, I wanted to say may the fourth be with you, and I know we probably have tons and tons of questions. So if you if you'd like to go to them, we can do that; we can go back and look at any of the slides.

Yeah, no, we have—I wish we had an extra half an hour to answer all these wonderful questions that Dan has been um compiling for us to look at, so we'll try to keep our answers to the point, um, so we can get to as many of them as possible.

Um, Dan, I'm going to turn it over to you to facilitate that part.

Yeah, thank you, Lindsey, and thank you, Vicky. Hi everyone, I'm Dan and I'll be moderating the live Q&A session. Um, two things before we get into the questions section. First, go out to the handout section of this webinar and grab a copy of the presentation. It contains all of the tips, the C's that Lindsey walked through: clarity, curation, creativity, curiosity, and compassion, and it has the links to all of those resources that both Lindsey created as well as Khan Academy links to just some of our normal resources that you can find on our site as well.

Um, we already have a ton of questions. Uh, first, before we started, just ask for all of your patience just because we have so many and we only have about 10 minutes, and we'll try to get through as many as we can. Please submit more, and we'll try to get— we'll try to get through as many as we can.

Alright, I get to ask the easy questions, and then Vicky and Lindsey will do the hard job of actually trying to answer these. Um, Lindsey, there's a great question on uh reflection. So, what what actually is it? So there's a question from M.A. Lorraine: what do you mean by morning reflections? Can you just give a quick high-level overview of what that means?

Yeah, so the morning reflection is a document that I made for my kids, and it really is just reflecting on what they've done so far during the day. So any time before—it's typically they typically do it the last thing before lunch—and there's a question of, you know, what did you read today, and how did it make you feel?

Uh, what did it remind you of? So it's some of the similar questions that you probably are familiar with from your kids answering in school, making the text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world connections. Um, I also asked them, you know, I have a whole bunch of just silly questions, you know, how do you define curiosity, or what does it mean to be creative, or if you were to be a scientific explorer, where would you go, and what would you want to discover?

So they really are just a host of questions that my kids respond to every day. You have them for free; I think on the handout I added them all there.

Does that help?

Yeah, that's great! Like, if you have any opinions, like what's a question that you ask your kid every day?

Oh, we every day we reflect more at the end of the day on what's something that happened to you today that was good, what was happened to you or that you felt or experienced that was good, something that was a no thanks and something that was confusing, and that helps kids to see like the whole spectrum of life experience, not just to focus on what's good.

I like that. I'm going to use the no thanks moment.

We have a great question about just timing and how to schedule these things. So from Laura she asks, how much time each week should I expect to spend lesson planning, planning out a schedule per child?

Um, some teachers have provided a daily plan, some haven't, um, so just curious, you know, if you all have some perspective on, on both of those things. Vicky, practice you first, then Lindsey you could take, take it from there.

Um, I don't—I spend time at breakfast with my daughter planning her day while we're eating, and it takes 10 minutes, and she's very excited about it.

Um, but I have a couple of just go-to—I have a book of math problems; we just do a page from that every day, um, that are like kind of thoughtful discussion-based questions. She spends time reading, so I have repeated activities and don't need to plan fresh lessons every day.

Um, I use Bedtime Math is what I'm using right now. Um, Lindsay what about you? How much time are you spending?

Um, so I would say that we are—I don't know if I said this before—I have a fourth and a sixth grader. And so I have to give a lot of credit; their teachers are still sending lessons. So it's not as if I'm fully lesson planning for my kids. At the beginning of this, when I was lesson planning for my kids, um, I was pulling from different resources, and I was being very flexible by saying, look, instead of having 45 minutes of a particular subject area, you'll have an hour and a half to explore.

Um, and so, you know, I don't know, I had this flexible template that maybe took me a couple of hours on the weekend to put together, and I would just sort of iterate throughout the week. It was not a heavy burden. If you have younger kids and you do need more flexible planning, I think it's just a matter of making materials accessible for them—whether it's, you know, play-doh or paint, um, or games that they can play with siblings or, you know, by themselves.

Um, I think it just depends; it's widely varied. It depends on if the teacher is giving, if teachers give you work, how old the child is, but it shouldn't be an exhaustive experience.

Yeah, that's good; that's good—good point. Um, we have a question from Nema, who has kids ages seven and nine who keep comparing the amount of homework with each other. I think it's probably, uh, you know, she has less, he has less or so, or something like that.

Um, what should Nema do about that?

That's a really great question. So in our house, it's a really great opportunity to talk about the difference between equity and equality, and I have a fourth and a sixth grader, and you know, that's not fair, he's done first—that's not fair, he's done first. And I say, well, you know, that's interesting.

And, you know, to my sixth grader, you know, what happens if I would give both of you the same test for a sixth grader? Well of course the sixth grader would finish faster, and the fourth grader would struggle. So everyone's really getting what they need.

Um, and it's not always the same thing. This is very much like a very typical parenting conundrum, and the best thing that you can do is saying everybody is getting exactly what they need to meet them where they are and to help them grow. And maybe instead of, um, you know, being upset that somebody has more to do, maybe you could go and ask them, hey, can I help you? Like, what can I do to chime in and to help?

That's great.

Um, we have a question from I about tips for families juggling younger kids. I have a preschooler and a first grader, so they aren't as self-sufficient. What would you recommend for that situation, Lindsay, if they need a little bit more guidance on getting set up and getting ready with certain activities and assignments?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, Vicky, if you want to chime in. I know your kid was a little smaller, but, you know, when I worked in early childhood, it was really about setting up centers, right? If you think about going into a classroom and there's different centers. And I think our kids are more capable of being independent than maybe we think that they are.

I think it takes a little bit of scaffolding over time, which is the gradual release. First, you say, look, hey, this is, you know, this is the space where we're going to be creating, um, you know, flowers out of play-doh, and you do it a couple of times with them, and then one day, magically, they don't need your help anymore because they can do that by themselves.

And so whether it's practicing with scissors and cutting fun different shapes and having things cut out for them, or having magazines for them that they can tear out and, you know, use Elmer's glue to just to stick them onto something, or, you know, even if you teach them how to do a mandala, um, or just, you know, any sort of coloring drawing sort of activity over time, you can slowly release. That's the point of scaffolding; they're not there forever; you have to release and let them become independent.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking also was any kind of sensory play, and you can Google sensory play activities for preschoolers, and you'll find lists and lists and lists—anything that's sensory, like giving a kid shaving cream, that kind of thing will hold their attention for a while.

Um, also note that, you know, it's not developmentally speaking. Preschoolers aren't that independent, and they're not going to be able to play on their own for a very long time, and it's not appropriate to ask them to. Um, it can be really hard for them, um, but at the same time, we know that we have to work, and so it can really feel like this push-pull.

Um, my daughter, uh, when my daughter was two and three, I was newly a single parent and was trying to figure out how to live alone with a two-year-old and, like, do the dishes sometimes. And I needed a little bit of space, and one thing that really helped me um at that time was podcasts for kids, and I've mentioned that on some of these webinars before, but for my daughter, if I could give her a pile of craft supplies and put on a storytelling podcast that was age-appropriate, I could get enough time to do the dishes, and that could help.

Now, if you're needing enough time to be in a meeting or do some work, um, that can be helpful. I wanted to say that painter's tape is magical; it is magical because they make a ginormous mess with it, and it comes off of everything and doesn't leave a mark. So if they really are tactile and needing to be doing and making, and you want to, you know, let them do that without being afraid that they're going to destroy your walls, then that's always a fun option.

Great.

Um, we're using the alcohol to play games, right? Like you can play games on the iPad if you have, or if you want to watch a show on PBS.

I mean, I'm okay with that. I think that that's completely fine and there are great resources.

Yeah, and so that's a good, uh segue to a couple of questions we have about screen time. So some, Sri as well as Jennifer, asks kind of both around like with a lot of remote learning as well as some of these other activities, there's a lot of screen time that their kiddos are getting. Um, and then another question around like how much TV or tablet time is acceptable for a pre-K four-year-old?

Um, before I pass it over to Vicki and Lindsay, I just want to comment that the American Association of Pediatrics just released kind of a COVID-19 screen time recommendation which is a little bit more flexible than their normal—I think their recommendation for earlier learners are like 20 minutes a day—but I think that they're they recognize that this is kind of unusual times and to be a little bit more flexible and forgiving about that as well.

Um, so just be sure to be mindful of that. And with that, uh, Vicki or Lindsay, do you have any opinions on screen time right now?

I—we, I think we use a lot of educational apps. Um, she does Khan Kids. We love—I love Khan Academy Kids. Um, she'll also watch shows on PBS; I try to, I do try to limit it, um, to no more than an hour a day is what I do. But I think that's—that's a personal, what I need in order to balance my day for work and to kind of limit it for her.

We also watch—she loves science shows; we'll watch NOVA or any kind of science documentary. Um, and then she'll tell me one thing she does is watch an episode of NOVA and then write down three facts she learned or two questions she has after the show, something like that.

Oh, I love that!

Thank you. Early on, before the kids started getting homework from their teachers, we started to have a—we would have a list of sort of acceptable things to watch, and we would have them share with us over dinner. The goal was that they had to watch it, but then they had to come to dinner prepared to share with us what they had learned. So it was another way to sort of build a sense of, wow, celebrating what I'm learning.

I know we have more questions coming up, so I'm gonna let you keep moving along with them, Dan.

Yeah, sure! So I think we have time for one more question, um, and this one, we have quite a few questions around, um, kind of as a parent, how do you stop yourself from getting upset? How do you deal with kind of your frustrations? Um, and this is really important, so Vicky, I think maybe if you could tackle this one, and then Lindsay, if you can close out with answering this as well.

It's really important right now managing our own emotional regulation as adults in frustrating moments is really hard, and it's not like you can't help your kid to be calm unless you're calm yourself.

Um, so this is really about—and I'll recommend some resources—um, it's really about being able to take a step away for a minute, take the deep breaths you need to get yourself calm again, and then come back and help them try to figure out how to solve their problem.

Um, one strategy for that is called box breathing. Very quick, you just breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four. It's a box because it's four, four, four, four in hold out hold, um, and that—the military uses that; emotional scientists use that; everybody uses that. It'll like physiologically calm your nervous system down, and then you'll be in a calmer place to respond to your kids.

There are also a lot of great parenting resources on this. Um, one I really like, Hand-in-Hand Parenting, they have a ton of resources on their website. Um, as a parent with limited time, I like to follow my favorite parenting educators on social media, so I'll follow like Seed and Sew is an Instagram account that I really like.

Um, and so it's just like she'll post, it's a little square image on Instagram of tips about how to, emotion-like regulate my emotions and how to regulate my kids' emotions and how to respond to her.

Um, so that's some things I would recommend, um, but it's, it's, you know, what's going to work for you is going to vary. And with that, I think we'll turn it over to Lindsay to wrap up.

Yeah, I mean Vicky, I think you just did a stellar job. I think that the most important piece is that your mileage may vary. Everyone is different, and everyone needs a different way for managing their stress.

Uh, for me the most important thing is acknowledging that it's okay to be frustrated, and it's okay to get anxious, and it's okay to be angry and to be sad and to be confused. And I think for us, in our house, I'm very honest with my kids. And I say to them, hey, I've never done this before. None of us have done this before.

And you don't want to lose the sense of stability and strength and certainty that everything's going to be okay, but you also want to be vulnerable enough with your children to let them see that, you know, you're also trying to figure this out. Nobody has all the answers; we're all going through this together.

And for—and, and I also think it's a really great opportunity to take perspective and to think from the perspective of your kids and how they're feeling and why they're feeling that way. And then also invite them to take the perspective of other folks in their community and in the wider global community and how it is in other places of the world, right? Because everyone is having a different experience.

We have the shared experience of this very strange pandemic, but we also have very different living experiences, and so it's an opportunity to say, you know, let's be reflective about what it is, um, you know, to live in different parts of the world and parts of the country.

That's helped us quite a bit, and even to just verbalize that to our children, we've had some beautiful conversations—hard but beautiful conversations.

Thank you, Lindsay, thank you, Vicky. Um, I just wanted to thank the audience for joining us. I know everyone's incredibly busy during this time, um, and thank you for spending that time to be with us.

Uh, if you missed anything or you want to review this webinar, we'll be sending out a recording for those who register, and we'll also be making this available online, as well as the presentation will also be made available in both places as well. You can always go to Khan Academy, and there's a blue ribbon at the top taking you to all of our COVID response resources as well.

So if you miss anything, you can always go there. And then I would ask you to do one final thing before we close out here. Uh, there's going to be a pop-up that shows up at the end of this webinar, and we ask you to do two things for us. First, tell us how we could make future iterations of this session even better for you all.

And then secondly, what other types of sessions would you like to hear from us? Um, and we'll try to, you know, plan that out and, and get that to you um, as soon as we can. And in closing, as I mentioned, we know you're juggling a lot and this is really uncharted territory for all of us, and I think what Lindsey and Vicky kind of closed out with is really important.

Just as parents and as busy folks right now, just be kind to yourself. It's super important to remember that this is, um, incredibly stressful and challenging for all of us, and you're not alone. So, um, you know, just just be mindful about being kind to yourself.

So with that, we here at Khan Academy want to remind you, um, please, please check in occasionally, and uh, thanks again and goodbye.