A How-To Guide to Entertaining Your Kids in the Bunker
COVID-19, or ‘Coronavirus,’ or a ‘fresh take on hell’ has arrived in the Americas and, to attempt to stop the spread of it, they’ve advised people to social distance themselves. That sounds awesome at first….forced to be alone in your house? Rad! But then you realize it means you have to keep your kids with you in that same house. Less rad. Where we are, they’ve shut down the schools for a solid month (including spring break).
I’ve composed a guide to surviving this. (See: SNACKS)
First of all, you’re all in this together, and it’s gonna last a while, so take the time to really get to know each other. Family quality time! Good. Now that that’s done, how do you kill the other 29 days, 23 hours and 45 minutes?
Look around. Use what you have. Obvious ones are:
1) Build a toilet paper fort!
2) Form a tin can band.
3) Cry.
4) Snack.
Excellent. Now, you don’t want your wee children’s minds to get soft and squishy during this absence of structured learning (like they’re about to all summer), so good parents will learn to teach! How hard can it be?
Hard.
First, do kids bitch this much at real school? Boody hell.
Let’s start with math. Scurry to do some research about their level of math and how problems should look (when we were kids, they taught ‘rare core’ math apparently?). Painstakingly write problems for 30 minutes so that they can tell you they’re all wrong, and finish them in 17 seconds. Excellent.
Have a snack.
Next: Science. There are great online learning modules, some that come with projects! Cool! Don’t make slime, you will regret it. It seems that a lot of them are focused on germ transmission, how infections work, how washing your hands works, etc right now. This is useful bunker learning, but also has the potential to raise already elevated anxieties, so be cautious. Maybe watch one the one about man-eating predators, instead. It’s more soothing.
Have a snack. Also, don’t make slime. You will regret it.
History and reading can be combined. Go deep into the book shelves and find all the books about historical figures that you’ve optimistically bought over the years and your shitty kids refused to read because they sounded boring. Now’s the time. Make them write essays about what you read, or do a presentation for the ‘class.’ Let their whining FEED YOUR SOUL.
Speaking of feeding- you’re almost out of snacks. This is actually a real cause to panic.
Recess! Throw the kids outdoors every chance you get. As far as we know, backyards are still safe. The neighborhood park is a little more dicey, but if you make them wear gloves (it’s still cold out, plausibly glove weather) and scrub them head-to-toe upon their return, seems legit.
So now, you’re back inside and it’s 12:00pm on Day 1. Cool, cool. Eat lunch. Play board games. Build LEGOs. Draw/paint/sculpt. Well done!
Now it’s 12:45pm on Day 1. And we’re out of snacks.
