Your child may miss their key adults and their school friends

It may help to Provide supervised social contact and links through electronic devices – familiar platforms like Skype or Messenger or WhatsApp video calls and give contact with friends as well as key adult connections such as grandparents and other family members.

Make sure you talk about feelings and emotions.  If your child doesn’t have this vocabulary, then help them by saying things like

“I can see you are feeling . . .”  Or

“I wonder if you may be feeling . . .”

You could have a feelings/emotions check in chart.  There are a number available to print from websites like:

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-s-1056-how-do-you-feel-today-emotions-chart

Pinterest have lots too.

Create and complete a ‘Happy Journal’ or Mood Journal’. This could be a helpful way to help children balance their mood during these uncertain times.

Your child may not cope well with lack of routine

Your child may find it hard when adults switch between a carer/teacher role.

Try to establish a daily routine – but don’t stress if it doesn’t go according to plan – you can be flexible!

As a family, you could create a weekly episode to report on the week either through interview(s) or reporting using video.

Ask your child what their favourite subject is and offer them the opportunity to explore it in a different way:

Internet research and making a book or a Powerpoint presentation or a video presentation for example.

Being at home with each other in a more confined space with little break from each other can be stressful

You might try creating zones within the house for your child to access (for example a calm /safe space.

If your child accessed a calm box in school – use this idea at home.

Also, we don’t really have any quiet, safe spaces at school so we have successfully used small pop-up tents to create them in classrooms.  You could try this at home too.