Skills Repeat

It’s been a sporadic posting time right now as I have been combating the lockdown and tier systems with the kids with lots of outdoor time. We walk, climb trees, slide around in the mud and just forget that there is a lockdown and a potentially lonely time. All of that has changed now as of today. Thankfully, my eldest isn’t unwell but someone has been unfortunate in her class to have a positive Covid19 test.

That means that as my husband is out at work, we are all at home now. When we got a message from school this morning about 15minutes before we left the house, my eldest was thoughtful. Then she had a meltdown saying that she didn’t want to be isolated for two weeks. Then we played some games and did some online work, received some lovely messages from her school teacher and she is back to her normal self. I’ve been thinking about the word ‘Isolation’ as that is the word she used and not ‘quarantined’. She doesn’t want to be alone and ignored; she doesn’t know the limit of interacting with others, she is sociable and that is the basis of her personality more so than my younger child.

Apart from the fact that everyone is working from home, are there different types of working isolation? How many times have you been a team member in the workplace but not treated as part of the team? This could be intentional or an inadvertent issue. I remember being in a team where I was continually told ‘You won’t have seen this, it’s a cartoon we used to watch in the 80’s’, or ‘That was my favourite song before you were born’. It wasn’t intentional but instead of having the conversation, it excluded me from the outset and I wanted to switch off. I felt quite alone as these small jokes made a good relationship with the team but singled me out. I spoke to the team about it and they agreed not to do it: and they didn’t!

However, the ‘Isolation’ that my daughter felt this morning is something we will have to face up to for the two weeks we are home. Sure it can be done, we did it earlier in the year and she has so many accomplishments from it: taught herself how to in-line skate by having some practice time in the garden, can take one hand of the bike handle bars whilst cycling, playing tennis when she didn’t even know how to hit a ball back.

So these two weeks are for taking it easy and being forgiving on ourselves, and to also be a family that feels fulfilled. How have you managed a two week quarantine period after being in contact with Covid19? Stay safe everybody, stay healthy.