"The tween and teenage years are already filled with heightened emotions and social pressures – adding a pandemic to the mix only makes things more complex. How can we best support older kids who have been impacted by COVID-19?

Our guest experts will discuss how to help your teens and tweens through this difficult time, how to monitor and care for their mental health, and more."

This webinar is a free event being held on Thursday January 28th from 9PM-10PM (Eastern Time).

"Winter's here - how will we continue to keep our youth active and healthy during the pandemic? Many sports have had to take a time-out due to COVID-19. Indoor activities have been cancelled, and, pandemic or not, weather doesn't always permit us to enjoy being physically active outdoors. The cancellation or delay of sports seasons have also had long-term impacts on the futures and identities of youth and young adults.

​So, as parents and caregivers, how do we keep our children active, healthy, and strong, while helping them (and us) mourn the loss of the activities that help them thrive? Join us and our guest experts as we discuss the ways to tackle these issues and help our children cope physically and mentally so that everyone "wins."

This webinar is a free event being held on Thursday January 14th from 9PM-10PM (Eastern Time).

By: Cory Turner, Anya Kamenetz, & Meghan Keane| December 10, 2020

"For the kids in our lives, the last nine months have been many things. Scary — because an invisible, unknown illness was suddenly spreading across the globe. Maybe even fun, when the possibility of school closing felt like a snow day. But for many, that novelty has given way to frustration and sadness — even depression and anxiety. Just like adults, kids are wondering: Will I get sick? Will someone I love die?

It's a lot for kids and parents to handle. So we talked to the experts and came away with five tips for how you can help your kids through this.

Make sure your kids wear their masks

"Kids generally don't get very sick from this virus," says Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. But, he says, they can still play a part in making sure others don't get sick by wearing their masks and social distancing.
It might take a little imagination. If you have younger kids, you can explain the spread of the coronavirus by comparing their mouths to a bottle of bug spray. Weird, yes — but it's one way for young ones to visualize the tiny droplets they spread, even when they aren't sick. If they wear a mask, it helps keep those droplets in.

If you've got older kids or teenagers, take this a step further: Encourage them to spread the word. Practice what they might say if they're with friends at the park and someone takes their mask off. Maybe your 13-year-old has been waiting months to see Grandma and could say, "I need to keep my Grandma safe, so do you mind putting your mask on?"
Rehearse it with your kids so the conversation goes smoothly.


Practice positive thinking and mindfulness

In a recent report, researchers interviewed 46 teenagers in California and found that the teens reported a huge sense of loss — similar to the stages of grief. Most of the teens were sleeping badly because of lack of activity and lots of screen time.

Kids of all ages — as well as their parents — can probably relate.
​
In addition to the obvious prescription — trade in some of that screen time for physical exercise — try some brain exercises too, like replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. You might try saying a few things you're grateful for each night before dinner or before bed. There's evidence behind that: Gratitude boosts your immune system, lowers blood pressure and motivates us to practice healthy habits. It may feel awkward or cheesy, but practicing mindfulness and positivity very consciously can help kids and parents too.

It's also important to watch for signs of something more serious too.

"Depression in teenagers sometimes looks like a prickly porcupine. Everybody rubs them the wrong way," adolescent psychologist Lisa Damour says. Don't take it personally; just keep offering them a listening ear."

By Rafael Nam| November 12, 2020

"Like many married and working couples first confronting the pandemic, Bianca Flokstra and Victor Udoewa tried to go on with their lives as normal.

Flokstra continued to work full time while taking care of their kids, ages 4 and 2. She also handled most of the housework, with her husband helping from time to time. It didn't work.

"Those first couple of months were really hard," Flokstra says. "There was ... a lot of fighting. A lot of tears."

The pandemic has upended many aspects of domestic life, and that has brought new attention to one of the most enduring disparities between men and women — the wide difference in handling housework and child care.

It's what Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab, calls one of society's most "stubborn" divides.

"The traditional gender division of labor is very durable," Cooper says. "Even the most egalitarian-thinking couples, after having children, find themselves in a much more traditional division of labor than they ever would have intended."

Cooper, who has studied the issue extensively, says that divide, which is rooted in history and perpetuated by persistent societal norms, has endured even as women have joined the workforce in larger numbers over the decades, making record gains.

Yet even as more families become dual-income households, women still do 30% more of the housework and 40% more of the child care, Cooper says.

The disparity in work done at home is now having a serious economic impact as entire families are forced home with schools closed and no child care options available.

More than 2.2 million women have left the workforce this year, far more than the 1.4 million men who have left as a result of the pandemic, according to the monthly U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Proportionally, more women were employed in sectors that were hit hard by the pandemic, including hospitality and retail.

​But Cooper, as well as many economists, says the burden placed on working moms during the pandemic is another key variable forcing many women out of the workforce.

Some couples have adapted.

Flokstra, for example, says she had little choice. She desperately needed sleep after exhausting days at a new job in international aid while also taking care of all of her other responsibilities.

She started sending the kids to her husband, unprompted. Then, she started drafting to-do lists — activities she and her husband would split day to day.

​But getting there wasn't easy. It wasn't that Udoewa wasn't willing to help; he was.

Flokstra says she had become so used to doing household chores that she found it hard to delegate — and trust — her own husband to do the job.
​
That hesitancy is surprisingly common among women, according to Cooper.

​It's a complicated mix of "mother's guilt" as well as societal expectations on couples, where men are still seen as the breadwinners."

By Pallavi Gogoi| October 28, 2020

"Women are seeing the fabric of their lives unravel during the pandemic. Nowhere is that more visible than on the job.

​In September, an eye-popping 865,000 women left the U.S. workforce — four times more than men.

The coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on households, and women are bearing the brunt of it. Not only have they lost the most jobs from the beginning of the pandemic, but they are exhausted from the demands of child care and housework — and many are now seeing no path ahead but to quit working.
​
Women have made great strides over the years: More women than men are enrolled in college, in medical schools and law schools.

The number of women in the workforce even overtook men for a brief period of three months through February this year.
But the uncomfortable truth is that in their homes, women are still fitting into stereotypical roles of doing the bulk of cooking, cleaning and parenting. It's another form of systemic inequality within a 21st century home that the pandemic is laying bare."

​Already, their parents are getting sick and dying. Their kids are falling behind. So along with doing everything else, working becomes impossible.

"The problem is that right now a lot of women don't really have choices, right?" says Martha Gimbel, a labor economist at the nonprofit initiative Schmidt Futures. "They can't send their kids to school. Someone has to supervise the learning. Someone has to deal with the cooking. Someone has to deal with the cleaning, and it's falling onto them. And so they can't make choices that they want to make because they're being restricted in all these ways."

Women are back in 1988
The pandemic's female exodus has decidedly turned back the clock by at least a generation, with the share of women in the workforce down to levels not seen since 1988.

​A growing, prosperous economy depends on a large and committed workforce, with women playing a vital role. If women decide to stay on the sidelines, the very dynamism of the U.S. economy is at risk as many households lose half of their earnings and productive capacity. This trend could even turn back the clock on gender equity, with harmful consequences to society and the economy.

Economists are worried.

"We’ve been through so much together since this summer, and we still have a long way to go as pandemic parents and caregivers. (Remember, psychiatrist and child trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry said it’s a thru-hike, not a sprint or even a marathon).

With our co-founders, Dr. Lindsay Malloy and Dr. Amanda Zelechoski, leading the way, let’s take a brisk walk down memory lane (because nobody has time for a stroll right now) to share some of our most impactful moments so far since our first Pandemic Parenting Exchange."

This webinar is free and will be held on Thursday, December 17th, 2020 from 9:00-10:00 PM (Eastern Time) via Zoom. 

"We’ve all been there. Exhausted. Busy. Hungry. Bored. You name it—we turn the [insert electronic here] on. (Warning: The mom/parent guilt around this can be strong.)

But what are the actual, science-based facts on screen time…and too much of it? As the weather turns colder, we explain the fact-based pluses and minuses of screen time to increase our knowledge on this hot topic. Jonathan S. Comer, Ph.D. will join as our guest panelist, and Natalie Hong, M.S. will guide the discussion as moderator."

The webinar will be held on December 7, 2020 from 9:00-10:00 PM (Eastern Time) via Zoom.

"Every family is unique in its own ways, and parents are navigating the pandemic the best way they know how. We want to shine a light on our co-parenting parents and single parents who are experiencing their own set of distinctive challenges during the pandemic and provide resources to ease the burdens they may be experiencing."

The webinar will be held on November 24, 2020 from 9:00-10:00 PM (Eastern Time) via Zoom. 

October 15, 2020| NPR Staff

"When I was growing up, I marveled at how my single mother was able to come home after a long day of work, make dinner, iron our school uniforms and help me and my sister with our homework.
I can't imagine how she would have managed during this pandemic.
What would she have done if she was laid off from her job at the airport? Would she be able to figure out — or afford — virtual school? How would she keep us safe from the virus?

Around the world, mothers have been struggling with these very challenges during the pandemic. We spoke to three mothers who shared how they've been faring: a mom of two in Jordan, expecting her third child and missing the in-person support from family; a dairy farmer with four teenage children — and 165 cows — to look after; and a single mom helping her son, who is on the autism spectrum, find joy in spite of coronavirus restrictions.

Read their stories, check out our special report on 19 women facing the coronavirus crisis — then find out how to nominate a woman to be profiled at the bottom of the story. -- Malaka Gharib"

"Calm And Juggling On A Dairy Farm

The cows rode around the milking carousel, a circular platform lined with 30 individual holding pens that slowly turn clockwise. In each pen, a black and white Holstein or brown and white Montbéliarde waited to be milked.
In the pit below the carousel, 40-year-old Nienke Pastoor stood at udder-height, attaching the milk-extracting pump to each cow as it passed her.

​Pastoor, her husband Jaap and Henk, an employee, need just 90 minutes to milk all 165 of the farm's dairy cows.

Pastoor and her husband co-manage a 336-acre dairy farm. One of her many responsibilities is to help run the daily milking operation. She's also the mother of four teenage children; she cooks and cleans; and she manages the farm's books. She regularly gives tours to schoolchildren from the nearby city of Groningen, taking them around the farm and letting them milk the cows by hand.

​For a while Pastoor cherished the sudden quiet and freedom that COVID-19 brought to the "Other World": the name given to the remote farming district in the far north of the Netherlands where the Pastoor family have been dairy farmers for 75 years. "We established a strange new family rhythm during the lockdown," she said on a blustery blue-skied afternoon.

The only set routines were the morning and afternoon milking of the cows, and the e-lessons of her children: Thomas, 17, Daniel, 15, and twins Emma and Paulien, 13, who like many students in the Netherlands switched to remote learning in March.

"There was less pressure," she said. "No music lessons or sports games to drive the children to. And because the weather was so nice, life definitely felt a little more relaxed." The only visitors to the farm during the lockdown, which lasted from March 15 till June 2, were the truck drivers who came by three times a week to pick up 3,079 gallons of milk, and the vet who visited every two weeks.

​But the pandemic also added new tasks to Pastoor's farm routine. She suddenly had to help the children with their schoolwork. "I made sure they were sitting at their laptops when they were supposed to be. I told them, 'We all have responsibilities in life. I have to do things. And so do you. You make sure the thing you are doing is done on time.' "

The children didn't mind the sudden shift to learning at home. They were able to sleep longer in the mornings as they didn't have to bike to school. The only frustration was the frequent technical glitches — no sound, the teacher's screen not working.

Pastoor was so busy she couldn't do the books for a month. Work kept piling up on the long wooden kitchen table where she normally sits.

"In the end, I had to tell [Jaap and the children] to get out of the kitchen so I could have some time for myself."

"It was difficult being a mother and a farm manager," she said, reflecting on lockdown life. "Everyone expected me to successfully juggle everything."

​But dealing with all these responsibilities didn't concern Pastoor. What truly worried her was how she would cope if her husband were to get COVID-19 and succumb to the virus — and she'd be left to manage the farm on her own. "The pandemic really brought that home."

Dutch News| August 19, 2020