Getting through lockdown with kids survival guide for Spain’s parents

ROUTINE: The guide recommends establishing a daily timetable. CREDIT: Ayuntamiento de Adra

A Costa Almeria council has created on online guide for parents on how to get through the lockdown home confinement with kids.

THE Adra Social Services department Family Team has put together practical tips for mums and dads on how to organise the days while the State of Alarm restrictions remain in place. It features sections on personal care, psychological care and on personal relations.

“We are offering citizens advice on our capacity for overcoming this emergency situation which we are going through due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is a new situation to which we have to adapt, and which requires us all to make an effort to get through it,” commented Social Services councillor Patricia Berenguel.

Under personal care the local authority repeats the obvious recommendations for avoiding contagion like staying at home and avoiding physical contact with others unless absolutely necessary, but also reminds people of the importance of trying to do some kind of daily physical exercise, eating a healthy diet and getting up and going to bed at the usual times.

Mental health is crucial, it stresses, especially under current circumstances.

“Although it is normal to feel stress, uncertainty or fear, you have to try and stay calm,” the guide stresses.

Hence “communication is vital and knowing how to listen, especially to children, trying to explain to them in an appropriate language for their age what coronavirus is and how to avoid it.”

It underlines the need for parents to give out to children messages of calm and of safety and to keep a positive attitude.

School is out indefinitely, but the guide recommends staying in contact with kids’ teachers and helping them with their homework. It strongly suggests getting children to follow a routine with a fixed daily timetable, especially from Monday to Friday.

Mums and dads should, it continues, do their best to create a favourable environment for studying, emphasising this should be “without the distraction of electronic devices like TVs and consoles.”

Another recommendation is getting children to do their bit around the home.

“This situation could be a good opportunity to improve relations with our children,” the guide maintains.

Author badge placeholder
Written by

Cathy Elelman

Cathy Elelman is the local writer for the Costa de Almeria edition of the Euro Weekly News.

Based in Mojacar for the last 21 years, Cathy is very much part of the local community and is always well and truly up on all the latest news and events going on in this region of Spain.

Her top goals are to do the best job she can informing the local English-speaking community, visitors to the area and the wider world about about the news in Almeria, to learn something new every day, and to embrace very new challenge this fast-changing world brings her way.

Share your story with us by emailing newsdesk@euroweeklynews.com, by calling +34 951 38 61 61 or by messaging our Facebook page www.facebook.com/EuroWeeklyNews

Comments