We learned more about the furloughs today, and while they hope to bring people back as soon as they can, a number of people who matter to me are affected, including one good friend. I understand that companies have limited choices when faced with a crisis, and that sometimes things like this are necessary, but it hurts a lot to watch it happening. I am very fortunate to so far not be directly affected.
Meanwhile my daughter's teacher wrote me concerned that she is not doing her schoolwork. With months of 'no school' school remaining it's very concerning to me that she won't participate. What's more upsetting is that she flies into tantrums or rages whenever she doesn't get her way, or when we tell her it's time for schoolwork. To their credit, the teachers at her school seem concerned too and are reaching out to us to help, which is wonderful.
My son had a telehealth appointment with his speech therapist today, which went about as well as can be expected, which is to say not very well. He really didn't want to participate and made that very clear.
The principal admonishes us to remember that we parents are not professional educators and cannot be expected to know how handle this 'remote learning' situation. That's helpful to hear but hard to remember. It is hard not to feel that we are somehow failing our kids. I rationally know that they will be ok in the long term, but the short term is terrible and it feels like it's getting worse.
Tonight both kids are having even more trouble than usual sleeping. Both of them have come down multiple times. My daughter opened up a little more about being scared about school being closed and having to stay in the house all the time. We suggested that she might want to start keeping a journal of some kind, we'll see if that happens. For now they are both finally asleep, though I fully expect one or both of them to be up in the middle of the night.