Self-isolation — What you’ll be doing at home but won’t admit
5 Things You Won’t Be Doing During Self-Isolation
What everyone is doing at home but won’t admit
I’m sure you’ve read endless tips on how to use your time while you’re isolated at home during the Coronavirus outbreak. Everyone with access to social media is coming up with helpful advice like “keep to a schedule”; play board games with your kids; cook together; do some DIY and take some “me” time. Well, I’m here to tell you what self-isolation is really about and what everyone is doing but won’t admit.
1. You Won’t Be Keeping a Schedule
You’ll be sleeping very late and going to bed at three in the morning. Each member of the family will be in a different time zone — the kids will sleep while the sun’s up and be awake all night and adults will pretty much just wake up when they can’t sleep anymore. There are no rules, no reason to get up and no bedtime. We’re in the twilight zone, it doesn’t count, what happens in quarantine stays in quarantine. How we’ll get back to a regular sleep pattern no one knows and no one cares right now.
2. You Won’t Be Exercising
Well if taking the dog for a walk counts as exercise then at least one member of the family will be exercising. No one is going to actually work-out at home unless they are fitness fanatics with home-gym equipment. Honestly, when someone tells you that no one will see you for weeks, no one is watching and you have the option of vegetating on the couch or exercising, which would you choose? Younger kids might be the only ones getting any exercise as they jump from chair to couch and race around the house knocking things over as they go.
3. You Won’t Be Eating Regular Meals
You’re not having a good breakfast to see you through a long workday, so there really doesn’t seem much point. Coffee will do. You all get up at different times so it is almost impossible to sit down together to eat and the best option is just to make a big pot of something, and whoever s hungry can help themselves. And of course, there are always cornflakes — a lifesaver: “Mom, I’m hungry.” “Cornflakes.” With their irregular sleep schedules, you’ll often be asked what’s for dinner at two in the morning and what’s for breakfast at two in the afternoon.
4. You’ll be Online, plugged in and Enjoying Screen Time
They say that the whole Corona situation creates stress and anxiety, then in the next breath, they tell you to limit your kid’s screen time. Sorry, although I totally agree that too much screen time is a bad thing and I would rather my kids were doing something else — with 24 hours a day at home, limiting screen time is virtually impossible. If you limit screen time during the day your kids will just stay up all night online. And to tell the truth it’s hard to tell them to get off the computer or phone when all you want to do is binge on Netflix. So, despite what supernanny and other experts say, what you’ll really be doing during quarantine is watching a lot of T.V. and passing the time online.
5. Kids Won’t Be Educated Online
First, they said lessons would be online, with daily lessons on Zoom at 10 am. 10 am? You try getting a teenager out of bed at 10 am on a day when he’s been up all night. Secondly, the technology can’t keep up with the volume of users, and the system stumbles, falters and crashes. Now kids have a list of assignments to do. Good luck with that. I’m sure some kids will do some of the school work but we definitely won’t get to a reasonable standard of education that can eliminate the need to redo all of these subjects, post-Corona. No matter how diligent the teachers and students, the subject matter covered during self-isolation will almost definitely need to be redone once life goes back to normal.
So What Will You Be Doing During the Coronavirus Self-Isolation?
During this time at home you’ll be relaxing; taking your foot off the peddle and realizing that some things are just not under your control. Unless you’re going to develop an antivirus yourself you are helpless at this point. All you can do is follow government instructions; keep safe and take this rare chance for some down-time.