Not only technology but also the pandemic has brought a lot of considerable changes in all aspects of our lives. When talking about the changes, one of the crucial things that the pandemic has brought into the field of education is a shift to virtual classes. But, this is something entirely new for most teachers, students, and even parents. These people are experiencing new teaching and learning patterns.

Place and time are no more a barrier to education as it is offered online after the pandemic. This is a good chance that the pandemic has brought into the lives of students, teachers, and parents alike. Nevertheless, anything that comes new to our lives comes along with challenges. This holds for virtual classes as well. Not only students, and teachers but also parents’ concerns about online learning are plenty. Here are a few challenges that parents faced and even some parents continue to face even now.

Study on Challenges:

McAfee conducted a study to find the problems faced by parents for online classes of their wards. According to this study, the following challenges got the top 5 positions among the many hardships that parents face:

1. Nearly 50% of parents stated that they face trouble in keeping their wards focused on schoolwork online.
2. About 49% of parents claimed that they face issues with maintaining a daily routine.
3. Around 41% of parents stated that they have trouble balancing household responsibilities and the schoolwork of their wards.
4. About 33% of parents faced trouble maintaining a wake-up and bedtime schedule for their kids
5. Nearly 33% of working moms talked about the lack of break/recess time.

Irrespective of the age of their kids, most parents face the issues stated above. Here are more details to gain a better understanding of the concern of parents regarding online distance learning.

1. Keeping the Kids Focused:

One of the biggest problems faced by parents in online classes is keeping their children focused on the classes. Post-pandemic, the schoolwork of small kids is no more schoolwork but it has turned into family work. Hangouts, WhatsApp, or the school network is the source of contact between teachers and students. So, children tend to show interest to chat with their friends as against focusing on their classes. To prevent this, parents are forced to sit by the side of their kids at the time online classes. In turn, they face hardships completing their cooking and other household activities. The condition is even worse for working moms. The reason is that they had to manage their office work, and household work. Even, they will have to spend time with their kids to keep them focused.
A possible solution to this problem is that parents can sit alongside their kids during online classes. They need not have to do this every day. They can just plan this once a week and teach kids to stay focused without any distractions. When a fixed time is set for chatting with friends, kids can stay more focused during class hours online. When parents do this, they can also fix a daily routine for their kids. In turn, their productivity will improve during online class hours.

2. Challenges with Maintaining A Daily Routine:

When they are young, it becomes important for establishing a fixed routine for kids. But, one of the problems faced by parents in online classes is establishing a proper routine for their wards. When they go to school, parents find it easy to teach them to start at the right time. Even, parents find it easy to teach them to reach the school at the right time. In turn, students were able to prevent being detained as latecomers at the school entrance. But, as the classes have turned virtual, the time of online classes differs. The reason is that teachers have many classes to attend online. So, they are able to get to a group of children only after completing the lesson with another group.

With the complaints received from parents about not having a regular schedule, many schools are now maintaining a proper routine even in virtual classrooms. Until a proper schedule is developed by schools and teachers, parents should try and maintain a proper schedule and can motivate kids to do some other productive activities daily by maintaining a schedule.

3. Trouble Balancing personal, office, and schoolwork:

When talking about online learning challenges for parents, most parents complain about the inability to balance personal, office, and schoolwork. As they are forced to spend time with kids, teach them and help them with their assignments, they have a hard time focusing on their household work. The problem is even worse for working parents. The reason is that they have office works to be completed from their homes.

The solution to this problem is effective time management. Of course, some parents will have to work more hours each day to balance all work. But, when things are planned rightly without wasting time on unnecessary tasks, parents can somewhat manage. This holds even for working moms as the right time management techniques can be of great help to them.

4. Trouble Maintaining a Wake-up and Sleep Pattern:

One of the parents’ concerns about online learning is trouble maintaining a proper wake-up and sleep pattern. With regular school times, parents can easily motivate their wards to get to sleep early so that they can wake up early and start school. But, with virtual classes starting only late on a given day, it becomes hard for parents to motivate their kids to maintain proper sleep and wake-up time.

To motivate kids to maintain a proper sleep and wake-up cycle, parents can enroll them in some physical activities early in the morning daily. Even, they can enroll their kids in online yoga classes. When they have this schedule every morning, kids can be motivated to wake up early. They can wake up early only when they go to bed early.

5. Lack of Recess/Break Time:

Most parents these days have realized that online education is more strenuous as compared to regular school education. It needs more time and more attention and it can take a toll on the health of kids and teachers as well. Many parents are worried that the lack of break time may lead to a lot of stress for their kids.

To handle this, most schools these days have created schedules that provide a lot of breaks in-between classes not only for children but also for teachers. Some schools and even some teachers follow the 10-10 policy. It involves 10 minutes of teaching and 10 minutes of break. Of course, this approach can provide kids with breaks in between. Nevertheless, this policy can bring down the time for extra-curricular activities for kids. However, parents are at liberty to engage their kids in extra-curricular activities during weekends.

Conclusion:

These are just a few challenges complained about by parents. But, in reality, they face more issues with online classes. Most importantly, parents and particularly at-home moms find it hard to get free time. When kids go to school, moms need not spend time with their wards during school hours. In turn, these parents can get some personal space to complete their household tasks. Let us pray that regular schools start back again. Of course, in most countries, this has happened and continues to grow further. However, the growth of technology cannot be prevented. From hereon, more and more virtual classes will start at least at the college level if not at the school level.