There have been so many changes to everyday life this year, but one of the biggest changes for parents is that many children are now being taught their classwork online. Distance learning comes with many challenges, among them that we as parents are often more involved than ever in the homeschooling process. To anyone else who's had a difficult time adjusting to this new reality — we're not alone. Celebrities hate homeschooling just as much as we do.
It's a struggle to get kids to pay attention to their classes when they're surrounded with the distractions of their home. And for parents who are also working from home, the work-life balance feels impossible right now. So it does feel a little better to know that we're all in this together — even the famous people.
To see how celebs like Jennifer Garner, Prince William, and Tamera Mowry-Housley are handling these stresses of virtual learning, keep reading. It'll make every parent feel that much better about their own adventures in homeschooling.
It's a "nightmare"
When in doubt — bribe
Avengers actor Chris Hemsworth told Jimmy Kimmel that he's a total pushover in the homeschooling department. So, he's resorted to bribing his kids to get them to do their work. "I'm trying. I'm failing miserably. It's sort of, you know, four or five hours of negotiation and bribery and then 20 minutes of actual work, if that," he said. We feel that.
Math seems so different now
Is it just us or are kids learning completely different math these days? How can we be expected to help them with their homework if we never learned it this way? Jennifer Lopez feels our pain. "Have you seen the math they make the kids do now? … It's a new math. It's crazy, and so half the time, I'm like, 'OK, let's look up that word. What does that mean?' It's been an experience for sure," she told Ellen DeGeneres.
The house is now a science lab
With no classroom to go to, kids are doing their science experiments right at home. Jennifer Garner snapped a picture of what she walked into in her kitchen one day. It was an egg in a dish next to a hand drawn sign that said, "SCIENCE EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS. NO TOUCH!"
"The fun never stops around here," the actress joked in her photo caption.
Keeping the school structure
Kate Middleton would probably appreciate how Snooki has approached distance learning. She's not letting it be slack-off time for anyone. "Told my kids to call me Mrs.LaValle, since I'll be their teacher for the next few weeks," Snooki wrote on Instagram. "They have to raise their hands & ask for bathroom passes. We'll have lunch & recess and if anyone acts up, I’m sending them to the [principal]." In this case, the princpal is her husband Jionni LaValle.
It's emotional
For any parent who finds themselves a little more emotional these days trying to juggle everything plus homeschooling, Drew Barrymore is right there, too. She said on The Today Show that she'd finally figured out a good routine with her kids, and then "school started. And it all went out the window. I cried every day, all day long." It's a lot, we get it.
Time to teach our own stuff
One silver lining to this whole distanced learning thing is that we can use it as a chance to teach our kids some things they may not necessarily learn in school. Kerry Washington has been doing that with her children, telling People magazine, "We're actually doing lots of studying of Africa at home right now. We were just building pyramids out of sugar cubes because we're talking about Egypt. It's figuring out how to celebrate Black identity and Black lives outside of a context of struggle."
