Kristen Bell says distance learning made her family ‘miserable’

Parents have too much on our plates right now. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close parents were forced to become teachers (or at least tutors) overnight.

For Kristen Bell, coordinating distancing learning for her daughters, 5-year-old Delta and 7-year-old Lincoln, has been incredibly challenging, as she explains in the latest episode of her web series, Momsplaining.

“Doing school work with [my daughters], it is absolutely miserable. When we started this quarantine, the first math worksheet I gave my daughter, in all the answer lines she wrote, ‘No. No. No. No. No.'”

Like a lot of other parents, Bell came to the realization that the key to distance learning is to drop the parts that are making you feel stressed.

“The biggest lesson I learned in the beginning was I wrote out the color-coded schedule—when our academic time would be and when our art time would be. By day five, I was making everybody miserable,” she explains. “So about a week ago, I woke them up and I said, ‘This is your most important mission ever. Get up.’ I brought them in the kitchen and I had them rip up the schedule…I had them shred it and they felt so good.”

Take it from Kristen Bell, if something is not working for your family right now you don’t have to do it. We cannot replace our children’s teachers but we can help them feel safe. If worksheets and schedules don’t work for you, do like Bell and shred them. Your children will learn just as much going on a walk with mom or helping you make dinner.

Take the pressure off, mama.