WENDY GROLNICK Parents have always helped children with homework and made sure they fulfill responsibilities like chores, but the extended and often unstructured time families are spending together during the current crisis creates new challenges. After a disaster like a hurricane or fire, establishing structure is important to keep consistency and maintain a sense of control for both parents and children. This includes creating a schedule and communicating clear expectations and guidelines on things such as screen time. But how do parents get children to follow a schedule and fulfill responsibilities without nagging and in a way that prevents blowups and tantrums? Wendy Grolnick, a psychologist and parenting expert who has worked with parents in disaster situations, has studied how parents can help children become more self-motivated and decrease conflict in the family. In this piece she shares some strategies to make the house run more smoothly during the Coronavirus crisis. 1. INVOLVE CHILDREN IN SETTING SCHEDULES When children participate in creating guidelines and schedules, they are more likely to believe the guidelines are important, accept and follow them. To involve children, parents can set up a family meeting. At the meeting, parents can discuss the schedule and ask children for their input on decisions like what time everyone should be out of bed and dressed, when breaks from schoolwork would work best and where each family member should be during study time. Not every idea will be feasible — children may feel being dressed by noon is fine! But when parents listen to a child’s ideas, it helps them own their behavior and be more engaged in what they are doing. There may well be differences in opinion. Parents can negotiate with their children so that at least some of the children’s ideas are adopted. Resolving conflicts is an important skill for children to learn, and they learn it best from their parents. 2. ALLOW CHILDREN SOME CHOICE Schoolwork has to be done and chores need to be completed, but having some choice about how they are accomplished can help children feel less pressured and coerced, which undermines their motivation. Parents can present some chores around the house, and children can choose which they prefer. They can also pick when or how they complete them — do they want to do the dishes before or after watching their TV show? Parents can also give children choice about what fun activity they would like to do at the end of the day or for a study break. 3. LISTEN AND EXUDE EMPATHY Children will be more open to hearing about what they need to do if they feel that their own perspectives are understood. Parents can let children know that they understand, for example, that it is not fun to be in the house and that they miss being with their friends. Parents could begin requests with an empathetic statement. For example, “I know it seems like getting dressed is silly because we’re in the house. But getting dressed is…
