#25 - How to parent to an adequate level when working from home

The school summer holiday is over. Thank fuck for that. Excuse the swearing, it’s just been quite a trying six weeks. If you’re reading this on Thursday, both my kids returned to school this morning, considerably wiser having spent so much of that time with me. If you are thinking about having kids, treat this as a little bit of an education. If you aren’t thinking about having kids, use this as confirmation you’re doing the right thing. It’s win-win. Here are my learnings and general observations of a summer with a 5 and 12-year-old:

1. Get used to this

Look, I’m actually a good parent, despite what you might read in this blog. I love my kids and (mostly) enjoy spending time with them. But, and this is key, it’s hard going from being able to work freely without interruption to having little people in your house who seem to be on a mission to disturb your flow as much as possible. It’s actually quite incredible how they are able to find the most mundane things and build them into huge problems that need your intervention.

“She’s sat on the beanbag incorrectly,” “he wouldn’t let me have the blanket over my legs,” “she touched me with her leg,” “he said I am a poo poo head.” While this all might sound trivial to those of you reading this who are blissfully child-free, just imagine being informed of these trivialities every few minutes until you feel like screaming, but instead eat half a pack of supermarket-own-brand Oreos to push down the rage.

2. Buy lots of Freddos

Maybe it’s just my kids, but I’m able to control them, erm, I mean, parent them, pretty successfully with a bribe… errr, a reward. My tip is to stock up on Freddos, the small chocolate from Cadbury. If you need an hour to just get some shit done without being called upon every 5 minutes, strike a deal with them. You can have a Freddo if you just sit there for one hour.

3. A tablet is worth its weight in gold

Judge all you want, but there’s absolutely no way I’d have got through this school summer holiday without the aid of a tablet. They come in handy when paired with the Freddo bribe, but also just so you can give each kid a bit of time when they aren’t having to do the same thing. Stick one on the tablet, the other on the TV. That is parenting.

4. Make the kids leave the house

This sounds a little like I’m suggesting you kick them out onto the street. I’m not suggesting this, even if it may be closer to the parenting style a lot of people in their 40s or above grew up with. No, I’m just advocating for getting everyone out for a walk at some point, simply to break up the day or keep some kind of routine. Because I have been juggling a variety of different jobs I wanted to get some exercise done early, so I’ve been forcing my kids to accompany me to Lidl every morning at 8am. We all get a walk, they get to pick their lunch, and by the time we return they are somewhat less likely to be bouncing off the walls. Just avoid the Middle of Lidl unless you want to start a six-week war of attrition over whether or not the youngest can get a random-brand soft toy (yes, reader, after six weeks I gave in!)

5. Erm, did I already mention Freddo bribes?

Yeah, just keep dangling the chocolate over them so they start to behave the very moment they hear the chocolate and sweet drawer opening. Yes, we have one of those. What of it?! £3 for 10 bars might sound extortionate to anyone who remembers them being 10p each, but it’s a small price to pay for absolute control.

6. Ban YouTube

If there’s one bit of advice you retain from this article, let it be this. Kids watch the absolute worst videos if you give them access to YouTube. It’s not their fault, the algorithm dictates what they get funnelled towards, and inevitably it’s some rich kids living somewhere too hot spending a ridiculous amount of money to make the most banal videos you could ever imagine. Just cut it off at the source. No YouTube. If I see or hear one more video of a privileged child and their privileged friends sitting in a Tesla Cyber Truck eating food from a Petrol Station as if it’s food found 10 years after the apocalypse, I’ll fucking lose my shit.

7. Sometimes don’t ban YouTube

Right, I realise this is becoming hard to follow, but this is what it’s like parenting. You make rules that you believe you’ll stick to, but then one of the kids will do something and you throw the rules out of the window in order to bring some order to the chaos. So, yeah, keep a list of approved YouTube channels in your back pocket, so when, for example, an almighty meltdown occurs you can throw it in like a stun grenade. 5-year-old about to smash up the place because you’ve not allowed the eating of a third Freddo? Here, have some fucking Blippi doing some spins in a hedgehog-themed adventure park! Bam!

8. Snack boxes

My greatest invention of this summer has been the snack box. If I know I have to get some proper work done, I grab a large container for each child (I use popcorn bowls, but any non-breakable receptacle will do the job), and then sort of throw every snack item in the house into it. Mini Cheddars, Pom Bears, mini cookies, Soreen bars, biscuits (Oreos, Rich Tea, Custard Creams), Pringles, a third Freddo - chuck them all in. But then, as you are handing the bowls over, add in a banana and tell the kids they must eat this first. They’ll bitch and moan like kids do, but they are so greedy they’ll go along with it. The sneaky part is that by the time they’ve eaten the banana they won’t want much of the rest of the stuff. A-class parenting, that is.

9. Predict the future

Try to become a Minority Report-style pre-cog but for predicting what your kids are going to want from you in the near future. No matter what you do to prepare them for an hour of undisturbed work, you’re going to come undone if you don’t solve some problems before they’ve occurred. Make sure they’ve been to the toilet recently, make sure they’ve got drinks, make sure the bigger child is aware that the smaller child can’t have a fourth Freddo, and make sure every device they may suddenly need is charged. If you do all that, and the wind is blowing in the right direction, you might get your hour to work.

10. The Phone call

For some reason, my kids don’t seem to give even the smallest fuck about disturbing me for any reason, but if I’m “on a call” they seem to get the fear. So, this is my little hack I’m sharing with you. Don’t overdo it, as the bigger kids will soon figure things out, but if you’re doing your best and you still can’t get more than 5 minutes of peace to get that work done, maybe it’s time you “need to make a call.” I’ve taken a lot of calls this summer. I’m not going to Hell, I hope.

11. Who am I kidding

I’m clearly going to miss these little shits. They may have pushed me to near breaking point on multiple occasions, my work has suffered, my sense of self has been eroded to the point that I barely know who or what I am any more, and I’ve barely had a single daytime moment without a child in it (what is silence?), but I’ll miss hearing them argue and their grumpy faces as I tell them how long it is until Mummy gets home, praying she doesn’t get stuck in traffic. I’ll eat a Freddo if I get sad.

My son (the aforementioned 12-year-old) is really close to finishing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This will be, I’m pretty sure, the first big adult-focused game he’s played through to conclusion, and he’s loved it. He even made himself a little Indy LEGO mini-fig at the LEGO store at the weekend, he’s so Indy pilled at the moment. And he should be. It’s a brilliant game. I’m now trying to think of similar games that would be suitable. The best I can think of are the Uncharteds, but I’m open to suggestions.

This newsletter isn’t entirely about reporting on the things my kids have been up to, and how I’ve dealt with them. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• Brighton LEGO Store (Brighton): I love this shop. The staff are friendly without being too much, there are building stations, and the sets are displayed nicely. If it weren’t for the fact that the sets are now very expensive and that far too much of the store features Harry Potter, I might go as far as to say it’s the best shop in Brighton. 4 Brick Headz out of 5 blocky Mega Drives (I wish that LEGO Mega Drive wasn't so diddy).
• Manilife Crunchy Peanut Butter (supermarkets): We got this free at Waitrose (I won’t apologise for having expensive supermarket tastes at the weekend), and I’m simply blown away. I can’t get enough of this incredible peanut butter. Knowing me, I will never buy it again once this free jar is gone, as I’ll turn my nose up at the price and buy whatever copy is at Lidl, but for now I’m enjoying the luxury of it. 5 glorious dollops out of 5 slices of peanut butter and jam on toast.

• Rain (the sky): Hypocritical, I’m aware, having wanted rain for weeks, but now we’ve had some rain I could do without it. Is there worse weather than 21 degrees with rain? How do you dress for that? It’s a nightmare that simply has no solution. Do I get wetter from the rain or the sweat caused by wearing a mac? 1 puddle out of 5 blocked drain pipes.