Hey everyone, it’s me again, I’m still around. First of all, my sincere apologies for not providing any real content these last few weeks. This whole Coronavirus COVID-19 has really changed things for my family and I. Things have been pretty hectic. The kids have been home trying to do virtual learning. My wife has been working part-time from home but still going into work sometimes. As for me, I’m still working full-time, just from home. It’s been a learning experience…

The New Normal?

We’ve been trying to adjust to what I call “The New Normal” for the foreseeable future. Here in Hawaii, we’ve been relatively fortunate in terms of coronavirus exposure and mortality. However, our governor just extended the lockdown until the end of May. Department of Education has confirmed that schools will not be in session for the remainder of the year and my son’s preschool will also not be in session. Summer programs are also on hold until the lockdown has been lifted as well.

What this has all meant for me is that I get up with the kids in the morning and get Kylie on Virtual Learning using WebEx. She then does her schoolwork for the morning. In addition to that she has to do her Kumon, but she had been struggling with her multiplication tables. For that reason, I’ve been working with her on getting them down. It’s made me realize that the ways that I learned stuff don’t necessarily work for her.

For me, I copied the tables over and over until I knew them. For Kylie, she couldn’t learn them that way. We had to break them down into bite size chunks, like just the 0s, then just 1s, then just the 2s. However, she has now learned her 0-12 Multiplication Tables and she is so proud of herself.

What about Lucas?

As for my son, it’s been kind of hard to get him to do work in lockdown. He’s used to being around a bunch of preschool kids and playing all the time. Getting him to sit down and do work or try to write hasn’t been easy. However, for him, what seems to work is a promise of a reward after doing a good job. We’ve tried to limit screen time to a “reasonable” amount.

That said, what seems to work is getting the kids to do their work in the morning (and early afternoon). Then they “earn” the privilege of watching a movie or a few shows in the later part of the afternoon (before dinner). It was difficult in the beginning, but now they seem to understand how it works.

Interesting…

Anyways, for now, this is “the new normal” for us. It remains to be seen how long this will last for and how much of these new behaviors will continue after the lockdown has been lifted. I think us humans are creatures of habit. When forced into a lockdown where we must conserve money, we tend to only spend on what we need. However, given enough time this new behavior becomes a habit.

Is this lockdown long enough to create a new habit? We will see people be more frugal with their spending when we’re out of this lockdown? How long will it take for the economy to recover?

Now then, what about all this remote work? For the most part, we’ve been forced to see “does remote work?” This may change how companies do business. More specifically, we may see medicine embrace telemedicine and telehealth more in the coming years than they have before. This coronavirus pandemic may have forced a paradigm shift or even multiple paradigm shifts.

It will be interesting to see how we and the rest of world will change.

What do you think “The New Normal” will be?

Also, please accept my apologies for my absence. Over the last few weeks I was in Survival Mode trying to just keep the kids doing schoolwork and balancing working as well. I think we’ve begun to develop a pseudo-schedule now that kind of works, so I will try to be more regular with the posts now. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the mailing list and if you like the content, let your friends know.

Thanks.

-Sensei

Agree? Disagree? Questions, Comments and Suggestions are welcome.

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