Supporting Each Other During Corona Lock Downs — Practicing the Art of Redirection
I have two children who are 9 and 11. With all of us stuck at home, juggling their education, my work, and all of our emotional and physical well-being is getting a bit exhausting. Maybe you can relate?? When things get challenging with my kids, I am always grateful when someone else steps in with a joke, a fun idea, or an engaging question — when someone can lend their creativity to help me redirect toward positive connection rather than escalating toward conflict.
Stressful times are when redirection is most needed, and when I am least able to creatively think of how to do that. Based on what I am seeing from my friends and hearing from my clients, other parents are also struggling in similar ways.
I would like to offer the resource below, Practicing the Art of Redirection, as an act of love for everyone struggling through parenting during this pandemic. A group of my friends, family, and I organized the overwhelming wealth of free resources being shared and publicized right now, and created a one-page selection of resources focused on stimulating conversations and self expression, helping minds and bodies feel healthy, and things you can do to connect when you are just out of energy. We plan to update this a few times a week with fresh ideas (we have a spreadsheet…).
Putting this resource together has been the birth of the Guerrilla Think Tank of my dreams — including my mom, who has been working to make the world a better place since before I was born, Speech Pathologist Rhys McGovern, tattoo artist Erin Clayton (Lefty Lucille) who also drew the sweat pea and pollinator border art, and several other contributors! I also want to thank my friends and colleagues who gave feedback as we started working on this.
The resource is available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch, and American Sign Language. If you would like to see it in a different language, please contact me. Right now, the links are in English, but many items on the resource list do not rely on words. We are working on adding resources in other languages, developing resources on cultural competence for outreach to different communities, and ensuring that the resources we are gathering have cultural relevance for diverse groups of people. If you would like to help with this, please let me know in the comments section below!