Lessons in Being Prepared from Squirrels

As a parent, chances are you’ve experienced a scenario like this: You have a to-do list the length of the Nile and then suddenly on top of that, the child care plans you were relying on unexpectedly fall through. The dread!  Sometimes it’s because there’s no school – a holiday completely falls off your radar or worse, your little one wakes up feeling sick.  Sometimes you’ve gotten them to school and then you get a call asking you to come and pick up a child up because they coughed 2 times (with Covid this is happening a whole lot more!). You still have all the to-dos but now you have one, two or three kids under foot while you need to achieve it. If this has already happened to you, we all know some parenting fails needed to happen to make things work that day.  So here are some tips to help for the next time – because there will be a next time.

How to Win at Parenting when Child Care Unexpectedly Falls Through

Queue in lessons from the squirrels. You must have noticed how busy those adorable bushy-tailed critters always are.  Every squirrel’s full-time job seems to be burying nuts.  In fact, you almost never see a squirrel eating a nut.  These critters teach us important lessons so that you can tackle your Nile long to-do list, and at the same time feel good about what your kids are doing – even when the bottom falls from under your child care plans.

In the Times of Plenty (energy, Time, Mindspace, Motivation), Build a Stash of Activities for The Kids

In other words, squirrel away some good nuts (pun intended).  Some days you’re just jazzed and full of zeal to be the craftiest, most hands-on parent you can be.  On those days, build a stash of online and offline activities – the more independently the kids can do them, the better.  Many blogs are dedicated to the offline so we’ll focus on the online stash. Aneta is literally built to give parents and teachers a tool to build a digital stash. It allows you to schedule access to games, videos, websites and apps that will keep kids engaged, intrigued, questioning, and having fun all while they’re learning – without you having to direct them in the moment. Let the kids choose some favorites that you can also live with and put those in their Aneta Homeroom.

Seek out And Use the Work that Others Have Done

In the squirrel world, if you smell a good nut, you can dig it up and eat it.   Squirrels steal from other squirrels’ nut caches all the time. We’re not encouraging generalized stealing but we are saying, tap into what others have built. Indeed, many parents and teachers will be flattered if you ask them for recommendations of online content or to share what they have curated for their kids with you.  You know that ‘extra’ mom you admire? Ask her for ideas.  Aneta was built to help with this too because through Anetapacks (think playlists but for apps) you can seamlessly give your kids access to activities and resources that someone else you trust has put together. 

Weather Difficult Periods with Calmness of The Certainty that You’re Well Prepared

It may surprise you that squirrels don’t hibernate in winter.  You don’t see them often during winter but they are very much awake when it is freezing and food is scarce. But they are able to stay calm because they build their caches and are prepared. If you find yourself with vanished childcare plans and a Nile-ish to-do list, try to handle it like the way squirrels handle winter.  Accept that the day won’t go the way you had envisioned, but it won’t be a total loss either.  After every winter, comes the spring.

Let your squirrel-like preparations, and the power of Aneta help you to keep winning at parenting – no matter how the day turns out.