To all the parents home with their children, who are looking for creative, easy, or fun ways to spend the day, here are some great options to try for spiritual, mental, and physical health!
 
Set a routine. It is important to establish consistency and keep kids on a structure like they are during a school day. For older children, have them collaborate with you as you create a schedule to allow for some influence on their day. It allows for predictability in the day, and children knowing what is expected of them is crucial to the well-being and peace of all in the family. Below is a schedule example. This can be used as a starting place for your family. Feel free to move things around or dedicate your time differently. What’s important is maintaining a routine that works for your family!

Example:

• 7:00 AM - Wake up, have breakfast
• 8:00 AM - Get dressed and start chores
• 9:00 AM - Begin work in designated workspace
• 10:15 AM - Snack break
• 10:30 AM - Daily prayer time
• 10:45 AM - Return to work in designated workspace
• 12:00 PM - Lunch as a family
• 1:00 PM - Exercise time outside (walk/bike ride, etc)

Focus on gratitude. With many feeling anxious and having to deal with a lot that is so unknown, having a grateful heart can mean a world of difference for your well-being and that of your family. Have your child write thank-you-notes to mail carriers, restaurant workers, grocery store employees, and members of the family. Or, start the day by finding 3 things to be grateful for, then end the day like that too. Talk about this with your child and share your gratitude with them.

• Ex. Parent: “Today I’m grateful for: breakfast, coffee, and hearing the birds chirping. What are you grateful for? Child: “Pajamas, the color yellow, and my dog Toby.”

Prayer. There is nothing more powerful than prayer, and prayer as a family is crucial during this time at home together. Make time. Take time. Add it to a daily routine. In addition to saying prayers you may know by rote, consider reading the Daily Readings from USCCB to read the Word together in prayer.

• Daily Readings 
• Our Father in Song
• Hail Mary, Gentle Woman
• 3 Minute Retreat

Play! For young children, older teens, and everyone in between, play is crucial. For older children that may mean down-time or free time to decompress, but for young children in elementary school this is so important for development. Playing together, but also playing independently helps support their creativity. As a parent, also take some time to think of ways you can “play”—not only with your children, but with your spouse or on your own. Make sure to come up with fun activities that are life-giving for you and your spouse: board games, a puzzle, baking, etc.  

Pretend and make believe. “Boredom breeds creativity” I was once told, and I couldn’t agree more! When children are given a chance to imagine and pretend away from distractions and technology they will think up all kinds of incredible things. As a parent, you may need to guide or inspire some pretend or make-believe with prompts or guidelines  until your kids seem ready to take-off on their own. Even giving your child a difficult or challenging task and saying, “figure it out” may help for older kids who need to problem-solve. But here are some ways to get started:

• (Independent time) Say, “Go pretend your room is a new planet and you need to build a spaceship to get back to Earth.”
• (Collaborative time) Say, “Let’s pretend the living room floor is lava and we have to get to your room and back.”
• (Collaborative time) Say, “We’re stranded on an island (the living room) for 4 hours, what do we need to bring with us to survive.”
• (Collaborative time) Say, “Let’s build a basketball arcade game from your bed. We’ll shoot basketballs, let them roll down, and keep shooting until the timer goes off - we’ll keep score!”
• (Independent time) Say, “Go make a puppet show with your stuffed animals about going to the circus or a day at the zoo.”
• (Independent time) Say, “Go build a rocketship/car/robot out of LEGO and without any sort of directions.”

Exercise. For children of all ages and adults too, exercise is so important. Although we must consider social distancing, getting outside and even just taking a walk is more crucial than ever as we are in our homes all day long. If you don’t have a yard to play in, try walking to the closest field or park to catch a ball or ride a bike around the neighborhood. If you cannot get outside, there is plenty to do inside. YouTube has workouts for children and adults, and there are workouts on Netflix and other streaming services to get you started.

Write letters. This is a nice thing to do at all ages and levels of writing abilities, young ones can draw pictures and write what they can, while older kids could tell someone all about their latest adventure at home. Write to grandparents, relatives, elderly folks in nursing homes, neighbors, and friends from school who are also at home. It’s amazing how good someone may feel receiving a note or letter, knowing your child was thinking of them.

Call someone, FaceTime, or video chat with someone. We are blessed in this digital age to have technology that can still keep us “together.” Calling friends, family, and loved ones, either on the phone or using a video chat application, maintains and strengthens our relationships with people we may not be able to see or visit right now.

Read a book. Have your child help you create a booklist of 50 or 100 books and see how many they can read, then have a fun prize like baking cookies together or extra down-time be the reward.

Activity pages made by teachers. For kids who are out of school altogether, look for materials online to keep kids up to speed on math skills, reading activities, and everything in between. With schools shut down, there is plenty out there to find!

Make your own studying tools. Don’t forget that anyone (including the student) can make flash cards for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division - as long as you have paper and something to write with! Some drills you could practice:

• Early grades: letter practice, fact practice, writing about something, make a journal, read picture books
• Middle grades: flash cards, creative writing stories, book reports, biography study, create a math game
• Upper grades: essays on current events, short stories, timeline projects of a period in history worth exploring/of interest

Fine motor development. Play with Play Doh (or make your own). Squeeze items with tweezers. Count and play with beads or buttons. Bake and roll out dough, ball up cookies, or knead pizza dough.

• Homemade Play Doh Recipe
• Pizza Dough Recipe

 
We are living in unprecedented times which can add to the stress level of family life. We invite you during this pandemic to see this as a blessed time to rekindle relationships within your families and communities through prayer, play, and creativity and hope these resources will prove fruitful for you as we continue to navigate this time. 

Click here to visit our COVID-19 Resource Page
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Krissy Pierno is a Pre-K teacher in the Archdiocese of Washington. ​She has a bachelor's degree from The Catholic University of America in Early Childhood Education and is certified by the District of Columbia to teach classes from Pre-K to 3rd grade.

Tyler and Emily Lomnitzer were married at the Basilica of St. Mary in Alexandria, VA on August 31, 2019. Fr. Frank Donio, Center Director, con-celebrated the Nuptial Mass. Tyler and Emily met at The Catholic University of America and were engaged on October 7, 2018. They currently reside in Trumbull, CT. 
 
1. What was some of the most helpful advice you received from the Church, friends, and family during the marriage preparation process?
 
Tyler: The Church, friends, and family all stressed the same thing: take marriage preparation seriously. Some aspects may seem routine, or you may feel like you are already an expert at budgeting, conflict resolution, prayer life, etc. No matter our age, our academic pedigree, our level of holiness, or our level of discipline, we are not experts in these fundamental aspects of life and relationships, and marriage preparation is the first formal step in working through these things as a couple.
 
Emily: The most helpful advice I received was from married friends of ours. One friend in particular urged us to stay close to the sacraments during the marriage preparation process because of the potential for spiritual attacks during this time. The enemy does not want good Catholic marriages! It was helpful to know what could happen and to be careful to stay close to each other and to the sacraments the Church gives us.
 
2. What are a few things you have learned since getting married that would be helpful for other couples who are preparing for marriage?
 
Tyler: It sounds so cliché, but stepping into the other person’s shoes. For example, my wife, as a professional singer, is home or alone a lot during weekday business hours, whereas I am in a corporate environment interacting with tens, even hundreds of people in a single day. When I come home, my wife is excited for human interaction, but I need some alone time. It took some time for us to recognize and adapt to this. We did that by stepping into the other person’s shoes.
 
Emily: Communication is so important! Even if you have been dating for a long time, it is totally different being married and living with your spouse. Being open about your struggles as well as joys constantly is critical to getting through those first few months of transition.
 
3. How were you accompanied throughout the discernment process of marriage and throughout your engagement? How are you being accompanied now in married life?
 
Tyler: We are blessed to have had friends in all aspects of life to lean on and be open with. It’s so important to not be afraid to grab coffee or a beer with some close friends and ask them some hard questions about marriage. During engagement, we leaned on the priest preparing us for marriage, as well as some newlywed couples. During marriage, we are leaning on our parents and close friends and colleagues who have unique perspectives on things like conflict resolution and learning the psychology and personality of the other while trying to grow personally in virtue, holiness, etc.
 
Emily: Through our engagement, we were blessed with having many friends who were living out their vocations, whether as married people and parents, or as priests and religious. It was great to speak with them and get their perspective through all the good and bad parts of the season of engagement. And those same people have accompanied us into our married life! It is a blessing to be surrounded by people who are constantly striving to live out their vocations and going through life together as a spiritual community.
 
4. What has been the best part about married life thus far?
 
Tyler: Honestly, just coming home after work and knowing that my wife is there waiting for me. We have these subconscious kindness battles where we are always trying to do more for, give more to, and love the other person more. When you take marriage preparation seriously, and work so hard to empty your being for your spouse, God’s graces become evident and elevate your relationship.
 
Emily: The graces that come with the sacrament are so abundant. It is so remarkable! Getting to spend every day married to a person who loves and supports you so fully and working towards the same goal is so amazing.
 
For more resources on Marriage and Family, please click here.
 

Tyler Lomnitzer is Membership Engagement Manager for the Knights of Columbus. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from The Catholic University of America. 
 

As a communications manager who handles the social media accounts for my day job, I’ve had to work at and learn how to better manage my time spent on social media. While this technology is an exciting and ever-evolving resource for sharing and obtaining news, I’ve found social media can also drain my energy or keep me from my priorities.
 
Within the last year, I noticed I was spending four or more hours a day on social media and browsing the Internet. I saw my spiritual life was being affected, so during this past Lent, I decided to do something about that imbalance. I knew I still needed social media for work use, and I discovered a solution.
 
By implementing the screen time and do-not-disturb settings on my phone, I found I could limit my social media consumption to an hour per day. Whatever time was left after work allocations I could spend on personal social media time. Most days I used 45 minutes or the whole hour for work.
 
I came to appreciate that my time was spent elsewhere in a more productive manner. I used the time for additional prayer, reading, church, conversations with friends, and other enjoyable activities. My brain didn’t feel as fuzzy and scattered with random bits of information that would send me off the paths toward my personal, professional, and spiritual goals.
 
After Lent, I took off the screen time and do-not-disturb parameters on my phone due to an evening work event. Since then, I’ve turned them back on. This experience of self-reflection and adjustment of my behaviors reminded me of why God provides us with commandments: to set us free from sin in order to allow us to become more perfectly the people he created us to be. By growing in self-awareness and setting self-imposed boundaries, we can better harness social media for the good.
                                                                                               
Here are a few questions to consider that I have found help me when evaluating my time spent on social media:
 
(1)Are you present to those around you?
People using their digital devices when in the company of others is a growing trend – and a sad one at that. Instead, we should put away our devices and give our attention and time to those in front of us. Being fully present to those we are spending time with in-person shows that we are investing in our relationships and affirming their humanity. By being present to those around us, we respect them and uphold their dignity.  
 
(2)Do you let social media distract you from God and others in your life?
Have you formed the habit of checking your phone every couple of minutes or felt the non-existent buzz of a notification? Have you moved to autopilot looking through your social media feeds or gone down the rabbit hole of an internet or video search only to see that one, three, or more hours have gone by? This reliance on our phones provides great distraction in our lives, making us susceptible to temptation. We should work to embrace silence with ourselves and with God. By scheduling solitude with God in prayer or time for ourselves to be constructive, we come to know God’s path for us and how he calls us to give of ourselves to others in love. 
 
(3)Ask yourself, “Do you really need to share this moment?”
With 24/7 access to an inside look at our life’s daily moments through social media, we seem to have lost a sense of privacy and humility. Before posting content to social media, consider the discretion of the moment. Check with family, friends, and significant others if something including them is appropriate to post. Respect their space and yours. Ask yourself why you’re posting the content you want to share and check your motivations.
 
(4)Do you view social media as an outlet that steals your happiness or as a way to share your joy?
There is much truth to the adage, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Comparing ourselves, our possessions, our appearance, our jobs, our wealth, and our relationships to those of others prohibits us from feeling gratitude for our blessings and can derail us from our personal goals. Thanking God for at least one thing a day can help cultivate a spirit of joyfulness, allowing us to celebrate, learn from, and be happy for others around us.
 
(5)Do you feel isolated when spending time on social media?
Social media can be a great way to connect with Catholic communities. Personally, I enjoy the discussions and fellowship that Facebook groups cultivate. However, we must be cautious of the temptations to become a technology hermit, as Pope Francis warns of in his 2019 World Day of Social Communications message, or posting “for the sake of Instagram” or self-interested comments.  
 
(6)How do you treat others on social media?
What we say on social media and Internet comment sections matters. Pope Francis encourages Catholics to live out the faith through social networks as the Body of Christ, welcoming others. As  the United States Council of Catholic Bishops’ social media guidelines, we as the Church “can use social media to encourage, respect, dialogue, and [cultivate] honest relationships – in other words, ‘true friendship.’” By living out our faith through the example we set in loving others on social media through our posts and comments, we reveal Christ.


Dana Edwards currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida where she works as a Digital Strategist, and volunteers as a lector, with communication outreach, and on the Parish Council at her local parish, Good Shepherd Catholic Church.