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#CoronaWritesHistory – How Corona Came, Caused Chaos, and Brought Opportunities
A little compatibility story from everyday life at famPLUS
It's truly astonishing how a tiny, invisible virus can suddenly bring us to a halt from one day to the next. It has led us into a situation that we have not experienced before. The virus is making history. And it encourages the employees of our client companies to tell us their stories in order to receive professional advice and support. Even though face-to-face conversation is not currently possible, our consultation remains just as individual and personal in video calls.
How can we give you an insight into our work?
We would like to illustrate our interdisciplinary consulting to you and provide you with sustainable support during this time. To do this, we tell you the story of Ms. Covid and famPLUS.
Dear famPLUS team,
I heard about your service from a colleague – however, I'm not sure if I'm addressing the right place with my concerns. There are several issues on my mind at the moment that I would like to discuss.
My husband and I are currently working from home and have to take care of our two children (7 and 4 years old) at the same time. The children demand a lot of attention, I am constantly mediating disputes and hardly find time to continue working with concentration. My husband and I are trying to divide things up as best as we can – but I notice that we also get into conflicts and most of the burden falls on me.
What also concerns my husband and me is the situation of his mother: We cannot visit her right now and we do not know how well she is coping with her early-stage dementia at home. Additionally, she lives 200 km away from us.
Could you help me? I would be very grateful if you could contact me and perhaps give me a few tips.
Best regards,
C. Covid
Dear Ms. Covid,
Thank you very much for your message and your openness. You are exactly in the right place with us.
You are not alone in your current situation; many parents are currently struggling with the challenges brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. As parents, you are juggling children, work, and partners, while also having to keep the household running and finding a few quiet minutes for yourself or a phone call with friends. This is a very stressful situation, but with some tips and tricks, you can make it a bit easier.
Introduce rituals
The biggest change is that your children have been at home every day for several weeks now and are no longer allowed to go to kindergarten and school. This is also a significant change for your children, which is why it is especially important to create a structured daily routine. Particularly for young children – but also for you as parents – fixed rituals during the day are of great importance. They not only provide more security and independence but also contribute to a positive family feeling. Try to structure the day with small rituals, such as shared meals, time for free play, or reading sessions in the evening. Further information, why children Rituals find and tips on this can be found in our article in the online magazine.
Make use of the time
The impulse to want to do everything at once is something we often succumb to. Unfortunately, as you yourself have already noticed, we become ineffective in all areas and lose valuable time. By having set routines, you enable each family member to engage and focus on the one task or activity at hand. The time gained with your children, your husband, and as a family overall can then be spent much more consciously and creatively. On the positive side, in your normal everyday life—when the children are at kindergarten or school—you don't have nearly as many opportunities to spend targeted and mindful time with them and undertake joint activities.
Create a Family Planner
To avoid losing track, we recommend a Family Planner , where you can enter both mandatory appointments for each family member and – very importantly – joint activities, trips, and phone appointments with friends, grandma & co. This way, these plans are not forgotten, and anticipation grows with a daily glance at the planner. You can easily design such a family planner yourself online with personal photos – one of many possibilities can be found at, among others, on sendmoments.de.
Use alternative employment ideas
Since you naturally also need to focus on your work for set hours each day or week, you might not have a garden, or the sun might not shine every day, we have creative and sporty options in our online magazine. Ideas for Indoor Activities put together that don't require much preparation and with which the children can also keep themselves busy for a while. Whether it's a daily sports session, homemade play dough, mandalas, or live reading sessions – there's sure to be something for every child here.
Let's now talk about the situation with your mother-in-law. Due to the lockdown, you and your husband cannot get a direct impression of how she is managing. It is not necessarily possible to find out over the phone to what extent she is independent in everyday life and where she needs help – this is certainly a great burden. Those affected, and perhaps also your mother-in-law, often have a different perspective on their own situation and cannot understand your worries and fears or the general restrictions related to the pandemic.
Recognize the network
The magic word in this situation is network. In the evenings, take an hour with your husband and try to outline your mother-in-law's network. This hour can also find a place in the family planner. Then, in the second step, consider who from the network can be included.
- Which (private) individuals do you have good contact with?
- Do we have the contact information of the general practitioner / other treating doctors?
- What volunteer and professional services do we know?
- What local services are available due to the pandemic, such as delivery services from butcheries, supermarkets, pharmacies; volunteer helpers (#CoronaCare) etc.?
As a guideline for you and your husband, we have developed the following network template:
Our Podcast on the topic Care in the Time of Corona is certainly also helpful: https://t1p.de/Podcast-famplus-Corona. Here you can find out to what extent the aforementioned support measures are currently available.
Create an emergency plan
Try to create an emergency plan using the network—perhaps on a second evening. Who should be informed in case of an emergency and how should one proceed? Also, note down helpful phone numbers for this purpose.
- medical on-call service: 116117
- BMFSFJ Care Hotline: 030 / 20 17 91 31
- famPLUS Care Consultation: 089 / 80 99 027 00
The network and the emergency plan provide a great deal of security. If your mother-in-law's situation suddenly changes, you already have the necessary contact details and resources in this emotionally stressful situation.
How do you manage to have time for yourselves as a couple, alongside the topics of children and caregiving? How can you also talk about "us" and not just daily schedules?
Go through the crisis period strengthened as a couple!
There are studies that show couples often talk to each other for far less than one hour a day - in fact, only a few minutes daily. And the conversation often revolves around everyday matters, organizational issues, or work. There's usually much too little discussion about the things that truly matter! Make a conscious effort to set aside time for this and schedule a fixed time for it in the family planner.
It is essential for couples to openly share their desires and needs and continually approach each other. Only in this way can mutual understanding develop, which is the basis for a healthy partnership on equal terms.
Right now, when you spend most of your time as a couple together, routines often creep in that seem more divisive than connecting:
- Living alongside one another,
- Hardly any joint activities anymore - e.g., just watching TV,
- Emotional Distance.
The more important it is now - when you may have become very accustomed to each other as a couple - to actively reconnect with each other. Think back to the time when you really made an effort for each other and planned great activities to please the other, and your greatest wish was to spend as much time together as possible. It's about consciously choosing each other (again).
Spend quality time together
famPLUS has put together a few questions for you that will support you as a couple:
- to get in touch
- Spending time together and thereby experiencing quality time
- to talk about the topics that are truly important to you!
These questions help you refocus on the essential and positive aspects of your relationship despite everyday stress. It's worth taking the time together with your partner to calmly answer the questions. It doesn't matter whether your relationship is currently going well or is perhaps in a crisis.
You can freely decide whether you want to answer all or only selected questions. What is crucial is that you create a suitable, relaxed environment and consciously take time for your very own "couple interview.
Click here - 7 questions for your couple interview
Seize the opportunities of the crisis
Dear Ms. Covid, the corona crisis has transformed all our lives. What was still taken for granted yesterday - having coffee with a friend, traveling to relatives, shopping in a relaxed atmosphere - is currently no longer possible. And no one knows how long this state of emergency will last.
Everyone tackles this challenge differently. Some turn inward and focus intensely on themselves and their immediate surroundings. For others, the stress manifests as dissatisfaction with themselves, arguments, and conflicts.
How do you handle the situation? When does it just feel good to distract yourself from this challenging feeling with media consumption, such as a book, TV, or the Internet? But when is the right time to take on the challenge in order to make its long-term positive benefits work to your personal advantage?
Currently, many people are decluttering their basements or wardrobes – it feels good and creates space – also in the mind. We can deal with what is now surfacing in our thoughts in the same way. We tackle one thing at a time and think about it: Where to with it?
Start getting specific in everyday life: Where and what would you like to tackle? Set small goals for yourself, as a couple, and for the whole family.
- Introduce rituals in your family to create a sense of security.
- Create an overview of your personal network and that of your relatives, and work out an emergency plan.
- Take conscious time with your partner and talk about the things that concern you.
- Use a family planner for all these things to create clarity and structure.
You don't know where to start with "decluttering" and would like a personal consultation? Then feel free to contact famPLUS.
Our competent team of consultants is always here for you, especially during this unprecedented crisis!
We look forward to your call at 089 / 80 99 027 00 or your email to info@famplus.de.
Feel free to visit our homepage www.famplus.de visit.
In this sense: #togetherwearestrong
Together for your personal PLUS!
