AS the coronavirus continues to spread, many people who are used to commuting to an office while their kids spend the day in daycare or at school are facing uncharted territory in their own homes.

How difficult will it be? Just think of the unexpected days when your nanny called out sick and both of you had to tag-team childcare because one of you couldn’t get out of an important meeting while the other simply had too much on their plate at work.

So, as businesses cease operations and schools shut down, here are some strategies to help you get through the day without losing it on your partner or your kids, at least not completely losing it.

Be up front with your boss

Even though you may feel anxious to have this conversation, there is no getting around it. Let your supervisor know your difficulty and what your ideal plan would be. Get creative in your conversation. If you have a baby at home, perhaps set up “office hours” that work with their nap times. If your kids are too high-maintenance in the mornings, consider a shifted schedule that has you signing on at noon.

Work in shifts with your partner

One of the best ways to tackle workdays in which both of you have been stuck working from home with the kids underfoot is to set up “shifts.” Don’t try it with both of you half-working — all your family in the same room with one hand on your laptop and the other turning pages of a board book — and that’s just a straight path toward marital spats. The only way that works is to look at your schedules and split the day into shifts. This might be with you working the morning and your partner working the afternoon. Or you can arrange the shifts by hours.

Stick to your routine as much as possible

“Routine” is not going to be your friend during this time period. But with schools and daycares closing for weeks, it’s a good idea to wrangle together some version of one. Particularly if you’ve got toddlers or preschoolers at home, adding some level of structure to these days will benefit everyone. That means getting everyone out of bed at normal time and doing their usual morning routine — breakfast, making beds, getting dressed. You could let them sleep in and stay in pajamas, but soon you will find out what little pent-up, nap-refusing monsters they become.

Then, try to come up with a few activities they can do with less-than-optimal supervision — maybe first, it’s puzzles and then it’s blocks and then it’s stringing beads onto pipe cleaners. They don’t have to be perfect, and they just have to get you to the next thing. It’s smart to do something that expends energy, too, like dancing or building a couch-cushion fort or playing fetch down the hall with the dog. Maybe set a personal benchmark that one activity each day is something you fully engage with. Let that be when the messy paints come out or when you play a round of Candyland or read them a chapter of a Ramona book. And all the while, try to serve up the same amount of snacks at the same general times as a regular day.

If you can figure out how to give some structure to the day, instead of just taking every minute as it comes, you’ll be much less stressed. Every day may be different, so don’t get too ahead of yourself. Just settle on a general plan of attack for the day before you have to start working that morning.

Let screen time be your coparent

Some experts say that screen time shouldn’t be used as a distraction, but that’s how you can get through a workday with kids around.

You can figure out when you are going to need completely uninterrupted time, like if you have a conference call or need to give a presentation in a meeting, you my tell the kids, “At 11:30 a.m., you are going to get to watch two episodes of a show on Netflix!” Give them some options, or let them pick a children’s program. Then, when the time comes, turn it on, go do your thing for an hour, and come right back to turn it off. Make sure that they don’t watch more than an hour at a time.

Try to make this time special

No one planned for this staycation, but this forced family time — in which we likely can’t even escape the walls of our apartment — is here whether we wanted it or not. If at all possible, try to make the most of it. At the very least, you can sit down and have lunch with your family most days. Some of us have downloaded new recipes and stocked up on baking supplies, so they’ll try chocolate chip bars one Tuesday afternoon when they’d otherwise be tapping away on the keyboard.

And if that feels too lofty a goal, just set a more reasonable expectation. Speaking from experience, 15 minutes of uninterrupted attention lavished onto your children goes a long way. They whine less and listen more when you stop every hour or so and give them a few solid minutes of dress-up time or a quick game of tag than when you just try to multitask the whole way through.

Accept that you won’t be perfect

If you are working with kids at home, you are not working at 100 percent. In fact, you’re barely working at half-speed. In this situation, you’ll ideally be able to share the load with your partner, but there’s no way you can expect to be as efficient as you are while in the office. You will just have to let that go. This is an overwhelming situation, and no one is getting it right. You just have to do your best. Some days your best will be finishing one deadline while yelling at your toddler three times. Other days, it’ll be slamming your laptop closed and cuddling your crying baby. Whatever it is, the only way out is through.

(SD-Agencies)