Coronavirus isolation: Should children stay home from school?

While it’s true that there’s never been a better time to have to self-isolate, doing so with children creates a whole new set of patience testing challenges for parents, writes Darren Levin.

As COVID-19 sweeps its way across the globe a very real nightmare keeps replaying in my mind.

What happens if I have to self-isolate and spend two weeks confined at home with my three kids?

Having just weathered the summer school holiday period, I was really getting used to not hearing the words “I’m bored Dad” six times a day for an eight-week stretch.

At least in January (i.e. the good old days when Corona was synonymous with watery import beer and not a potential way to die) I had the option of taking them to kids play centres, where they could expend their energy in a far more benign bacteria breeding petri dish.

Like most people with a house purchased after 1985, our fake grass garden is the size of a postage stamp so the idea of a potential quarantine for COVID-19, without the usual play centre bailout, feels less like an opportunity to bond with my kids and more like a new form of torture.

A South Korean child wears a mask to prevent catching coronavirus while riding outside. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty

Luckily the Australian Government has issued some guidelines on how to reduce “boredom, stress and conflict” during self-isolation, which involves creating an intricate art installation from all your stockpiled toilet paper. (That was a joke, people. Seriously stop doing this.)

The Department Of Health did offer some practical tips that, for adults, include dancing, floor exercises, staying in touch with family and friends via social media, and dusting off all those “exercise DVDs”. Exercise DVDs? Did they repurpose the guidelines for SARS from 2003, because it certainly sounds like it.

For children, they suggest asking for their school to supply homework by mail and reassuring them with age-appropriate language. I can assume that means saying things like: “OK, I know it’s weird we’ve been stuck in the house for nine days, but if you tell me you’re bored again you’re going to have to pick another house to be quarantined in.”

While many families are trying to carry on as usual, the days before isolation are likely numbered. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty

Maybe I should take some solace in the fact this is literally the best time in history to be quarantined. It’s why some investors are diverting their money into “stay at home” stocks including exercise bike manufacturers, food delivery services, video game developers, and streaming services such as Netflix.

The government does warn against relying too much on television and technology, but surely they could revise the recommended screentime hours for children from less than one hour per day to between nine and 10 just this once? That way, I could have a big chunk of time to do – as the fact sheet suggested – things I wouldn’t ordinarily do in pre-coronavirus quarantine times.

Perhaps instead of binge-watching 90 hours of Seinfeld and ordering daily Halal Snack Packs under the guide of “self-care”, I could learn how to make origami cranes, teach myself something more advanced than Chopsticks on the piano, or fix the fly screen that’s been sitting in the garage since Christmas 2016. As a family we could all sit down around a sanitised dining table and play UNO or a 14-hour game of Monopoly.

If this is all starting to sound a bit like a suburban nightmare, it’s good to keep in mind quarantine doesn’t last forever and that it will all be over soon.

Just in time for the next batch of school holidays, I bet.

Darren Levin is a columnist for RendezView.com.au

Originally published as Coronavirus isolation: Should children stay home from school?