How to Balance At-Home Learning And Work For Parents

Welcome to the Future of Education. This is going to be a fun conversation for me because Charmin and I were at Harvard Business School together, and now she founded this great site, plinkit, myplinkit.com, where the tagline is parenting made simpler. And I like that it's simpler, not simple. But first, Charmaine, welcome to the Future of Education. Thanks for joining me.

Well, thank you. It's definitely not simple. Layer on Pandemic, later on at home learning. So completely delighted to be here so that we can make it a little simpler.

Well, and I appreciate that. I think this is a topic a lot of folks are struggling with right now, which is that, you know, parenting, as you said, was hard, and it just got a lot harder to balance a lot of things and take into a lot. A lot of considerations, obviously, and priorities. I'm curious, though, to just back up pre Pandemic. What is Blinkit and why did you start it? And what was your background coming to this problem that led you to start the site?

Sure. I mean, off the bat, I myself have three young children. I hope none of them will come into this room in this next few minutes, two of which are doing distance learning right now, one of which is three years old. And so she's just around the corner. I don't have childcare, so the pain points of this conversation are very, very real. Mentioned from the outset. I come from a management and corporate background. I have an MBA from Harvard. I've worked in finance and marketing leadership, role in global nonprofits. And then I had children, and nothing quite prepared me for being a working parent. And it really was a whole different set of skills that I had to learn. So this conversation really goes to the very core of why I started Planket. I was substitute teaching in my children's preschool class, and I could see that teachers, they just. They knew how children could think. They were wired to think, like, how the children were thinking. And I realized as a parent, if I could get a glimpse of this knowledge, if I could just realize what they were seeing and how our children were thinking, then I could also, as a parent, more effectively and efficiently engage with my child. And that's really how we built Plinkit. But we knew we had to do it in a way that was relevant for the modern parent. And we identified very quickly that parents needed things that were actionable, digestible, and that truly will make today different, tomorrow different, dinnertime different. And so we built it around the concept of how do we aggregate qualified, true practitioners so that we could be an essential hub of written by experts, information that is truly tactical. We sit at this very unique vantage point between educators and parents. And so today, this is the perfect place to really bring that all together.

Yeah, no kidding. And I want to go one level deeper on Plinkit itself before we shift to the current moment we're dealing with. And as you said, very real problem right now that you're in the middle of, which is as you sort of curate through the different experts, I mean, billion experts out there on early childhood or parenting and so forth, that all claim to have the secret sauce. Right. How do you as a site, curate that for folks and make the decisions? Which voice, elevate in which contexts?

That is a super question. And we get that question asked all the time. It really comes down to being a practitioner and watching. We observe a lot of our practitioners and a lot of our experts on how they do. And being able to do is one thing. Be able to teach is something also very different. And then how do you translate that into a written context that works for parents? So we look for really a combination of all three, so to speak. And we need to look for it in a voice that goes, can we take some knowledge? But it can actually translate to something in practice for a parent. So it's wonderful, for example, to listen about gardeners, multiple intelligences. Awesome. I personally love it. But how do I make tonight dinner time look different? How do I make my child's next 30 minutes online distance look different? Knowing about multiple intelligences? So that's what we really look for, an expert that can take that next level of what I would call academic or theoretical information and make it usable for the parent.

Gotcha. That makes a ton of sense. So I'll post the site up there again so folks can see it directly. But as we get in now. So you started this a few years back, right? You've been operationalizing it, you've been running it, you have communities, you have experts. And then all of a sudden, the pandemic hits and people have their children back at home. They thought that they were at school, in many cases, preschool programs, daycare programs and the like. Talk about what this moment has meant for parents and the struggle, especially to your point, you know, up front, working, working parents, working women in particular, what are they facing right now and really humanize this problem for us that they're struggling with?

Right. Well, I'm laughing inside, but inside I'm, you know, I'm laughing, but it's funny, but not funny. And I'm just Thinking about my morning, right. So I helped the three kids with, well, you know, what does done look like in getting ready for the day? So it's everything from thinking about getting changed, brushing, teet, breakfast. Then you got to make sure that two, at least for me, two out of my three kids are supported online for Zoom, right. So they know their plan for the day. Do they know how to log in, log off, brain breaks when they're going to upload work? How do I make sure someone's keeping on task and facilitating all those transitions, so to speak, during the day? Then I have a three year old around the corner, so I have to plan to make sure that while I'm having a conversation with you that she's being taken care of and that she's engaged in something meaningful. And then there's lunch and, and at some point there's going to be dinner and then there's after school in between all of that. So in my case today I have one child doing a social book club, another child doing a social lego building conversation. And then at some point there, there's also a dentist appointment. Someone's got to do all of that. And you know, when I said that parenting really is an exercise in executive functioning, ironically, and logistical management and emotional management, actually all the things that we ask of our children, frankly, that is asking the same very much of us. And you know, if you have a partner to share in all that workload, wonderful. And that's great. And that's, you know, really, I think what many people, that's what conversations always moving towards, especially women in the workforce. But you know, as we've seen, data is coming out left and right that with COVID 19 and this pandemic has disproportionately affected women in the workplace. And there is actually there was an article I read on NPR that I really love this thing and I thought about it a lot and it's saying the workforce behind the workforce and that's really how I see women. It's really a nod to both women who rely on childcare as well as those who provide for it and provide it. And before that pandemic, we knew that mothers were spending more time, for example, in household labor and childcare than fathers were. And there's a lot of data on that. And then you add learning at home, now your workload is now multiplied and there is a very serious, overwhelming burnout feeling, certainly.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's crazy, right, to think about all those factors that were already stressful pre pandemic. And now piling on. So what are the tips that you offer to folks navigating this right now? I let's start general and then I'll hone in on some questions that I have around the schooling conversations.

You asked me your case specific questions. You know, we just had a webinar on at Plinkit about this very much yesterday. And you know, I think we've learned so much both from educators and as parents. And the spring was very much like an emergency feeling, right. Where we all sort of, you know, transformed our homes into at home learning environment. And now we've had some time to really pause, take away and figure out like how do we make this more practical and how do we think about what happens in a classroom setting and how do we translate that in our at home environment without making it so much a classroom setting and without parents, so to speak, being a teacher. Right. So I think the first thing is I'm going to there's a lot of skills that we can think about, but I'm going to focus on three for the sake of time today. And I guess my caveat would be these are very layered skills and we'll talk a little bit about that. But the fact is these skills don't happen overnight. So I think really the process now as we think about what can we do as parents at home, it's really building on those skills. And that takes work and that takes practice and that takes scaffolding. So one of the first skills I think about really is helping your child develop the organizational and executive functioning skills. And then do you have the system, so to speak, or routines in place at home to make that come into practice. So one of the things, you know, we often heard is my kids are not organized. Well, here's the thing. Kids are not born organized overnight. Many grown ups aren't either.

I was going to say it turns out because our school systems didn't focus enough on that. Maybe when we were in school we lacked those skills often as well.

The key skills that make at home learning successful. Right. So it's as simple as do you know, do you have a visual of what you need to get done for the day? So it's your preparedness for the day. Brush teeth, get changed. What are the things you need to have with you to get through your day? Could be a pencil case. I don't know if you've got, you know, an iPad, your water bottle. But the point is that maybe it's even a checklist of all the things you need to have your supplies. Maybe it's. What are some questions your kids need to ask themselves? You know, we often say, what does done look like? But that's sometimes very abstract for children. So it's really like, what are the questions? And it could be, do I have all the things I need to have to get through this next call? Just this next one. And then holding your child really responsible for those organizational skills. Like when I think about the school day and what teachers are wonderful at, it's. And we just heard from a teacher yesterday, and it was beautiful how at the end of the school day, children really tidy up their workspace and teachers follow through. And there's follow through that and there's expectations of that. And I would argue that we could have those same expectations for our children. And there's sort of like a closure and building a consistent, functional workplace for your child, learning space, if you will, allows them to also have respect for that learning environment. And that's a real, you know, executive functioning school of organizing, prioritizing, and planning. Those are. Those are core, and I would argue those are life skills. Right. I think the other thing that I would say, I hope we continue to encourage because it's a real theme at home, learning is reinforcing independence. And that's really giving our children the space and the time to do their work. And it's tricky because we're always here, they're always there. The lines between learning at home and our own office workspace are somewhat blurred, but there is a really great principle in instructional theory that says we learn to do the work by doing the work. So you almost want the kids to understand that feeling of doing the work. And guess what? They would actually do that at school. Right. And so when I think about, can we. Can we focus on giving our children the tools of learning to be independent? Because it's a process to learn to be independent. So, you know, some really tangible examples is if your child gets stuck during, for example, a zoom call, do they feel empowered with a process? I'm stuck. Now what? We would argue that you go, all right, I'm stuck. Maybe take a break, come back, still don't know. Write the question and post it. Ask the teacher. And it's really that simple. But you give the child a process to move through it, and that in itself empowers them to be, you know, to be independent. The other thing that I notice personally in the spring was if my child got stuck, they could easily just come to me, despite the number, and we'll talk about strategies that we've got at home. But mom's just here. You can come right through mom's door, right? And at school they would ask the teacher first. So actually let's flip that now if you have a question, you should actually ask your teacher first and then we'll see where you get to from that. And you know, but I think about the school setting, there are reminders all over the place in the home, in our home, it's like post its but there are visual reminders to build in that independence. So we can certainly do that in our home environment. And then I think the third thing, and I really stress this because for working parents, I think this is probably one of the most foundational things to building that independence. It's building a healthy boundary and setting limits and being okay with those limits. And so here's an example. You know, I think for me, one it's when I set boundaries and limits is I do plan. And I'll be the first to admit I love to plan and I'm good at planning. But what that means for me with a three year old outside with no childcare is I think ahead certainly the week before or a few nights before. All right, if I'm going to be engaged for X amount of time, what activities is she going to need? What materials does she need and that she can access? And so I have them at the ready. And we've noticed that probably that planning has probably been one of the key success factors of getting through when things feel tough. And the planning can be really as simple. You know, here's an example what I have. I have a jar filled of bits of paper of things to do. And so write individual letters of your name on a post it note. And it's in that moment when I can't think of something and I need 15 minutes, I need to jump on a call, I need to finish an email. I have something that already. So this is the kind of planning I'm talking about. It's really not that hard. And we have it on our website, myplinkit.com the other thing I would say is to establish expectations and rules and be really okay with coming up with clear agreements. And when I say agreement, it can be as simple as you will clean up your learning space at the end of the day. We will create a space where we work, where I work, where you work. You know, we will go to bed and we will wake up and we will do breakfast and have chores and this is what the day is going to look like. We will Work together to keep the house clean. But even in a classroom setting, there are agreements and expectations laid out in the beginning of the school year. And that's what keeps the machine running so smoothly. And we can certainly do that in our home environment. I also think about when I, you know, for us, it's. There was a lot of conversation about it actually in the spring, about creating routine. At Plinkit, we are firm believers of routine is what for children is what gives them structure. It's what gives them stability and that gives them security so that their minds are open to learn. You see, that happens a lot in the school year. You know, really the first month of the school year is spent about creating that structure and building that connection. And when I think about that, that's an important part because if you can keep the structure, and I know it's hard, but I would encourage parents to stick with the routine. It really does allow some predictability in a scenario now where we have so little predictability, although that I will say a plug in here for how children learn. Where we've seen it becoming difficult is children need breaks. Children need real physical breaks to learn. And, and we pay better attention, even growing ups, when we are alternating between standing, sitting, moving, stillness. But we need that. And so children also need that. And so alternating that state of mind, so to speak, is an important part as you think about routine for a day. And then part of that is, you know, when we think about setting those limits, we're big believers of using visual cues. It's how children learn. It's why you walk into a classroom and you're just sort of almost inspired. And they really are simple things. So, for example, on my door we have this. This is created by my children.

I think I need one as well.

And this is free. And it's so simple. All they need to know, are you accessible, mom, or are you not? The three year old takes it even simpler. I can talk to you. I cannot talk to you.

I can't. Yeah.

You know, these visual cues are really powerful for children, but it's also part of building their independence. The other thing you would encourage if you think about independence is an hourglass timer. If I have my doors closed right now to my office and I will always put an hourglass timer so they know the volume of time left in the conversation and they can actually see.

It and feel it then that way. Yeah, this is super smart. Yeah. And many of what you're. Much of what you're talking about comes down to creating that prepared environment. Right. That that assumes things will go wrong and then gives children the tools to be able to troubleshoot them effectively and have expectations. Right. Of how to handle that complexity, but with the routine and that, that foundation right in place. I'm curious, what advice do you have for parents as they have these conversations now with educators and teachers? One of the things that I've noticed is, you know, some schools, let's actually step back a little bit. The schools that seem to do remote learning really well created very rigid schedules and a lot of synchronous time and so forth, which I think in a certain circumstance that would be great, but in other family circumstances, that's probably anathema to what that child needs to succeed. And, and so my, one of my big worries, just to be candid right now, is that everyone's going to look at those success stories and say, oh, that's what we ought to do. Right. As opposed to really realizing from the teacher point of view, the parents are co educators now and so we need to have a conversation with them. But if you're the parent and whatever your school has done isn't working for you, what sort of tips do you have for having that conversation with the teachers and educators themselves?

Right. Well, actually, I've had a different experience. Our particular school was not quite as rigid and I actually saw it really flourish and it flourished because. And it goes back to the layering of the skills and the scaffolding. If the children have the independence and the autonomy to understand, well, this is a bunch of things I need to get done. How do I plan and track to get those things done? And then, you know, parents do have support with tech and submitting and online and that stuff. I get that. That's logistical stuff, right?

Yeah, I'm totally with where you're going. Yeah, keep going. Yeah.

But my point is, I think, I think when you over schedule, it takes away some of these core skills that children need to learn. Right. It's that independent, it's that executive functioning. But I want to get back to your original question on interacting with teachers. I think it's really powerful and it's, you know, frankly, where we sit at Tlingit and you know, I read this survey that was done between April, May of this year and had over 3,000 parents for public schools. And it said that only 33% of of students had regular access to teachers and only 15% of parents had received personal guidance about how to support their child. I think your question is real. It's very, very real. And I Think this is such a pivotal time to redefine that parent teacher relationship. Right. It's really an opportunity to just clear expectations for everybody and to establish baseline and to be truly a partner. And so I would actually encourage parents to have that mindset and to talk, talk with their teachers. And when I say partner with them, I mean actually ask them early in the year, outwardly ask them, where is my child's skill development? How are you establishing that baseline? Assuming you, you know, you don't because we didn't have assessments really coming out of the spring. Right. So you want to know, and you should know, you're a parent, you're a partner in the education process with, with your child and with your, with your school mid year or end of year. You know, I would encourage a follow up conversation with your teacher. What changes have you observed in my child's development? How do you know? On academic level and a social emotional level? And just even having these teachers, these teacher conversations I think mean a lot. I mean from all the teachers and educators that I've met, they are in it for the love of the, they're in it for the love of teaching children and being with children. So I really would encourage parents to actively engage with their teachers.

Makes a lot of sense. You're bringing up something else implicitly and explicitly in your comments, which I want to drill into next, which is that there's a lot of focus in the media right now about academic learning loss. But a quick core part of what you're talking about is not just the academics, it's the social emotional development of the child. It's what you might call character skills or habits. Right. Executive functioning, all these core skills to being a prepared and successful adult. Ultimately, how do you think about this moment for parents of really helping them think about their child holistically and not just about the academics.

Right? Right. I think for so long I've heard even myself when social distance or when the whole social distancing plus academic and distance learning all happen, you think, okay, God, we're stuck all really together and this is it and we're going to learn in this little tiny silo. And then I think I really stopped and observed and we spoke to a lot of teachers. What is the social learning that goes on in school really? When we say there's a social group learning, what are they learning? And when we really analyze that, there's conflict management. Right. And social awareness and social interaction. So for example, it's how to be in a group, how to compromise, how to Share ideas. How do you modulate your behavior if you don't agree with something? If someone does something wrong, what do you do with that information? Are you vulnerable? Do you tell someone there's a self regulation aspect of I don't like your comment or I might be annoyed with your comment and now what I do with that information, truly, what do I do with that feeling? Now there's also an element of how do I give my peers personal space? Then there's all these other relationship skills of interacting with strangers. Children are wonderful that they can go up to other children that they barely know in the playground and they can just find friendship. Reading the social cues and the facial expressions, having a conversation that's truly spontaneous back and forth improv. And I started to think all of those things that I think at the beginning we were wondering, are those things lost? Are all those social skills lost? When we actually looked at what goes on in our home environment, those social interactions happen. They really do. And I think of my own home with three siblings and I think about conflict management. We have to deal with fair play every day. We have to deal with joining in a group that someone might be already playing with, taking turns with sharing, sharing, decision making, telling the truth first tattling. We deal with self regulation and personal space, taking care of other people's things. We deal with teasing, envy. And at the end of the day, those are actually all core social emotional skills that your child is learning at school. So, you know, I would, I actually would encourage us to reframe the mindset and go, you know, there is a social and emotional learning. Absolutely. That happens at school and that's part of the education process and the education journey for a child. But there are many opportunities in the home environment that we can also shore up those skills. I think the challenge is, what I hear from many parents is that it takes work. It does take work. It takes work and it takes practice. And we have to be patient to some extent in some of those heated moments. But they are really learning opportunities.

Now that's super helpful. Last topic I'd love to switch to, which is that there's another partner in this equation that all too often doesn't get talked about, which is employers. Right. Because they have expectations for those women who are working or those fathers who are working, and sometimes they are more or less flexible. First question is, what are you seeing employers do that makes this work for parents? What is effective, particularly for women, since you said it's disproportionately coming down on them at the moment?

Well, I think some of the things that I've seen work and then, and then maybe I can talk about some of the things that I've seen that have not worked as well. But some of the things that I've seen work is one, it's having a parent group that is visible that actually does take priority. And so there is a support network that is part of the organizational structure that people in the workforce know where to go to to ask for information, whether it's a human being or whether it's a central repository of information. But they actually know the destination to go. And I think that's a very powerful, that's a very powerful symbol for the organization to show. I think the other thing that we have seen works really well. It's being real about what flexible time really looks like. So for a working parent, there are some times of the day that are non negotiable. So if in the case you were dropping off or picking up your child, 8 till 9 is pretty hard to have meetings, 4 to 5 is pretty hard to have meetings. And yet meetings might occur. So being able to say no, being able to step out and say no and not have repercussions or have it actually have an empathetic and understanding care and culture in the organization I think we've seen also works really well. The other thing we've seen works really well is so we work with several employers and we have this power hour, high impact masterclasses where we come in and we speak for an hour with employee resource groups. And we have seen that in person connection to be extraordinarily powerful. I think in this day and age when everything so many things feel very transactional. I mean I'm talking about computer right now. That power of that face to face connection, especially when you're talking about parenthood and you're talking about your children's education is something that I would underscore as is a very powerful thing. And providing a forum for employees to be able to connect with other people who are trusted experts, I think we have seen does great things for productivity, it does great things for retention. And just thinking about how do I feel like a more engaged and productive employee.

Yeah, that's helpful. I mean, and given my current position in guild education, this is something we're talking a lot about not just within gild, but also with the employers that we work across the country in the United States. But the question I guess I have for you is what are the sorts of questions that you'd encourage the Employers to think about. And what are the practices you alluded to this that they ought to avoid right now?

Right. Well, let's talk about what they should avoid. How about that?

Yeah, start there.

That's sort of like an easy thing. You know, I think what we saw is there are employers who are doing great work in what we call the visible parent. Right. So in that first year of parenting where it's easy to put things relatively physically, easy to put things like nursing rooms, parental leave policies, which we still have some ways to go, but at least I do see some movement. Relationships with child care centers on site, daycare backup childcare, subsidies for coverage and costs. So very tangible things, but they typically happen only in that maybe first or maybe two years of a parent's journey. And you know, while I think that's really good, you know, for you and I especially many other parents on this path, parenting gets a lot more complicated. I mean, I describe my logistical nightmare of the day and you just get a different set of problems. And so thinking about the policies that really support working parents through preschool and school age years, I think it's fundamental and one of the things that we have seen, it's unclear whose responsibility it is about to look after, so to speak, parent employees and who is the ownership of that. So is it a dedicated ERG employee resource group and which we have noted is typically a volunteer employee who's also a woman. So now add that on top of her plate of all the other things she's doing, or is it someone in HR benefits or is it someone L and D which is learning and development, wellness? It really sits in all sorts of different places and you get this situation where everyone is sort of looking at the other person and it's not clear who owns it. I think the other thing that we've seen is sometimes policies can be put in place, but the paperwork to execute on those policies are extraordinarily cumbersome. And one place we really see that is in subsidies for childcare. And so what happens is parents typically abandon the process. It's just so hard to deal with the paperwork. I think the other thing that, and this maybe is a good segue into thinking about what questions I guess employers could ask for themselves is what are the parent needs? Do they even know who the parents are? And you know, I go back to big picture, sort of where we start is I guess it comes down to like what are your company's values? So when you say that as an organization, it means that you want to help your employees Thrive, what does that mean to a parent? Say of yourself, what does it mean to a parent with six year old twins? What does it mean to help you thrive through your day? Maybe it means that you are allowed culturally to go and pick up your child at 4:00 and that is the name of the game. And thou shall not have a call at 6pm and if you do, you, you can say no. And there's no repercussion to that, right? When you say there is flex workdays, it is true that you will have dentist appointments, orthodontist appointments, parent teacher conferences, this, that whatnot and that that flexibility has to permeate in the culture. I think, you know, when I think about organizational structure for that sort of a company's values, you know, it has to come from top down, right? It really has to permeate everywhere through the organization, top down, bottom up, right? And in fact there's a study that said that 41% of us working parents don't believe they could be successful without a supportive boss. And that's the inertia that we're seeing, right. I think the other question I would have for employers is do you have a way of identifying what the parents needs are? Do you know how being a parent is employed is impacting your employees productivity? Do you do it in your Gallup poll that you do every year? Do you have an annual survey, exit survey, performance review? How do you collect that information from employers that we've worked with? It really is unclear and it really differs, right? But I think the concept being that family friendly means investing in something that benefits employees meaningfully. And so you've got to figure out what this meaningful look like to parent through the entire parent. And then I think the last thing I would encourage employees to ask themselves is what are our solutions and can our employees find it? And that might seem overly simplistic, but it's extraordinarily slow. You know, whether it's a grassroots sort of employee led erg, or there's a peer to peer working mentor, or whether it's an intranet with a tip sheet, making the information easily accessible is half the battle really. And we talked already at the beginning about how busy our day looks. If you can't find the information, you're pretty much going to stop looking for information, right? So the information is only as good as how easily you're able to find it. And so that's the thing I would really be clear on. If you have a solution, is it, is it publicly? Very publicly, available. And are you as an organization putting the working parent in a public, visible way that they're able to access information and that everybody else, that you build that caring culture in the organization.

It makes a ton of sense. This whole conversation has been chock full of great advice. I'm sure people will have more thoughts, questions and so forth. I'd encourage you to go to the the site, check it out. Also, sign up for the email blasts that you all do. They've been incredibly helpful on my end. I enjoy getting them in my inbox. So, Charmaine, on behalf of me and all the parents out there navigating this world with young children, thank you so much for the work you're doing and for helping us all out.

Thank you. And a shout out to all the teachers I know right now who are working really hard. Hard as well. And we'll keep working parents and teachers in partnership. Thanks for having.

Great way to put it. Yeah. And we'll be back on the next time on the future of education.

Thank you.