How to build a relationship with a child during the period of self-isolation. It is important to understand that the process of building a relationship with a child begins from the moment this child appears in your life. This happened before the pandemic, continues now and will happen after. Relationships are a labor-intensive, lengthy process that requires attention and patience. Self-isolation is a circumstance in which people’s levels of tension, irritation and anxiety increase. But you need to understand that all this discomfort is experienced not only by you, but also by all family members. And children are especially sensitive to any changes in the world around them, and in most cases their level of stress directly depends on the level of stress of their parents. You can try to make the most of any situation in life: if you did not have time to build clear boundaries in the family before, now there may be more motivation and opportunities for this. Relatives are now in the same area for a long period of time without the opportunity to escape from an unpleasant situation to the street, a walk, fitness, or to see friends. In this regard, there is an increasing need to optimize the atmosphere at home and learn to resolve conflicts and disagreements in a more productive way. Helpful recommendations: The first thing that can significantly help maintain emotional stability is a daily routine. To enhance the positive effect, you can make this process more visual: leave a beautiful schedule, include physical exercise, self-development, reading books, or whatever you would like to do. These can be small or large goals and objectives that you can achieve in current conditions. And put beautiful bright checkboxes opposite the completed items to record your performance. This can be a good example of planning for children. Together with your child, you can create a personal or joint schedule, design it beautifully and originally and hang it in a prominent place. It is important to learn to record your “emotional temperature” and track it throughout the day and especially when communicating with loved ones. Take any scale convenient for you: from 0 to 10, where 0 is complete calm, and 10 is the point of highest emotional tension; or you can imagine a regular mercury thermometer that displays your emotional charge instead of your body temperature. For younger children, this can be presented as a game, and for older children, explain how important it is in life to be able to monitor your emotions and their intensity. Distribute responsibilities and tasks among all family members. Gather a family council and agree on who is responsible for what in the house (timely removal of garbage, grocery shopping, wet cleaning, caring for animals, etc.). Try to resolve all this in a productive dialogue, and not in an orderly manner, since an authoritarian tone and pressure can provoke negative feelings in children, cause a protest reaction and reduce motivation to perform duties. Train your self-control and set a positive example for your child. Now is the most important time to show children how to cope with stress in a constructive way: learn deep breathing, meditation, concentration or visualization skills, shifting of attention, non-judgmental observation, yoga or other types of body practices. Agree on the “right to privacy” . Designate a time (1 hour, 30 minutes, 1.5 hours) during which you will not be disturbed by other family members. You can choose a special place or room that no one will enter, and you can pay attention to yourself, your thoughts and just be in silence and relaxation. Discuss a schedule for using things or rooms that are in demand for many family members. You can assign a specific time for each, based on priority. Listen carefully to the arguments of all relatives, try to make a decision jointly and unanimously. Respect personalspace: yours and other family members. You should not enter a room without knocking, hug or pull the hair of teenage children without their consent, go through things and clothes that are not yours, or take other people’s things without asking. Filter incoming information from the outside: its excess causes an increase in anxiety and tension. Teach your child to think critically about information and choose things online that will have a beneficial effect on their condition and quality of life, and not vice versa. If you see that your child is unconsciously absorbing some information, ask: What will you do with this next? How can this be useful? Why do you need this? It's time to create a useful family tradition: drinking tea together, family council, exchanging compliments. An interesting practice is to create a kind of anonymous mail. Take two jars or two boxes, boxes: one container for complaints, and the second for compliments. The condition is stated: for a week or two you can anonymously write complaints and dissatisfaction against someone from the family, but at the same time be sure to write something positive about the person about whom there is a complaint. This teaches the child to take into account the pros and cons and look at a person’s personality more broadly, and not in the context of only his dissatisfaction. You can read out the contents of the containers at the end of the week at a joint tea party, and the containers themselves can be beautifully decorated, which will attract the child to the creative process. The next important point is distance learning. - To increase a teenager’s motivation for learning, you can discuss with him all the advantages of such an educational form: no time spent on a long journey, the opportunity to have a tasty and quick meal, comfortable clothes, a comfortable environment, no acute conflicts with peers. - To create a suitable atmosphere, you can purchase cool sets of statuses for your desktop or a banner sign on the door so that your child can mark the beginning educational process.- You should also help your child create a certain time schedule to avoid endless snacking and coming to the kitchen for food, which distracts from the learning process.- Discuss with your child more often his views on various subjects and the education system, patiently listen to his arguments, even if they are radically different from yours. Allow the child to reason and doubt; ask what alternative views there are. Ask what options your child can offer to improve the situation, analyze his arguments without anger and accusations. - Help your child understand that, despite the extraordinary situation, school responsibilities and consequences for failure to fulfill them still remain. Exams or final papers may be postponed to a later date, but these procedures will still take place and you need to prepare for them. The most typical mistakes parents make in communicating with children during the period of self-isolation: - Increased control as compensation for their own anxiety. In the current circumstances of the pandemic, a person is very clearly faced with the fact that he cannot control everything in this life. Uncertainty about the future, dramatic changes in lifestyle, financial difficulties and other factors can make parents feel hopeless or afraid. Lack of control in some areas can lead to excessive control in others. Therefore, it is important to ensure that caring for loved ones and maintaining order at home does not turn into tyranny. - Information intoxication with negative information. Reduce television viewing, filter information received via the Internet and by phone. The next frightening fact or assumption can significantly affect your emotional state. When including a source of information, do so as consciously as possible. Ask yourself: what do you want to read or learn? Why do you need this information? How will it affect you and your loved ones? - Avoid catastrophizing the situation, do not voice your alarming assumptions about negative forecasts for the future in front of your children - this can cause fears, apathy and depression in the child.!