Candice and Matthew Kennedy, along with many families in the country, are currently homeschooling their kids Tyler,12, Emily,10, and Ben,8, due to the coronavirus.
Candice spoke to Buzzfeed, sharing when she first heard of the news about school closing, she wasn’t worried — at first.
“I was a stay-at-home mom for 11 years, so being around my kids all day and helping them learn was nothing new,” she revealed.
Currently, Candice works part-time at a bakery in Kentucky but says her hours have been cut while Matthew is a plant manager at a manufacturing company and continues to work.
Candice began homeschooling last Monday but believed it was going to be simple as all of her kids’ teachers sent emails about assignments they were to work on.
“I had all my kids at our dining room table, asked them to pull out their folders, and told them to get started on the material that they had been provided.”
But as both of there kids are in middle school they have six to seven teachers each — along with different assignments from each one.
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“Emily is a straight-A student who loves school, but she was overwhelmed and anxious that she wasn’t going to be able to complete everything. Tyler is extremely intelligent, but is having a hard time this year with math. He was asking me questions about his geometry homework to which I had no answers for,” she shared.
Candice admits she was overwhelmed attempting to figure things out and answer all of her kiddos questions.
“They were getting impatient with my inability to answer their questions. I started mimicking a grown-up crying in an attempt to lighten the mood. Seeing their mom squirm and not know the answers was pretty funny to them and they were all laughing and trying to console me.”
Eventually, Candice figured out things and went on with her lessons for the rest of the week but on Thursday she decided to check on her son’s Ben’s journal entry assignments.
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“I began laughing hysterically. The kids asked what was so funny. I read the entry out loud and looked over at Ben. A big sly grin spread over his face. Ben is the comedian in our family, so I knew he meant it to be funny. I immediately went to Facebook to share it,” she revealed.
Ben wrote, “It is not going good. My mom’s getting stressed out. My mom is really getting confused. We took a break so my mom can figure this stuff out, and I’m telling you, it is not going good.” Candice’s Facebook post now has over 300,000 shares.
Despite the critical feedback from her son, Candice says she is thankful for all the sweet messages people have sent her about Ben’s entry.
“I firmly believe that this new situation will bring families closer together and give us all a newfound appreciation for our education system and all the amazing people who are teachers…aka superheroes!”