Juggling work and school is bringing parents down
The majority of working parents in Australia described home-schooling as overly stressful for them, citing the struggle of balancing their personal and professional lives as one of their main concerns, new research has revealed.
A study from the Macquarie University found that 84% of working parents said teaching their children from home was making them stressed out. Thirty-four per cent added that juggling work and school was the greatest reason for said stress, followed by social isolation at 27%, and their child's lack of motivation to learn at 19%. According to the research, the respondents spend 10.7 hours a week home-schooling their children, Brisbane Times reported.
Read more: Working parents suffer extreme burnout during pandemic
Matt Bower, one of the researchers, said the overall 14.1 hours of time added to parents' workload is a "huge drain from national productivity."
Meanwhile, children also felt the challenges of learning from home, with 79% of parents saying the set-up was difficult for their children. According to the study, parents were more stressed with younger children, and they felt their children weren’t learning. The research revealed that children spend 4.3 hours every day for school, with 43 minutes of them dedicated to live calls with teachers. However, 12% said there was no live interaction with teachers at all.
Parents, however, still saw a silver lining despite the current home setup for children, with some families pleased over the flexibility, the family bonding, and the lack of travel time. The on-going research comes amid reports that New South Wales will start reopening shools on October 18, starting with kindergarten, year 1, and year 12 students. All other grades will resume on November 1, The Guardian reported.
