For the first few weeks of quarantine, Wes Stocken, 16, spent a lot of time inside his Hanover home, playing video games.
But before long, virtual reality no longer provided the escape he was looking for, so he wandered outside and started tinkering in the woods around his family home. After that, his mother, Mary Beth Stocken, didn’t see much of Wes during the daylight hours.
“He was never inside again. It was like a light switch flipped. I think he just finally realized that maybe there’s more to life than gaming,” she said.
Wes built a mountain bike track in the woods. He dug out and rebuilt a culvert that runs under the family’s driveway. He asked Stocken if she had any projects that she wanted done around the house.
“I would never say no to that,” Stocken said.
She was pleasantly surprised — if a bit baffled — but for Wes, the sudden change was easy to explain.
“What made me want to switch from video games to projects was that school kind of makes me mentally and physically tired. With video games you just sit in front of a screen and press a few buttons,” making them a good way to unwind after school and sports, he said.
During quarantine, there was no need for an easy activity.
“I found I could have more fun doing something not virtual and I had the energy to do so because I wasn’t drained,” Wes said.
The COVID-19 pandemic turned life upside down for most Upper Valley families. Kids were suddenly home and many parents were, too. Hyper-structured schedules were thrown out the window, replaced with long periods of downtime and family bonding. While the pandemic has been incredibly stressful for many people, Upper Valley families also found that this time made them reflect on their lives and make some changes that they’d like to keep long-term.
Even when life returns to normal, Wes wants to keep more free time in his schedule.
“If we were at school and we wanted unstructured time, we scheduled a free period for about 50 minutes,” he said, “whereas during quarantine, I have seven more hours of unstructured time than I would have. It’s a lot more freedom.”
That’s why Wes was hoping for a remote option for school during the fall (as of this writing, Hanover hadn’t made any public decisions about the upcoming school year). Wes liked having more control over when he did his work. That allowed him to do a bit of schoolwork in the morning, but spend most of his days outside, completing the bulk of school work when it was dark.
“I saved as much daylight as possible for being outside,” he said.
For Heather Walz, a Claremont mother of three, getting the kids outside during quarantine wasn’t so easy. She lives in an apartment complex where her children have many friends. If they went outside to play, they were soon joined by kids from other families, and social distancing went out the window.
Because of that Walz spent a lot more time with her daughters, 9 and 13, and her 4-year-old son. She continued working throughout the pan
demic as a surgical technologist at Valley Regional Hospital, but because many non-emergency surgeries were put on hold during the height of the stay-at-home order, the hospital allowed Walz a lot more flexibility in her hours and her ability to contact her kids during the day.
“The biggest thing I would love to keep from this is extra time to spend with my kids,” Walz said.
The children’s father watched them while Walz was at work, but he had trouble helping with remote learning. One of her daughters in particular struggled with school during the pandemic. Walz worked with the hospital to figure out ways to help her daughter, through phone calls or leaving a few minutes early.
“My employer was great and worked with me so I could be available to help her when I could and still be available as they needed me,” Walz said.
While the pandemic has been challenging for the family, Walz hopes that her daughters learn from their experience living through this.
“If nothing else, it throws things into perspective,” she said. “They’ve learned not to take small things for granted, like being able to go to a friend’s house and have dinner. That’s precious.”
Kayleigh Tassone, a White River Junction mother of two, also works in the medical field, although she was able to do all her work from home. Her 2-year-old was still in daycare, but her 12-year-old was home with her. Together, they made lunch break their special time each day, to go on a walk, cook together or just chit-chat.
“Before remote (learning and working), we would just check in at the end of the day with a quick ‘hi’ and dinner before he was off to a friend’s house,” Tassone said. During the pandemic, they had lots more quality time together, something she hopes to continue this year. “It was kind of like a light in the darkness.”
Normally, the calendar in Kelly French’s home in Quechee is filled with appointments, practices and other obligations for her daughter Ruby, 10. During stay-at-home orders, with the calendar suddenly empty, French decided to get creative. Together with her partner and Ruby, French filled the calendar with family-focused activities: junk food for dinner night, game night, outings for take-out.
“We tried to keep it fun and keep something on the schedule so it looked like there was something to look forward to, because we didn’t have that with school or work anymore,” French said.
While evenings were full of fun family activities, Ruby was left to her own devices during the day, while both French and her partner were working from home.
“It forced her to think outside the box, for ‘how can I stay busy?’ ” French said. First, Ruby decided to take over lunch preparations, slicing vegetables and making her own macaroni and cheese. Then, she started writing old-fashioned letters to friends and family.
“We ordered stamps from the online post office three times,” French said. Ruby even discovered a magazine with celebrity addresses, and began posting notes to a few of her favorites, like Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.
One day Ruby even cleaned out her dresser drawers and organized her room — as an only child in a rural area without neighborhood kids to play with, she had to get creative about filling her days. But for French, that was a positive, and even reminded her of her own childhood.
“It takes you back to having to use your imagination,” she said.
It’s something that French hopes to continue, even if Ruby returns to school this fall.
“She’s more comfortable not having to be occupied all the time,” she said. “We’ll definitely encourage that. It’s great that she feels like she can be more independent.”