Happy 2021! A week or so into the new year, how are you and your kids doing so far? I’m looking forward to a family wedding in June, but the virus is rampant enough to give me pause when it comes to making actual plans to go. To be honest, I add “God willing” in my head to any plan I make right now, including a future trip to the grocery store. Nothing seems certain right now except more uncertainty.

If you or your kids are struggling with remote learning/work/life, you’re not alone. It’s 2021—shouldn’t things be better? Haven’t we lost enough people, canceled enough plans, worn enough masks? Sadly, vaccine or no, the virus hasn’t moved on from us–yet.

My daughters and I represent a combination of in-person and remote education in two different school districts. One thing that I keep seeing in educational journal articles, in the experience of the kids I work with, and in the stories my daughters tell in the evenings, is that kids who are thriving are the ones most involved in creative activities.

Take Chloe, for example (not her real name). In nearly every Zoom class since September, she has had something in her hands that she’s crocheting, or making, or learning to do (Rubik’s cube in under a minute, anyone?). She even wears the occasional wild hat that she embellished. Her biggest concern? She won’t have time to finish even half of the projects in her house yet or read half the series she wants to read!

Taking a page out of Chloe’s book, there’s still time for us to kick into creative action before we run out of pandemic time at home. But maybe your kids are more like my eldest when she was little—she did not take too kindly to suggestions, even for things like choosing a library book. One day, feeling a bit desperate after she rejected my ideas yet failed to choose a single book on her own, I selected a big pile for myself and walked them up to the circulation desk. Seeing what I was doing, she tugged on me and whined that she didn’t want any of those books. “But these are for ME,” I said.

That night, I pulled out my pile of books and began to read Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent. You’ve probably already guessed that it didn’t take long for her to sit next to me and beg me to read it aloud. It became one of her favorite books. Maybe you can do the same now. Is there a hobby you did as a child, or something you’ve always wanted to try? Gather a few materials, have fun with them, and see if your kids don’t observe and ask to join in or want to try a new hobby of their own.

By the way, when my kids were little, I was into counted cross stitch and made them each a Christmas stocking. Why was mine plain green? they wondered a year or two ago. I told them that since switching to writing, I would never spend the hours necessary to make myself a stocking like theirs. Imagine my utter shock this Christmas morning when my eldest handed me a gift of a cross stitch stocking that she has been working on for weeks. Still not quite finished—it’s the snowman in the picture—but it’s one of the most beautiful gifts I’ve ever received. I can’t remember ever teaching her how to cross stitch.

Psalm 147:6a says “The Lord sustains the humble.” Maybe 2021 can be filled, not so much with goals and plans that have proven to be so easily thwarted by a virus, but with a humble heart toward him and others, placing our plans, hopes, and dreams in his capable hands. May we humbly write “A closer relationship with God and others” on every day of our 2021 calendars and day planners. God willing, joining with others in creative activities can be one way to do just that.

Sonja Anderson