Cabin fever with kids:

Auckland family Sarah and Nigel Stevenson and their children Ashlyn, Libby and Cooper are on their second day of self-isolation after flying home from Australia. Here’s their diary of 14 days stuck at home:

My New Year’s resolution was not to yell at the kids. It’s going to get a workout during the next fortnight.

We’re onto our second day of self-isolation, and I don’t know if this is good or bad, but being a bit uptight, I’ve written up a schoolwork timetable for the children to follow. They can do it in any order they want – but they’ve got to tick it all off before they can play. So that was today’s battleground. It’s fair to say there’s been a lot of protests.

Lots of the three kids’ schoolwork is online anyway – they all do an online maths programme, and I’ve tried to get them to do some writing about what they did while they were away. I’ve told them they’ve got to do some exercise too – so if they’re not walking the dog, they can do Go Noodle, an online exercise programme for kids.

I’ve also decided we can all use some sessions of mindfulness – I reckon that will benefit us if tensions run high. And, most unpopularly, because all their bedrooms are a complete shambles, they have to spend 10 minutes a day tidying them up. That didn’t eventuate today – I thought that one was a battle not worth fighting on our first full day at home together.

We were at my sister’s wedding in Australia last Saturday when other guests began talking about the impending change to make everyone arriving back into New Zealand self-isolate.

We flew back on Tuesday on a Qantas flight that usually holds 330 passengers – and there were only 65 of us on board. So we had the back section, where they usually stick all the families, to ourselves, and the kids all had window seats – but it was sad to hear the Qantas staff saying they were all facing the prospect of layoffs. They were about to take the plane back to Sydney with just 40 passengers.

When we arrived into Auckland Airport, we were all corralled through a screening with a public health nurse, then filled in another sheet with the same questions asking us if we had any of the symptoms.

We were given an information sheet about what self-isolation meant and a link to a website – and then we were asked basically all the same things again at Customs. I’ve heard of some people saying they came back into the country not quite understanding what selfisolation was about – but I don’t know how you’d miss it.

But I understand we are all right to go for a walk around the block as long as we stay well clear of anyone else. Today, Cooper and I took the dog for a walk – but otherwise we’ve all been at home. Nobody has been to check up on us at all – I don’t know if they will.

I called work on Monday and explained, and they were very good about it. I’m a schoolteacher, so I can’t have student contact, but I have been able to do administrative work – a lot of it cancelling student activities because of the new guidelines on large gatherings.

Nigel is an account manager, and he’s set himself up in the dining room with his computer. He’s spent most of the day on the phone, except when he’s intervening in the occasional fight or screaming match.

Cooper was ecstatic about having two weeks off school. But the girls were quite upset – they had been looking forward to seeing their friends, and when they worked out all the things they would miss out on, like netball trials, a birthday party, and a beach clean-up that Libby had organised with friends.

For me, the hardest thing will be keeping my sanity – and keeping that New Year’s resolution.

Stuff will check in regularly with the Stevensons over their 14 days of self-isolation.