The struggle is real! James Van Der Beek, Tiffani Thiessen and more celebrity parents are adjusting to their new normal — homeschooling.
“Shuffling the kids from Zoom call to Zoom call was not our forte,” the Dawson’s Creek alum, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly of helping his and Kimberly Van Der Beek’s five kids with their remote learning. “It was not our best moments as parents. We actually said, ‘If we’re not going back, let’s take it at our own pace.’”
The Connecticut native explained that they continued schooling Olivia, 9, Joshua, 8, Annabel, 6, Emilia, 4, and Gwendolyn, 2, into the summer, adding, “It was really fun to take a little bit of a more active role in their education.”
As for Thiessen, the Saved By the Bell alum, 46, said that she was having a “horrible and really hard” time in the beginning of homeschooling Harper, 10, and Holt, 5.
The actress explained to Us, “I was not cut out for teaching. That’s not been something that I was trained to do, but we got our groove after probably the first month.”
The California native’s eldest is “extremely social,” she went on to say, noting that the little one really “misses her friends” hanging at home. “Part of her school experience and learning was being there physically, so that’s been really hard.”
Instead of being with her buddies, Harper has been cooking with her mom. “I feel like we’ve been probably made about a hundred [banana breads],” Thiessen told Us. “She just made another one the other night, but we do a lot of things. We actually grow fruits and vegetables here, which has been really fun. We’ve made tomato tarts and grilled pastas. We’re always constantly making something. It’s been a lot of fun to have them at home and involved in that aspect.”
Watch the video above to see more parents’ candid confessions about homeschooling, from Tia Mowry wanting to “relax” to Rachael Leigh Cook needing an “online support group” to recover from the experience.
