“What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.” Ellen Burstyn

With starting the second semester of DP1 in January 2020, I spent a lot of time on my school work, submitting assignments and keeping up with the content. I also participated in a lot of extra-curricular activities at school and outside school which only left me at home for a couple of hours each day.  This made me spend very little time with my family and especially my siblings. And I did miss fighting with them over the simplest matters and making fun of them and annoying them. Nonetheless, this quarantine period left me with plenty of opportunities to spend time with them.

So during this time, I helped them with their schoolwork, watched movies, did some cooking and played board games. It is pretty hard to cope with 3 kids of different ages at the same time because they seem to have very different tastes in everything. However, my mother was really happy about me working with them as they were off her trail even for some time.

I helped my brother with math and I helped my sister with note-taking and studying techniques for her upcoming exam. We also watched some horror movies together- one of the things that all of us love to do. It was nice to forget about the assignments due and just concentrate on whether there’s a ghost under your chair.

Overall, it was good to spend time with my siblings and it helped me to bond with them more. At the same time, I’m glad I could help my mother in a way.

Learning Outcomes:

• Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

This was of the few things I learnt the most when working with my siblings. At first, there was a lot of fights with picking a movie or who’s in charge of what. But once I realized that the best way was to go for something everyone preferred and do something everyone loved it helped to reduce the disagreements between them. Since everyone was sharing their ideas I also got the opportunity to understand their preferences.

• Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

Working with my siblings was a challenge firsthand. They liked different things so I had to listen to all of them, especially my younger brothers before deciding on anything to do with them. This helped with my patience as there were plenty of times when I got annoyed because of them. Also, I learnt to plan out things that all my siblings would enjoy doing together.