For this Charlotte family during COVID, remote learning alone won’t be enough.

Claire Refaey and her husband, Eid, are in charge of a bustling household in NoDa, where precocious 9-year-old Adam and spirited 2-year-old Rosie keep everything exciting. The Refaey family also houses Eid’s niece, an international student from Egypt attending UNC Charlotte.

Refaey was a financial services executive until about five years ago, when she became ill and never fully recovered. Now, she has to navigate a compromised immune system and low energy amid a global pandemic. Refaey shared that COVID has been a major adjustment for her family, and will most likely be a formative experience for their children and niece.

Navigating COVID and family while immunocompromised

“Initially, it felt like we were all crawling over each other when we went into lockdown. We had to learn to take the day in chunks. Morning coffee was on Cafe Front Porch, school was a Dining Room Table Elementary and Tiny House University and the 2-year-old was just everywhere,” Refaey said.

Her biggest challenge? Managing the higher-than-normal level of household activity while balancing her anxiety of the potential effects of contracting COVID with an already-depleted immune system.

“We immediately had to learn to work as a team while balancing the risk of COVID exposure,” Refaey said. “At first, it was quite hectic to have every family member adjusting to being in each other’s space all the time. My mantra during this time is ‘grace’. Grace for each other and the way we may react to something, usually a disappointment. Grace for the situation taking its toll in different ways at different times.”

It didn’t take Refaey long to realize she also needed to extend her quarantine bubble to include her parents and one of her adult sisters with developmental disabilities. Luckily, her sister began holding supervised in-home daycare for the 2-year-old, Glitter Girl Daycare, three days per week. This gave her parents and sister purpose and allowed Refaey to have down time to rest and focus with her son on his third-grade studies.

“Without a doubt, I became a third grader at Shamrock Gardens Elementary this past spring,” Refaey said. “I worked along with my son to convert physical learning to the virtual environment. I saw teachers and administration move mountains on a dime. I witnessed people who really love my child navigate what was best for him. I saw the disparity between math and reading that my son’s teachers had been telling me about. I saw my kiddo sweat and work with all his might to focus.”

From Zoom fatigue to child entrepreneurship

Refaey also witnessed firsthand her son’s Zoom fatigue.

“I saw him struggle to engage with material online only to have his Chromebook shut down mid-paragraph or our internet kick him out of his Google Classroom meeting.”

At one point, Refaey and her son had to take a small hiatus from the screen. It was during this time that Adam took initiative to start his own business after watching a video about child entrepreneurs that his teacher provided.

“We drew concentric circles and mapped out what he could provide, what people would pay for and what was missing from the market,” Refaey said.

Adam came to the conclusion that there really weren’t fun, good masks for kids his age. He’d just received $50 and decided to invest it in fabric to start his business. It was then that Sneezles (@sneezlesproject) was born.

“Honestly, Sneezles saved our summer,” Refaey said. “Adam has learned how to make masks, thread bobbins, select materials and price products. He has been invited to do pop ups at Local Loaf, Kumon Math and Reading Center of Charlotte and the Mint Hill State Employee Credit Union. As he has collected money, we have been able to learn budgeting lessons about saving, investing, spending and giving.”

Adam is currently on his third run of mask production and now has his own popup booth set up. This school year, he’ll be attending Shamrock Gardens Elementary virtually, as Refaey believes that the school stepped up to make the virtual classroom experience in CMS as seamless as possible. Their daughter will be attending daycare.

“I have a very sociable and outgoing son, and I was torn between knowing he needed peer interaction as well as knowing we don’t truly understand the ramifications of sending kids to school and how much of a risk exposure back into the family could be,” Refaey said. “I believe I found a good solution for the beginning of the year by partnering with some other parents in the neighborhood to form a small pod. This way, he can do schoolwork with peers and have a safe level of interaction with others. Truly, my greatest concern is for those students in our school and community who don’t have the same level of resources we have.”

COVID brought them closer together

Refaey said COVID gave each family member the ability to be there for each other in their hours of need. They bought water guns to play with the neighbors while still social distancing. They comforted their niece when there were threats to international students’ abilities to stay in the country. They’ve comforted friends through their COVID infections.

“Health aside, my greatest concern for COVID-19 is my children being concerned about their future, Refaey said. “In such close quarters, it’s tough to balance taking COVID-19 seriously and not having news blaring in the house all day or constantly checking the daily death toll. I try to have child-appropriate conversations on why we need to wear masks and wash our hands and not give our friends hugs or why we can’t go on the swings yet. Simultaneously, our family is working hard to have as normal an existence as possible right now.”

CharlotteFive talked to families in Charlotte-area schools navigating the pandemic to understand how the virus has changed their school decisions, their routines and their households. This article is part of that series.