I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million more times: “It takes a village.” Since my kids were little, I’ve had the benefit of an absolutely incredible village and I’ve always appreciated them. However, these past few weeks of being village-less has made me even more aware of how valuable my village is.

Don’t get me wrong, most of them are only a text message or a Facebook post away, but I am really missing our daily interactions. I also miss having the network of teachers and coaches and other parents watching out for my kids.

In many ways, this quarantine has been eye-opening for me. I am getting a firsthand look at how my kids are being educated. I’m seeing the challenges they face, how they handle managing their time, and how responsible they can be for themselves.

There have been a lot of moments where I feel like I’m kicking myself for not understanding something sooner or feeling like I missed something. These moments have caused a lot of stress and anxiety for everyone involved, and I find myself thinking that surely their regular teachers would have caught on to their issue sooner or had a magical fix up their sleeves.

Being solely responsible for their mental, physical and spiritual health at all times and on all days makes me realize how much I depend on others to have my back and keep an eye out for my kids’ well-being.

One of the awesome things that the guidance counselors and school nurses have been doing is reaching out with a weekly or biweekly basis to check on how our family is coping. The first question they ask is “how are the kids doing?”

The first time I got the call, I responded enthusiastically. “They’re doing great!” At that point, they were. We were still under the impression that this was a minor blip, an unexpected vacation.

The next time we got the call, though, I had to really stop and ask myself, “how are the kids doing?” By this time, grief and anger and a whole bunch of other emotions had started taking their toll. Frustrations were running high as we started to get into online learning. The kids stopped being “fine” and became “as good as can be expected” which really isn’t that good at all.

Here’s where I miss having my village to keep an eye on my kids. It’s hard to tell if something is really, truly eating A, or if he’s just ratcheted up the angsty teenager routine.

I’ve schooled myself not to fall for E’s drama sessions, but maybe this time, she wasn’t being dramatic and I needed to pay more attention. Is G being goofy because he’s just a goofy kid, or is his goofiness hiding something that’s upsetting him, but he doesn’t know how to put it into words?

It’s very hard to be the meanie who just took away video game privileges because dishes weren’t put away or bedrooms weren’t cleaned and then become the person who has to proofread an essay for history class, or help teach basic geometry.

Teacher Mom has to remember that she can’t reward good behavior with additional screen time because Mean Mom took that off the table.

Then it’s time to shift gears again, and Teacher Mom cashed in all of her tricks and bribes to get all the math homework done, and the Mean Mom doesn’t have any leverage to get help making dinner.

Being the same person barking orders from morning until evening just to keep school and housework moving takes its toll. By the time we get to “Relaxing Evening Time with the Family,” the entire family is pretty much sick of each other and no one is in a mood to play a fun game of Exploding Kittens.

I also buy into the notion that kids will behave themselves for other people and then completely lose their minds and melt down when they’re with you, because, as their parent, you’re their safe space and they don’t have to put on a brave face or pretend they’re not exhausted.

I think many parents have questioned the “well-behaved, polite, a joy to have in class” comments that sometimes come home on report cards.

Since the kids are feeling a lot of those overwhelming feelings right now and they’re with us all the time, it feels like it’s all bad or stressed behavior all the time. Sometimes I get a little worried that they’re going to forget how to control themselves once we get back to civilization.

I can only imagine the looks on their teachers’ faces if they had to deal with the meltdowns I’ve been dealing with daily. To be clear, my kids aren’t always hellions, but between the three of them, it seems like at least one of them is out of sorts to some degree.

I frequently find myself asking the kids what would a teacher or a coach say if they could see them right now. In the past, I would usually get at least an acknowledgment that they would never behave this way for another adult.

Sadly, these days, I get the retort, “I wish they could see me right now.” Oh, me too, kid, me, too!

The other day, I floated the idea of printing out life-sized pictures of their teachers’ faces and wearing them as a mask as we worked through their subjects. At least the goofy laughs that idea prompted got us through a day with only a few meltdowns.

So many of the things that we’re trying to do to give our lives some semblance of normal: keeping to a schedule, maintaining chores, following through with school assignments, keeping an element of physical activity, are things that are usually shared among a whole posse of educators, coaches and friends.

Heavy is the head that wears all those hats right now, and when this is all over, the first thing I’m doing is calling the village together and giving them their hats back.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.