I think most of us — if not all of us — can agree that teachers are absolutely vital to a parent’s life if they have children in school.

We all appreciate teachers, right?

Many of us give our children’s teachers cards and little gifts for special events like Christmas time or the end of the school year appreciation.

But until you actually have your kids at home 24/7 during a quarantine due to a pandemic such as the coronavirus, you don’t truly appreciate how many hours out of a day a teacher will actually deal with your child and everyone else’s child.

We get glimpses of this during winter break or summer break but this is different. This is not a scheduled break. This is not your regular programming.

Your child is now missing work included in the regular curriculum that they would ordinarily be doing at school —  unless you already homeschool  —  of course.

So now it is up to the parents to figure out how much work their child is going to do  —  especially if they are elementary age and have not received online assignments like perhaps their older siblings may have.

So do you make a schedule at home where you make them do certain amounts of schoolwork every day? Or do you just let them sit around and watch TV all day because  —  well,  don’t they deserve a break from all this stress?

Decisions about what is best for your child are just a few of many responsibilities in a teacher’s day during the school year and this is a prime opportunity to appreciate how it’s them, not you who are usually bearing the weight of making sure your child is up to speed.

Not to mention, since this was an unplanned break from school, teachers everywhere  —  especially of older students  —  are scrambling to create online lessons and communicate with their students remotely  —  which can’t be an easy task to do.

Teachers have been the ones hearing from frazzled and worried parents.

Teachers have been the ones trying to prepare for something that is almost impossible to prepare for.

Teachers have been the ones dealing with sneezing and coughing kids in their classrooms before the shutdowns wondering if THIS IS IT.

Many teachers will be at home throughout these widespread quarantines wondering if their students are keeping up, wondering if their parents are able to handle it, and wondering if this is indeed the new normal. Will they return to class? Will they be able to teach again? Are we all overreacting?

Everyone has a different opinion about the precautions being taken and what’s too extreme or not.

But the one opinion I think every parent out there should agree on is that teachers are the backbone of our children’s lives.

They spend 7 to 8 hours at least with them 5 days a week for most of the year.

In these times of uncertainty let’s take a moment to really value the certainty and security our children’s teachers have always provided us with.

More from Michelle: Teenagers Today Know Way More About Sex than I Did