Reflections on a Pandemic: Where Do We Go from Here?
Reading Time: 3 min
If you’re anything like me, you think this kind of sucks. Just looking at the word COVID makes your cortisol spike, leading you to wanna crawl into bed (possibly with a cocktail) and hide, until this is over. No such luck, folks, we’ve got kids. This may very well end up being our ultimate parenting test. The Strongman competition has nothing on us. Sleepless nights caring for a cranky baby? Please. That lasted six months. We are coming up on two years!
Now that we’ve established that we’re heroes, let’s talk about those little chunks of our hearts walking around outside our bodies, the kiddos. How do you think they are doing in this never-ending pandemic reality drama series we are living in? By all accounts, not well. The Pediatricians’ dire predictions are coming true. According to the CDC, ER visits for suicide attempts in girls ages 12-17 went up 51% from Feb-March of 2021 compared to 2019. The surgeon general just issued an advisory about protecting youth mental health. So, where do we go from here? Do we all need to escape to a mindfulness retreat with our kids in tow? I don’t think so. I’m going to lean into the fierce and brilliant teachings of author bell hooks, and I invite you to do the same. Put the parenting books down and pick up one of hers instead, you’ll be happy you did.
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”
Step into community and help your kids do the same. Join the PTA or a unity group at your kid’s school. Don’t shy away from the difficult conversations about how they are feeling socially and how this time has impacted them. Enable healthy social time with peers. Research shows that the most important thing a child needs to be resilient is a stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult. Be that adult and if you can’t, find someone who can (reminder: we don’t have to be everything for our kids). A teacher, a family friend, an auntie, an after school program teacher. We do not have to go this alone and neither do our kids. Community matters and together, we can support a whole lot of kiddos that need a whole lot of love.
“The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible.”
Making art is an excellent tool for stress management, making meaning of things (insert dark and twisty feelings, here) and developing coping skills. Start family doodle journals, find a watercolor tutorial on youtube, create a scrapbook from magazines, decorate a cake. The product doesn’t matter one bit, use the process as a time to connect, slow down, and imagine what’s possible.
“For most people, what is so painful about reading is that you read something and you don’t have anybody to share it with.”
Create a family book group, even if that is just two of you. It takes most children a while to get into the joy of reading. Read together and share in the discovery. This can also be really helpful if you have a kid that likes to use reading to isolate. If your kid isn’t into reading alone yet, read the story to them and save time after each chapter to talk. The purpose here is to cultivate a love of reading and build connections, so invite your kiddo to step into the beauty of books on their own terms, don’t force it.
As we embark on a potential third year of a pandemic together, we got this. Don your mask and prosper.
