Don’t underestimate the pandemic’s burden on kids
One of the hardest challenges of living in a pandemic is helping your child — or grandchild — with virtual schooling.
The first thing you learn, unless you’re a teacher, is that you’re NOT a teacher. Online schooling is as foreign to many of us as new math (omg). Negotiating online activities for parents (and grandparents) is a challenge, and making sure your child is following along and keeping up with the teachers’ daily lessons is imperative for the child’s educational success. As a result, parents are developing sky-high respect for teachers.
Two of my grandchildren, Evie, a fifth-grader, and William, a second-grader, stay with me two days a week while their mother, my oldest daughter, Kacee, works in my husband’s law office. My oldest granddaughter, Tilleigh, 14, stays home for her schooling (she has her virtual classroom set up in her bedroom). They live next door.
At my house, the children have their classrooms set up in the master bedroom and the kids’ room. I make sure the beds are made, clothes are put away and the rooms are clean before they come to my house and set up their mobile classrooms. I am instructed to not come in the bedroom when they are in their Zoom classes, and I’m not allowed to make loud noises or let my two Chihuahuas bark during this time. It’s a little nerve-racking, to be honest. I don’t want to embarrass my grandchildren. My fear is that I’ll leave a bra in view of the computer’s camera. My grandkids would be humiliated for life.
Everyone, worldwide, has had to adapt to this new normal of living in a pandemic. The numbers of deaths in America, and all over the world, are too high to comprehend. People with underlying conditions, people who are healthy, people of all ages have succumbed to COVID-19, and now we’re learning of variants of the virus that are possibly even more dangerous.
But there’s hope. People, albeit slowly, are being vaccinated. At 68 and 71, my husband, Hank, and I, are in the next group to receive the shot, which might happen in March.
My youngest son, Kit, a scientist living in San Diego with his family (wife Bonnie and daughters Charleana, 4, and Misha, 2) is involved in COVID-19 research. He told me about the virus before the government alerted America. He told me what to expect, including shortages at the grocery store, the importance of quarantining (even now for those at risk) and the astronomical number of positive cases and deaths that were to come. He was very concerned for my husband and me because of our ages.
I listened to my son. I have been quarantining since last February, having left my property fewer than a dozen times. There have been a few times a couple of guests have visited my home, but we stay outside. Nobody, except my small “bubble” of six family members, is allowed in my house, and, except for the children, they always wear masks. That’s about to change. I learned earlier this week that my grandchildren will be going back to school next week on a hybrid schedule. William will go four days a week and the girls, two days. They haven’t been in a classroom since last March. They’re excited, albeit a bit apprehensive, because of COVID-19.
Because the kids are heading back to school, they’ll be out in the world while the virus is always lurking. That means my husband and I will have to be more cautious around them, despite knowing they are diligent about wearing masks and washing their hands.
We can’t relax our rules of trying to stay safe. The pandemic is far from over. So, until, my husband and I are vaccinated, our interactions with our grandchildren will have to be outdoors, with social distancing and masks.
This is why people are isolated and lonely. Having to stay away from family and friends has been torture for many. I’m so thankful three of our grandchildren live next door. I haven’t seen Charleana and Misha, my San Diego grandchildren, since Christmas 2019. We FaceTime several times each week so Hank and I can interact with them and keep our relationship active.
Personally, the downside to this pandemic is this isolation I’ve had from Kit and his family. I typically fly to California two or three times a year to be with them. I miss them so much it hurts.
And my grandchildren desperately miss their friends. My two youngest grandchildren are competitive swimmers, a sport that has mostly been canceled because of the pandemic. Tilleigh is a theater major at school and hasn’t been on a stage in more than a year. Even the two little ones in California miss their friends at day care.
I think we’re all lonely. We’re desperate for the social connection we have with our friends and family. Many children, for example, have never met their teachers face-to-face, making it difficult for them to know and understand one another.
We adults, hopefully, have the maturity to comprehend the effect the pandemic has on children. Our daily goal, as crude as it sounds, is to not contract COVID-19 and die. Not only do most of us know someone who has contracted the virus, we know people who’ve died as a result, including, just a few weeks ago, my 75-yearold aunt.
Children whose families experience COVID-19 illnesses and deaths are terrified that it’s going to happen to their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. As adults, we know that it’s certainly possible, even if we take every avenue to be safe.
We’re all faced with surviving the pandemic, but parents, grandparents and teachers are faced with additional challenges — understanding children and their fears, even if they don’t voice them.
Our lives have changed dramatically in the last year. Many parents are working from home while their children are virtually schooling in the next room. The percolating pressure of reaching daily goals for both parent and child can cause stressful situations. Hopefully, going back into the classroom next week will relieve this stress for parents, teachers and children.
My youngest daughter, Karah, teaches grades 9-12 at McCallie School. Though she is now back in the classroom, she taught virtually during the early quarantine and a couple days after the holidays. It was sometimes a challenge, she said. She explained to me how virtual classrooms still provide structure so that children and parents are not completely on their own. But people definitely feel the loss in human connection, she said, and the “sense of awe” students experience with hands-on learning in her science classroom, where she raises jellyfish.
“Watching videos of a jellyfish is just not as fun as examining and feeding a live jellyfish in a bowl at the lab bench,” she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC. gov) reports that “fear and anxiety about a new disease and what could happen can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children.”
It’s up to adults to make our current situation as stress-free as we can for our children, no matter the struggles we may face. Living through a pandemic with our mental health intact, adults and children, particularly teenagers, could be the biggest challenge we face in our lifetime.
Going back to school next week may be the best thing to happen to parents, teachers and children, though there may be some anxiety among those who’ve been quarantining the longest. We have to remember to be safe by wearing masks, washing our hands and social distancing and, most of all, have compassion and understanding for one another because the bottom line is that we’re still living in a pandemic.