Listen to our kids on the pandemic
A column about how children are doing during this pandemic should begin with the words of a child.
“I need help,” Brooklyn wrote in 2020 to Highlights, the magazine for kids that has been listening and responding to children for 75 years.
Dear highlights,
I am 9 and I live in Chattanooga, TN. I need your advice. Covid-19 virus
Is hard because nobody in My neighborhood seems to care. Nobody understands social distancing. My best freinds don’t even care. I need help. What do I do? – Brooklyn, age 9
Staff members brainstormed the answer, a common practice when they spot trending concerns. Often, for the most serious issues – suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, bullying – they consult a team of experts. Always, they want the child who writes to feel seen and heard. Editor-in-chief Christine French Cully wrote the response to Brooklyn.
Talk to your parents, she encouraged Brooklyn: “It’s important to realize that you can’t control what other people do, but you can control what you do. If your neighbors and best friends want to play, explain that you can’t do that right now, but you’ll be happy to play with them again once the restrictions have been lifted…if your best friends and neighbors argue with you, you can simply say, ‘I just want all of us to stay healthy,’ and then go inside.”
This exchange is included in Cully’s new book, “Dear Highlights: What Adults Can Learn from 75 Years of Letters and Conversations with Kids.” A chapter is dedicated to children’s letters during the pandemic.
…I know you probably have better things to do but I wasn’t sure who to talk to. I don’t want my parents to have to stress over me with all the other things on their minds. Same goes for my friends. So I decided to ask you since you always give me great advice. How can I cheer myself up?thank you for your time.
– Lydia, age 12
Every child’s letter to Highlights gets a written answer, in the format they used. Email has steadily increased over the years, but Highlights f has seen an uptick in postal deliveries during the pandemic. Children send poems and drawings, too.
“It takes a lot of courage to write a stranger," Cully said. “They write, and they expect an answer.”
Hillary Bates, who is Highlight’s director of purpose and impact, is one of 11 staff members answering children’s letters. I shared with her my outrage over parents who aren’t setting the best examples in the time of COVID-19. Just last week I had written about this.
Politely, Bates urged me to lift my gaze. Children learn from everyone who matters to them, and that orbit is bigger than we might imagine: parents, teachers, friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles. “I want every child to learn by positive example,” Bates said, “but I have plenty of hope for children who aren’t always getting that at home.”
Coronavirus always something to do
Even know if the whole world is shut down and being home is boring, there is always something to do read a book, do the dishes and if you live on a farm milk cows or feed calfs. (I do)
– Corbin, age 9
Just how influential can we be in a child’s life? In 2010, Highlights asked children to name whom they most admired and aspired to become. Seventy percent of the responses identified parents, grandparents and teachers. Celebrities didn’t make up even
5%.
“The world has changed a lot in the last couple of generations,” Bates said. “Children have not changed much. That should be reassuring.”
That doesn’t make us automatic experts. “We think we remember what it was like to be a child, but our memories are blurry,” Cully said. “Kids do so much heavy lifting in childhood. For a child, a problem that we might think is small is enlarged in the moment. They are watching how we behave. We call those the lessons that are caught, not taught.”
Listen to anything kids want to talk about, she said. Lean in and listen. Don’t interrupt. Avoid the magical thinking that leads us to believe we can, or should, solve every problem in our children’s lives. (Raising my hand, with regret.)
“They don’t need us to fix the uncertainty of the world,” Bates said. “We can help them figure out how they’re going to face that uncertainty. We can teach them to approach big problems with curiosity and confidence.”
They are our future, Cully said: “FDR said, ‘A smooth sea never made a skilled pilot.’ Help them build resilience. Help them become humans who can make the world a better place.”
Let us end as we began, heeding the words of a child:
Nothing Lasts Forever
You might think School will never reopen
And you might just sit around mopeing
But I know better Nothing lasts forever!
The poet’s name is Eliza, age 9.
Believe her.
USA TODAY columnist Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winner whose novel, “The Daughters of Erietown,” is a New York Times bestseller. You can reach her at Cschultz@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @Connieschultz