As we entered March of 2020, nobody could have imagined how quickly or how drastically the world was about to change. Now looking in the rear view mirror at the first few chapters of this continuing story, we have some sense of disbelief and still we come to grips with just what a pandemic can do. All of these changes bring a seemingly overwhelming list of stressors. Our work schedules, our daily routines, our friendships and families, all altered by what has happened. Frankly speaking, much of what we have gone through has been ugly. Our social climate as a nation, political polarization, and all the rest, only adds to what ails us today. Now, we shall move on to something positive, and no, not the COVID-19 test results.
We are currently building within our children something quite special. We might easily overlook this as adults going through this difficult time. We grown-ups encouraged our children for years, all children, to go out and play with friends, join the sports team and get into the action, be part of the club our afterschool program. Be a Boy Scout or Girl Scout and have some fun out there. We limited screen time and TV time as good parents should. We even explained our rules by citing science and studies that tell us too much screen time is terrible. Young eyes do not develop correctly with extended hours of blue light, right? Hours of screen time can cause headaches, fatigue and perhaps far worse. So we acted accordingly for many years; to our children, it was for their entire lifetime.
Then without warning, we turned the world upside down. We changed all the rules and we encouraged or even required online classes for long hours daily, followed by TV and games on a device because we were all tired of parrot-teaching on their shoulder while they typed away in the Google Classroom and chatted in distance-learning windows. Everything they knew changed. Even upon returning to the in-person format, we continue to ask them not to hug, high-five, or show any physical affection at all. We are now all about staying apart, something that conflicts with the inherent nature of humans, especially young ones.
So, what special thing are we building?
We have been unknowingly setting the stage for a generation of people who will have built into them a level of resiliency and adaptability unlike anything we adults ever knew. Not unlike Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” who went through the Great Depression and world wars and came away with a new perspective, these kids will too. The trauma they have gone through can’t be underestimated nor discounted. It has changed them and continues to change them as we face these challenges together.
I feel they will shock us all as they face every new challenge they meet. Life’s trials and tribulations will likely have no chance to derail this new crop of young people. This experience has left so many of us as adults feeling helpless, depressed, anxious, and some folks have given up. All this while the children smile and push on through. Just imagine how this has changed our young people and then consider that these changes may turn out to be positively positive! Time will tell, and history will someday tell incredible success stories born out of all this. Of that, I am quite positive.
