I hesitate to advise other parents what to do because as a mom of 3, I am winging it just like everyone else.
However, I keep seeing a totally understandable yet problematic thing that parents keep saying socially that has to be seeping to their kids, even if they aren't directly saying it to their kids' faces.
Things like...
"I hate this for you that school won't be..."
"I wish you could have your regular...."
"Maybe you'll be able to have your prom, graduation, whatever like normal..."
(Some parents have even held "small" proms that the local newspaper published pictures of, which just looks like a petri dish of COVID and helps ensure that we won't be able to go back to normal because they keep trying to make life normal now.)
Again, I get it.
As much as I complained about substitute teaching, I would give up my foot to make COVID disappear and go back to life pre-COVID.
I would take an unruly class over this uncertainty and fumbling about trying to create a "new world."
I don't relish the idea of doing virtual learning for my kids.
COVID has cost me income (of my 4 part-time jobs, I am currently doing 1, and I'm thankful as hell for it.)
COVID has impacted my mental health.
And I'm freaking privileged and can put food on the table and pay my mortgage because D still has his job.
But pining for the way things used to be right now is an effort in futility.
Wishing things could go back is not helping your kids adapt.
Promising to give them pre-COVID experiences to assuage their loss (and YOUR loss) is not helping either of you.
As Elsa says, LET IT FUCKING GO.
(Ok, that is the non-Disney version of Elsa.)
I only play a therapist on tv, but what I have been trying to tell myself is that we will adapt.
We'll adjust to whatever.
School may look different, but my kids will get used to it.
We will find that there are benefits to the new way of doing things that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to discover had we not gone through what is unarguably a suck-ass experience.
My hope is that my forcing myself to let whatever "normal" was and looked like go is going to help both me and my kids move forward.
Because wallowing in what was and what we'd like to be is pointless.
However, I keep seeing a totally understandable yet problematic thing that parents keep saying socially that has to be seeping to their kids, even if they aren't directly saying it to their kids' faces.
Things like...
"I hate this for you that school won't be..."
"I wish you could have your regular...."
"Maybe you'll be able to have your prom, graduation, whatever like normal..."
(Some parents have even held "small" proms that the local newspaper published pictures of, which just looks like a petri dish of COVID and helps ensure that we won't be able to go back to normal because they keep trying to make life normal now.)
Again, I get it.
As much as I complained about substitute teaching, I would give up my foot to make COVID disappear and go back to life pre-COVID.
I would take an unruly class over this uncertainty and fumbling about trying to create a "new world."
I don't relish the idea of doing virtual learning for my kids.
COVID has cost me income (of my 4 part-time jobs, I am currently doing 1, and I'm thankful as hell for it.)
COVID has impacted my mental health.
And I'm freaking privileged and can put food on the table and pay my mortgage because D still has his job.
But pining for the way things used to be right now is an effort in futility.
Wishing things could go back is not helping your kids adapt.
Promising to give them pre-COVID experiences to assuage their loss (and YOUR loss) is not helping either of you.
As Elsa says, LET IT FUCKING GO.
(Ok, that is the non-Disney version of Elsa.)
I only play a therapist on tv, but what I have been trying to tell myself is that we will adapt.
We'll adjust to whatever.
School may look different, but my kids will get used to it.
We will find that there are benefits to the new way of doing things that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to discover had we not gone through what is unarguably a suck-ass experience.
My hope is that my forcing myself to let whatever "normal" was and looked like go is going to help both me and my kids move forward.
Because wallowing in what was and what we'd like to be is pointless.
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