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“Are you a Pirate?”
Back in the days when you could bemoan standing in a long line at Starbucks, we overheard a young boy ask of the customer behind his mother “Are you a pirate?” to which the customer answered “I once was, but not anymore.” To be fair, the man did look somewhat like a pirate.
The boy had a sense of that, probably not from a trailing scent of sea salt or whiskey, but a sense, an inkling of the truth.
This young boy likely was a bit anxious about the answer, as pirates can be scary, but brave enough to seek the truth regardless. Now our kids are asking “When will this be over?” , “When does baseball start?” and “When can I see grandma?”
Now that we can no longer stand in long lines to be entertained we find our thoughts turning to how society is processing the new normal. With our mission being to “Do What is Best for Kids” we find ourselves talking about how all of this is going for kids in general. How are they processing all of their anxiety? How are they processing the anxiety of others? How are they replacing sport or gym time? What effects will this have in the long term?
Undoubtedly, much will be written over the next few years on this topic.
In the meantime, we can provide a sense of normalcy where we can. We can be creative and think out of the box about how to still celebrate a birthday or graduation, tailgate version. We can keep some family traditions and start new ones. We can fill time formerly spent on the practice field or at the gym with friends in new and novel ways, things like family games and challenges, online classes and competitions, group zooms with teammates. We can reach out to help someone in need. Keeping our mental health intact and supporting our kids mental health also means we must keep them moving, playing and interacting socially (within personal distance guidelines of course.) We can promote hope.
Lastly, We can do our best to ensure that we don’t hide the truth about new or temporary realities, that we discuss how things are new and different openly, at their unique emotional level.
We can take a deep breath and make sure that we listen with a compassionate heart and share only truth, as they will know truth as surely as that young boy at Starbucks knew that he was in the presence of a real life former pirate.
As gym are now open again, our youth/kids classes are going full swing. Zoom school is very hard let us help!