Parentdemicing: this is not the time for schooling

Parentdemicing   verb

1    :parenting during a pandemic

2    :often includes working from home and schooling children at home, usually through a rapidly created public school, virtual learning system with inefficient platforms. Also, often includes the world telling you to “stay positive” and “take the time” to learn new and exciting things, which are ridiculous propositions when parenting on a good day.  Very often includes feelings of failure, inadequacy and helplessness, exhaustion, sleeplessness, anxiety and distress.  In rare moments, includes feelings of gratitude, followed by guilt for having more resources than others.  When cohabitating, frequently includes loss of libido and dread of seeing partner.  When solo, generally involves intense feelings of touch deprivation and increased frequency in masturbation (aka, taking a long shower).

3    :not the time for schooling

As we parentdemic alone, our physical, emotional and spiritual load to exclusively raise, feed, love and now “formally teach” our children, is increasing in warp time.  Even if it’s for a short time in the relative scheme of things, its an intense time, and a massive social experiment, to which we are all collectively chosen subjects.  The stress is building.  And when that happens, we are all at risk, especially the most vulnerable among us, our children.

Parenting is hard as fuck right now.  Even before parentdemicing, families care for children under massive amounts of stress and with unrealistic expectations of achievement and perfection.  And if your humans are under the age of 8 or 9, there is a constant need for physical care, attention, touch, distraction and entertainment, made exponentially more intense by social distancing.  If they are older, they are pressured to perform academically and now don’t have their usual social outlets.  In my role as a nurse educator, I often talk with parents about the collective mess our culture has created over the past century.  There is an expectation for families to raise children independently, perpetuating the myth of strength through self-reliance (“asking for help is weak”), in life and in parenting.

In the parenting classes I teach, (pre COVID-19) we discuss this massive social experiment that involves families raising children, mostly in isolation, in their own homes, working, sending their children to school and being separated from small groups that help cook, care for, entertain, teach and raise children.  Ok yes, we have play dates, and kids sports and activities and PTA meetings.  But in any of these situations, do we actually really help each other RAISE our children.  No.

For most of human history, families lived together in villages, tribes, and communities.  Our current social structure of living in homes, away from extended families and often not even in neighborhoods to which we feel strong connections, is a grand experiment and is failing most young families (increasing rates of poverty, anxiety among adults and children, middle-age suicide, gun violence etc., etc., etc.).  We are especially failing families who are dealing with poverty, racial or social inequities, mental health, addiction, and recovery or caring for children with greater needs to support their education, mental or physical health.

When I share my grand experiment story with parents, the goal is to normalize the struggle and to validate their experience.  It creates a starting point to explore solutions like finding support and learning how to ask for and receive help, even if we can’t change our social structure overnight. Instead of “just think positive” or “it will be over soon”, or “practice mindfulness and teach your kids” suggestions, which can often cause parents to feel like they are failing or not doing enough, naming the actual situation and what we are experiencing before moving into solution mode or problem-solving directives, can lead to more authentic solutions, greater self-awareness, and access to more sustainable shifts.

There is as a place solving problems, but we have to know what the problem is.  I am seeing the pressure build and the pot boil over.  Let’s open the window, the door, let some light in, state what we see and feel and then let’s explore what is needed.

I realize, that when social distancing began a few weeks ago, and we were thrust into parentdemicing, the initial recommendations (and unrealistic hopes) were that it would be needed for two or maybe three weeks.  We thought, “we can do this.”

Well, here we are, nearing the end of the third week. And now we know, it’s not enough. Another five weeks, at least.  In some states or communities, maybe longer.  For colleges and some high schools – through the end of the semester.

And for those kids who will be going back to brick and mortar school, then what?  Snap our fingers and go back to “normal”?  Um, nope!

So, let’s pause for a moment.  Let’s take a breath and check-in.  What’s working? What’s not?  Is being your child’s teacher or at the minimum “monitoring” their education, while you parent and probably work, and manage new information, and keep yourself safe, and put food on the table, and figure out the bills, the unemployment paperwork, and the personal growth you are achieving (kidding), working?  Who is it working for?  The grand society?  So why? So your kids can be conditioned to live and work in a world that is crumbling before our eyes?  A world that will never be the same? Oh sure, the human race will survive this.  That is for shit sure.  The planet will keep turning.  There will even be very cool things that come from this. I am absolutely sure of that.  But long before COVID-19’s arrival in our species, the world has been changing and the way we have been preparing children to become servants of capitalism through compulsory education is cracking at the foundation.

So, your children completing their math facts or getting in a couple more essays or being online for four or five hours a day while you hold their hand, or feet or brain to the fire, is that what is needed right now? Is the level of stress worth the payout? The outcome? Who is that serving?  What’s the end game here?

What’s the end game here?

And what about kids who don’t have access to computers, laptops, ipads or parents who can hold their feet to the fire, because they are out fighting fires, saving lives, bagging groceries or picking up trash?  How is this eight week plus set up of schooling at home working out for them?  Who keeps moving on and who is left behind?  Once again, our society chooses a plan that favors the privileged and leaves many in the dust.  So even if this IS working for you, is this a fair game plan for all of the children of this country?  At the very best, we have kids and parents who are stressed, and at the worst, we have families who are hungry, with decreased access to services and supports and with an increased risk for negative consequences of stress and isolation, including abuse and neglect.

We have a new plan for social distancing, let’s have a new plan for caring for (not educating) millions of children in the US for the next five weeks (or more).

How about if the rest of the school year is all about mental and emotional health, even spiritual wellbeing?  How about if the entire focus shifts, not to achieving academic goals, some of which may be outdated in two seconds, but to assuring safety, food security, and building resiliency, resourcefulness, and connection to the self, the world, and other humans?  Let’s use what we know about trauma mitigation and the developing human brain to set wellbeing as the end game, the wellbeing of children and families.

How about if the focus shifts to creating and exploring, to feeling, god forbid, to just feeling what is happening right now? WE NEED TO SLOW THE FUCK DOWN to feel.  Let the children feel.  They don’t need to watch the news and get informed, that’s not what I am saying.  But they may need to sleep more.  Do nothing more.  Hug more.  Climb more trees.  Ride bikes.  Dig in the dirt.  Bake.  Play with toys.  Play virtual video games with friends.  Many are getting more time to do this, but the stress of also trying to get shit done every day and even on weekends is eating any stress-reducing activity they can fit in.

We are experiencing global trauma.  Our nervous systems are integrating massive amounts of information, our immune systems are coping with a threat, and our hearts are breaking for people we have never met.  We are grieving, we are worried.  Our physical, emotional and spiritual beings need space, time, breath and love.  Not timelines, to-do lists, assignments, and tests.  And America’s children who are home with limited supports and resources don’t need one more checkmark on their inequity checklist.

Plus, how is this going for teachers?  Especially those who also have kids at home?  Is this a completely unreasonable course we are on? From the eagle eye view, it looks like torture and smells like trauma for so many families.  I’d like to change the course.  While parentdemicing, we need a trauma-informed approach to the national crisis of public education in a pandemic. We need it right now.

For starters, I’ll be writing to my superintendent.

 

Resources:

https://traumaawareschools.org/traumaInSchools

Dr. Dan Siegel Home Page