Stay At Home Orders and Remote Learning

We have been living the pandemic life for over a year now. When we look back to a life where we weren't restricted in our traveling, shopping, or work routines, do we remember it fondly? I, honestly, can barely remember a life before COVID! Was one of the COVID symptoms memory loss? Why is it that the last year has felt like 10? I guess when we are told by our government that we can't leave our homes, life can sometimes feel like a prison sentence. It was bearable last year, when the kids were in school and we had time to work on adult things. House cleaning, budgets, and exercise. Oh, how I miss exercise...I see neighbors jogging down the street on a daily basis, and I think, Why can't that be me? Well, maybe because I am now bogged down by house cleaning, budgeting, and working, all while my kid is constantly pestering me at home! Perhaps that is why I can only dream of an hour when I could just run out of the house and just keep on running like Forrest Gump!

Let's talk about how long the kids have been home. It all started in March 2020. Not only were we told to stay put for March break, suddenly all the play places closed and we we couldn't even enter McDonalds to keep the kids occupied. It seemed that everyone was on board for no more play dates either. But, the kids are home for the whole week! Now, the next announcement comes in that the kids won't be returning to school until April and that remote learning will begin. What is that?? I never signed up to teach my kid at home! If I knew I would be teaching my kid when he was 5-years old, I would have chosen a completely different career path...

Not only did they get rolling with online learning within a few weeks, they kept extending it without telling us, having full knowledge that the kids would not be finishing the school year at school. I was doing arts and crafts wth my kid on a daily basis. Don't even get me started on teaching him how to pronounce words and sounds in French! Where was this written in the parenting contract?? It was very frustrating for every parent, I am sure. But, what did this do to the kids? We are left explaining that the school is closed because of COVID. They can't see their friends because of COVID. The playground is closed because of COVID. No wonder they act like COVID is the monster under their bed now!

How will we move past this? How many of our kids will need therapy to recover from the effects of this pandemic? It has shattered a huge part of their childhood. Sure, kids are resilient. But, they do not forget. They will not brush off the past year as just something that happened in their life. They will not distract themselves with house cleaning, budgeting, or working because that is what adults do. They will constantly be on the lookout for the next pandemic and anytime someone gets sick or dies, they will wonder if it was the COVID that got them.

Well, that's all there is to say about that (in Forrest Gump's voice). The kids are suffering, the parents are suffering, and the teachers are suffering. With cases so low in schools, it does make me wonder that all these "fly by the seat of your pants" decisions made by our government are random and unnecessary. We will never have the herd immunity that the US does but we trust our citizens to stay home when we are told to stay home and limit travel when we are told that interprovince travel will only spread the variants further. In the end, it is always the children who suffer. We are old enough to have learned about the horrors of the world: genocide, mass murders, H1N1, SARS, terrorism, and pointless wars. However, the innocence of the kids will never be recovered after this. Remember that, the next time you are being threatened with a pencil to your butt when you are making your kid do math or write a paragraph.