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Quick Thought About The Children

Much of the talk, at least on social media, is the children. The poor seniors missing out on their final days with the friends, their sports, their academics, and of course their graduation. This is important in the life of a 17-year-old, but should not be revered in the memories of adults as "the best days of our lives." Those are ahead of them. These are the days of trying to fit in, experiment, and have fun when everyone seems to consumed with their lives or too distracted by their own to notice. It's a time of incredible bullying, severe stress, and the realization life is going to get incredibly complicated, because now, the expectations come from everywhere. High school, in the way it's thought of doing, has taught them nothing that prison wouldn't have. Find the right clique.

What I have been thinking about is the real concern. Education. It's the one commonality we all have, aside from being born from mothers, yet it's the least important topic when it comes to electing our officials. Now we face a situation where our educational practices may change, they may need to.for a child's safety. The problem with these changes will not be experienced so much by the children, but the adults. Teachers are taught how to teach and these days follow somewhat strict guidelines. These guidelines will inevitably change should we got to half-sized classes or staggered schedules. The stress they will be put under will inevitably rub off on, not only the children, but their parents, their parents' employers, and the community as a whole. Politicians are not thinking this through. How can we shrink a classroom from twenty-four down to twelve, then invite every parents into the school to see their child's play or basketball game? How can we have a child come to school three days a week, when his single mother works six? How will we get these kids to school? A bus?

If there is one thing we know, kids adapt. Over the years, they've started to devolve and lose that ability, but the reason is not, nor has it ever been their inability, rather it's ours. Our children, from all I've heard, have handled this faux quarantine much better than the adults in their lives. They've adapted quickly to a new style of learning and while the psychological effects on them and us will be studied for years to come, we're not sure if they've missed a beat. It's clear some of us have. It's also clear, a four-day workweek needs to happen in this country. Parents simply need more time with their children and vice versa. We're raising a generation of detached individuals, who despite our blindness are simply mimicking our behaviors. I just recently heard someone laugh uproariously while someone was talking about something sad. There was a quick apology, and without hesitation, the explanation that the listener was watching a funny video. Kids see this. They want to be like us. They become us. Our anger over participation trophies and child entitlement is merely a mirror of how we act and how we feel. Remember, we're the ones giving them fake awards and excessive gifts. All because we believe it makes us look better as parents, teachers, or coaches.

The kids will adapt quickly. We will not. Sadly, in our entire country's educational system, the success of our future changes to the educational style and daily life of a student will be decided by the child's acceptance and adaptability to our faults. We will make mistakes. We may even fail them. Whatever the case may be, we must be there for them and start doing what adults have been ignoring when it comes to children for years. We must listen to them. In all this talk of what to do, how to change, how to protect, how to function, and how to educate, the government, in its infinite wisdom has spoken to teachers, administrators, scientists, psychologists, and every other specialist in child behaviors and functioning they can find. I'm pretty sure they're missing the number one experts on children in the entire world. Children.

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