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8 | AUGUST 20 • 2020 

1942 - 2020

Covering and Connecting 
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 guest column
Protecting Children’s Mental Health
W

e talk about parent-
ing children’
s emo-
tional development 
as though it is stop-motion ani-
mation: manipulate each frame, 
small changes 
each time, and 
the entire reel 
will give the 
illusion of inde-
pendent motion. 
Under stress, we 
are more likely 
to examine each 
frame, make adjustments and 
control the storylines.
But here’
s what’
s true if we 
step back. Disaster teaches us 
that we are animators whose 
characters have leapt from 
our pages. They live in worlds 
more like Coco than Steamboat 
Willie — worlds filled with color 
and dimension and characters 
beyond our reach who will 
share their own truths. They 
will have their hearts broken, 
and they will break other peo-
ple’
s hearts.
Still, we search for the “right” 
way to parent. We know a sin-

gle pen stroke can make a child 
different from the next and the 
world through which they walk 
will change them, too. But we 
try to do what’
s “right.
”
Each day, I hear someone ask: 
“How will we protect children’
s 
mental health?” This has been 
an issue long before the weight 
of this pandemic settled in. 
People are stressed, lonely and 
isolated, and that was before we 
had to stay 6 feet apart.
Perhaps the pandemic has 
opened this conversation up 
in earnest. So many more 
Americans than ever before feel 
the weight of how policies and 
related practices impact mental 
health in children. 
What’
s certain is that, as a 
collective society, we know this: 
Healthy relationships matter 
most. We may finally realize 
just how much children need 
connection with us, and with 
the wider world, to thrive. They 
need this connection not only 
to fill their time but, indeed, 
they need it in order to be 
whole. We are forced to reimag-

ine connection and, in doing so, 
we may unlock the secrets to 
resilience and mental wellness.

ALTERNATIVE TO 
THE CLASSROOM
Connection will not be guar-
anteed in classrooms in the 
fall, where students sit behind 
plexiglass and teachers attempt 
the stop-motion version of nor-
malcy in an abnormal world. 
Nor is connection guaranteed 
behind tablets at kitchen tables 
with uncertain internet. 
In both these scenarios, the 
social rules have changed, and 
the kinds of interactions that 
matter most for the full-color 
version of children’
s develop-
mental trajectories have been 
changed as well. 
Learning pods engineered by 
parents are moving in the direc-
tion of change. What is a learn-
ing pod? In some cases, families 
are banding together to share 
childcare and pitch in on tutors 
while staying connected to their 
regular schools through remote 
learning plans. Other families 

are seeking more flexibility and 
accessing homeschool curricu-
la, hiring teachers to administer 
lessons to small groups of kids.
These plans for pods resolve 
some problems by offering safe, 
face-to-face interaction between 
children and adults, and they 
supplement childcare in many 
cases, a huge source of stress 
for families. However, they 
may exacerbate other prob-
lems at the community level, 
including increasing social and 
educational disparities based on 
resources. 
Learning pods may also 
reduce variability in children’
s 
peer exposure, an important 
element of the school environ-
ment and one that is important 
to optimal social and emotional 
development. Institutions can 
and should work with families 
to help emphasize broader 
inclusion and supplement 
learning pods with support. 
Children who receive special 
education and learning support 
at school are particularly left 
out of our current conversa-

Erika 
Bocknek

continued on page 10

