The Superpower of an ADHD Child

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Today I want to talk about some common myths and misconceptions around homeschooling. However, I wanted to address something first. I just saw an article last week about how the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that schools require all students and staff members to wear masks when they return to in-person learning this fall. The reasoning was because many students are not eligible to receive a the covid vaccine due to being under age 12. The FDA is not expected to make a decision on whether young children can be vaccinated until after the school year starts.

Sara Bode, who is the chairperson elect of the AAP Council on School Health Executive Committee stated how it is important to use every tool in their toolbox to keep children and others safe from covid. She said that by requiring masks, it is the most effective strategy to create consistent messages and expectations among students without the added burden of needing to monitor everyone’s vaccination status.

Now, as of today when I am recording this episode, the CDC is expected to announce the recommendation of requiring all students, regardless of vaccination status, to wear masks in grades K-12 for this school year.

I have an opinion about fear, covid, lies and truth and so much more surrounding these statements, but my heart goes out to those who may feel exhausted and just plain over it all. I don’t even send my kids to public school and when I heard the news, I felt my stomach drop thinking about how frustrating that will be for both parents and children wanting to attend in-person this fall. It’s now been well past a year of dealing with the upheaval over covid and I cannot even imagine the sheer emotional trauma so many have endured.

Sure, I get wanting to protect others. I get wanting to protect ourselves. I get needing to do things to stay healthy and free of diseases. The idea of wearing masks, vaccinating, and social distancing makes sense in the general idea of it...well, when it doesn’t include money, power, and control.

But the idea that by requiring everyone to wear a mask is how to create CONSISTENT MESSAGES AND EXPECTACTIONS????? Expectations about what?

Y’all, I just can’t. It gets me all kinds of riled up and it’s not even my kids who would be required to do this!

Except for the fact that stuff roles downhill. It’s a snowball effect we’ve seen before and we will inevitably see it again. So while it won’t change how we homeschool, it will eventually effect our extra activities.

And THAT? That is enough to make my blood boil.

I am not only frustrated and fired up for my OWN kids, but for yours as well! As if childhood and young adulthood was not difficult enough with learning, growing, and hormones, now let’s just keep them in a state of confusion, worry, fear, and teach them to judge their peers based on whether they are forced to wear a mask or not.

Geez-o-pete.

Before I worked in the medical field, I worked at a daycare for over 10 years. This was before I was a parent or even married. I remember that every time we got a new kiddo or teacher, they seemed to go through this phase of getting every single cold, cough, or weird and gross infection. The reason was because when you are around people in a closed environment, and you’ve not been exposed to those diseases before, your body has to figure out how to fight it off. Your immune system has to adjust. It was always so frustrating for those who came in to daycare and got sick the first few months.

Same happens when kids go to school. They are more likely to get sick because of the same situations.

Does that mean we willingly put them in harms way? Of course not. But that is the same for anything else in life. We do what we can to protect them knowing that there’s only so much we can do.

But it doesn’t stop with just physical harm. It includes mental, emotional, and spiritual harm.

So what happens when you get to the point when your child is at a crossroads and you have to decide what is best for them?

That’s the thing, YOU should get to decide, as the parent...the one who has their best interest at heart...the one who saw them come into this world, taught them to eat, walk, brush their teeth, dress themselves, and ride their bike. The one who is with them throughout their lives, even when others come and go.

The decision should be up to YOU as to what is best for them until they are of age to decide. And don’t even get me started on those who think 11-year-olds should get to decide what is best for them and not their parent. Whew.

So now we ask...what do you do...as a parent...when others are ...