ANOTHER VIEW: Suffer the children

By Fred Palm, contributing editor  |  The good news of three highly effective vaccines gives realistic foundation to the hope that the COVID-19 infection growth curve can be bent in 2021. More vaccines are in the pipeline. All need careful medical follow-up.

The ongoing raging COVID-19 community transmission that is expanding, like this year’s wildfires and tropical storms, will continue to impact children beyond this season. It is not over yet for them. Nor will it end for them.

Children’s lives, like the lives of adults, are being damaged in many ways. But children have much less experience to return to. Adults have memory and lived perspectives.

Research on natural disasters makes it clear that, compared to adults, children are more vulnerable to the emotional impact of traumatic events that disrupt their daily lives.

Children, parents are hurting

Children are hurting educationally, mentally and physically. So are their parents.

We know that for children, the experiential coins, incorrectly placed, will reveal themselves later as a bent stack. Understanding of COVID-19’s displaced childhood developmental needs are well-documented in research literature. We need not overlook and hinder children, as we adults return to the place we call normal.

We adults debate the masking in schools while South Carolina is mired in a let-100-flowers-bloom approach to protecting children and staff. Teaching methods, assignments of teachers to instructional methods, Internet availability, multiple interacting disparate impacts, if and how to grade students who did not learn the needed lessons this year take our time. 

• What should we do with the rapid COVID-19 test kits dumped on the schools by our governor this week that is far less than what will be required awaits an answer. 
• And what should we do with kids who answer “yes” to the screening question, “At any time during the Thanksgiving/Christmas recess did you and your family spend time indoors with people outside of your household?”

Plan in winter, spring for summer experiences

We should plan the traditional June to August 2021 summer break period as our most important first opportunity to attend to the many wounds of the COVID-19 for adults and children. We need to lay the foundation this winter and spring for the design of ameliorating experiences that are most urgent for the children to learn in what needs to be an unusual summer unbreak.

Age-appropriate educational-emotional rebirth-growth experiences are a most important step to more the new beneficial normal for our children. Done well, this can be the initial injection of the needed restorative vaccine for the mental hurt, pain, injury and suffering of our children, as the emerging vaccines are for the health and well-being of their bodies.

Rally behind our children

Our governor is proud that he and the legislature directed close to $1 billion of federal CARES COVID-19 funding to shore up the state unemployment fund so that South Carolina businesses do not pay out additional premiums. South Carolina businesses were not hindered by this particular COVID-19 economic hit on their wallets.

We need to do the same for South Carolina’s children. Anticipate the impacts and provide funds for their nurturing as well as we do for our business’ interests.

Our governor is missing in action for our children even if he proudly wears his emergency black shirt signifying that he is in charge. This governor wears no clothing. Actually, Gov. Henry McMaster is AWOL in this crisis offering little more than a leadership made up of symbolic gestures lacking form and substance. Business leaders in particular need to rally to the side of this COVID generation. Many will be looking for work.

• More reading:  Resources for supporting children’s emotional well-being during the COVID 19 pandemic, ChildTrends.org.

Fred Palm of Edisto Island is a retired professor of oversight and investigations at the John Jay College School of Public Management and a former executive director of the Association of Inspectors General. He writes about the Common Good.