Education Next: The Stress of This Moment Might Be Hurting Kids’ Development
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pamela Cantor, M.D. offers a framework for educators and parents to manage and surmount stress, the 3 R's, relationships, routines, and resilience.
One of the challenges we face in 2020 is what Pamela Cantor, M.D. calls “the Covid-19 paradox.” In order to be safe and keep others safe from the virus, we must be physically distant. But that means disrupting the communities and relationships in our lives—classrooms, teachers, teams, coaches, churches, friends, extended families—that are the very connections we need to feel safe, to cope with stress, and to surmount this crisis. On top of this, there is a crisis of trust, particularly for young people of color, because of what they are witnessing: Officers who should protect them, but don’t, won’t, or can’t.
Knowing this, what can educators do today? What can parents who are helping to educate their children away from school do? We can make the world in our homes and eventually our schools places that inoculate us against the intolerable stress of the scary, uncertain world we now live in. How? By focusing on the Three Rs: relationships, routines, and resilience.
Read the article here.
