“This is the new normal.”
I have heard this phrase so many times in recent days, that I find it oddly satisfying when during general conversations, I don’t.
Under the “new normal”, I have found it, at times, challenging to cope – as I’m pretty sure most people have too.
Schools have closed and opened and closed and opened with persistent and annoying repetition.
It has been an emotional roller coaster for parents, (and teachers I’m sure!) especially when learners or teachers test positive for Covid-19 and schools have to be closed again.
As a parent myself, you experience an alarming array of distressing thoughts.
You begin asking yourself whether you are exposing your child to an invisible killer, whether his/her immune system – that have been untested and unscathed over the lockdown period, is as strong as it should be, whether your child will get infected and then perhaps infect you too and so forth.
But, most working parents are in agreement and understand that we cannot keep our children hidden until the virus has disappeared or a vaccine has been developed because we cannot begin to fathom when that will be.
So, for the unforeseeable future, we will just have to work through these daunting thoughts as best we can.
Keeping your child at home will merely delay his/her social development and general development.
The benefits of proper stimulation or home-schooling, according to the school’s prescribed curriculum, can’t be underestimated.
We have to make peace with the fact that we can only do so much to prepare our children and to a large extent, ourselves, for the imminent surge that is expected.
This might leave you feeling hopeless and afraid, but rest assured, this too shall pass.
Many parents may feel that what is expected of them, seems impossible.
This might leave you feeling hopeless and afraid, but rest assured, this too shall pass.
Many parents may feel that what is expected of them, seems impossible.
I for one, have a good inkling of the impossible when trying to get my two-year-old son accustomed to wearing a mask and keeping it on!
To most people, at a certain point in history, Mount Everest seemed to be an impossible feat too, but once the summit was reached, the impossible became the possible.
Hopefully you will perceive the challenges you currently face in the same light.
Under this ‘new normal’, you may find comfort in knowing that you are not alone on the mountain, we are in this together.
