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It’s reprehensible. I wish the mother (and father?) would advocate for her child and remove him from that situation. It’s child abuse and adults are failing their children. As you point out.
She can’t. As I said, I live in a mixed neighborhood of different incomes. This family does not have the resources to remove their child from public school. They are just regular folks, middle class people, who have to go to work every day themselves. They are not complicit in this. They are unable to escape the system.
I wonder if people realize how dangerous it is to keep their kids safe.
For example, if we insist on keeping our kids safe from the danger of ridicule for their opinions or their parents’ opinions, is it going to serve them well when they’re grown up and have absolutely no experience of standing alone against their peers?
No. That’s the answer. Though I suppose we can move towards only allowing one opinion like Twitter, and that would mean there is no harm?
The county itself is doing this to families. This child has good parents. Unfortunately, if one goes to school here, one must comply to the powers that be. There is no escape from this.
I am sure this is true. We always shout at kids when we should whisper. They have very big imaginations, and they scare easily. We take advantage of this immaturity all the time, but then we deny they are like this when we are overdramatic with them. It is a pet peeve of mine. The years I spent in schools as a volunteer, I came away thinking that rather than scaring kids, most of them needed intense doses of calming reassurance. We have really frightened them.
This is a good post. Thank you.
That was Mr. Rogers strong suit.
My kids know how strongly I feel about this, so last Christmas they took me to the Mr. Rogers movie. I really love Mr. Rogers.
You are exactly right.
What is wrong with the grownups in the world!?!
The media, which is mostly funded by Big Pharma has a vested interest in continuing the scare. The Karens of the world also have an interest in continuing the scare and Karen gets what Karen wants. She has never been more powerful with her mask shaming and calling 911 on gatherings. Karen is a Monster too.
I think that, depending somewhat on the age of the child, the pump has been primed by the drumbeat of global warming/climate change hysteria foisted on them in the vast majority of schools, both public and private. The future is scary and its all your fault.
I agree with this. Having lived in Austin, TX for almost a decade, I’ve met many people who feel that Global Warming = the Apocalypse. Fear drives that entire movement, and climate change is taught in every single public school that I’ve encountered as fact. Here, I’m not talking “climate change is real,” which I’d say one can easily prove. The “fact” that is taught is that “climate change is catastrophic.”
I don’t think it’s nearly this bad. My kids, 11, 8 and 6, do fine with masks and the various restrictions and interruptions to their normal lives. It has not instilled any kind of paralyzing fear in them. I have not heard other parents mention anything like that.
It’s not ideal, but they’re very resilient and can roll with it. They understand it’s temporary, even if long. Previous generations have endured much worse.
I don’t mean to minimize what has happened with the child you mention, nor do I mean to suggest he’s alone in having that reaction. That is something someone should help him with, for sure. My point is that I don’t think that kind of harm is widespread.
It’s always a tough call, but this is why Al Gore is at the top of my Worst Leaders in Human History list. I saw this too.
Words fail me to describe what the Democrats have done to the kids.
I would say if this kind of harm happens for even a small minority of children, then the masks are not worth it based on the science related to spread in schools, precautions that can be taken with older teachers who could wear more robust masks themselves if they are worried, and the real risks, which we know aren’t high, to children.
That said, it is truly good to hear that your kids do not feel this way.
Just to be clear, this kid isn’t running around skittish at every moment. He plays with my dog in the backyard, and he doesn’t wear a mask when he does it.
His true feelings were laid bare by his choice about Halloween though, and the news here is up-playing a “spike” that may have contributed to those feelings.
Fear is what our “betters” are trying to sell us. Masks will be mandatory for the rest of our lives. There is no one able to give us the “all clear” signal. Masks signal the death knell of our country as it was.
If the isolation caused by “social distancing,” masking, and plexiglassing continue, expect suicides, depression, and violent anti-social behavior to become rampant.
Maybe this boy is doing what his parents have inadvertently signaled for him to do and he’s being compliant to their unspoken feelings. Maybe consciously they know covid isn’t a killer of kids, but unconsciously they make their own fears for him known.
Very possible. I do not think his parents are frightened of Covid, but it’s hard to not be a little “off“ about the Covid environment. I mean, I’ll admit that I feel more on edge, and I’m not at all concerned about getting sick. (I’m in great health and fairly young.) Yet I am still more stressed in my daily life. And I’m a grownup.
Then maybe he’s trying to take a little pressure off his parents. Kids are pretty smart.
Public schools should be independent of unions, State governments, even county governments and each other. The changes New Zealand had to make when Great Britain joined the EC leaving New Zealand without their educational subsidies provide guidance for us. They bought off their left by picking a fight with the US over our ship visits, then eliminated the entire educational bureaucracy, turning schools over to teachers and parents, but not teachers unions, or teachers organizations, but teachers, school by school. Parents could pick any school and state money followed them. Schools had to compete. They went from the bottom of Western schools to the top, just below Singapore because both parents and other teachers know which teachers were not up to the task. We do not have to live with the educational bureaucracy and there is no change more important to our future.