A mother and son sat on their front porch steps. He rolled his red Matchbox car across the concrete porch while they counted the days until his first day of kindergarten: seven more days. “Will the corona be gone then?” he asked.
“I wish, but no, it probably won’t be,” the mom replied. This young one clutched his car in both hands, lay on the porch, curled into a ball, still and silent. When I heard this story, I wondered what other children were saying and doing so I asked Facebook friends to share.
A five-year-old girl sat in her mother’s lap and sipped from her drink, but when her mother wrapped her arms to hug, the mother was pushed away. “Moooomaaa! Six feet apart! Remember, the corona?” the girl said.
“This virus is a trouble maker!” said a four-year-old when he was told that because of the COVID-19 his nursery school had closed.
My Grand, age six, told me to not touch a spoon he’d just touched. “Gran, you’ll get the CORONA!”
Another young one used kitchen tongs to hand her mother something and said, “Now you don’t have to worry about corona virus.” Laster she asked, “Is it always gonna’ be like this?” She was assured things would change. This child misses her good friend, but doesn’t want to talk to her on video chat. “It will make me sadder,” she explained. Her older sister, age eight, wanted to buy a litter picker-upper for $1 to protect herself from touching things. Her mom wasn’t sure this purchase was logical, but since it gave her child peace of mind, it was a good investment.
While watching an episode of Peppa, a preschool animated television series, a four-year-old said, “MOM! They’re too close to their friends!” He was assured it was filmed before March.
A nine-year-old kid girl said, “We can’t do anything fun with the COVID going around.”
A little girl was playing with her dolls. She set the table for them and served lunch and told her grandmother the names of each of her babies. Little brother, age four, was drawing with crayons on paper, and he held one finger over his mouth and whispered, “Shhhhh! I’m in a meeting!” His sister and grandmother continued talking. Again, brother whispered, but this time more loudly, “Shhhhh! I’m in a MEETING!” When asked what kind of meeting, he said, “Drawing! Shhhhh.”
The daughter, age 6, of a nurse practitioner reminds her mother to put clean clothes in their garage so after work her mom can change out of her scrubs in the garage and not take the corona in the house.
A four-year old often asks, “Is the sickness gone yet? This is taking ages!”
“Is the quar-um-team over yet?” asked a three-year-old.
. A pre-school age girl prays, “Dear God, please help all the people get well and the virus go away.” Will young children remember this pandemic? Yes. How they remember it is determined by how we adults respond to their words and actions. And by what we say and do when we think they aren’t listening and watching.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Children, COVID19 |
Susan Writes 
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