Parents, It Is Time……

I get the question almost everyday.  What will school look like this fall?  As a teacher, many of my neighbors and friends think I have some inside track on the plans of not only the district where I work but the schools all around us.  Apparently there are some super secret, back-room meetings teachers can enter if they knock twice and use the right password when the principal opens the little eye sized slat in the door to check the legitimacy of the knocker.  Also this would indicate that teachers operate under a system very similar to the rum runners and speak-easies of times long since forgotten.

The God’s honest truth is, if that teacher meeting speak-easy exists, I have not been admitted to the super secret club.  I have no idea what the fall will look like.  What you know in that regard, is what I know.  Unfortunately, that means we don’t know much of anything.  Sure, pediatricians across the country are encouraging schools to open.  So are many elected officials, so are many parents.  Of course, there are many people who are fearful about the prospect of schools opening.  Yes friends, we are in a tough spot right now.

What I do know for sure is that there will be school.  In one form or another, kids will be “attending”.  That could mean in person, that could mean online, it could mean both.  What I also know, both as a teacher AND as a parent is this, parents have a very important responsibility to perform before school opens.  It is time to lovingly remind our youngsters that society works on a number of standards and niceties. In short, WE MUST RE-SOCIALIZE OUR CHILDREN!  Everywhere I look (mostly my own dining room and neighborhood), there are signs that our children are going feral.  Don’t misunderstand, I don’t think we are quite at Lord of the Flies level, but if left unchecked, the beginning of the school year, wherever that may be, could be really rough one.

I don’t say this lightly.  I have months of extraordinarily scientific and longitudinal studies of purely anecdotal evidence compiled by myself, colleagues, and friends.  This compilation was completed and totally peer reviewed by other colleagues and friends, who upon looking at our evidence said, “Spot on”.  If that isn’t a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

What is my evidence you ask?  As any good researcher, I present my own children first.  I have two daughters.  For example, we don’t have a lot of rules in the house about where they can eat.  Frequently snacks end up in their bedrooms.  In the past, (pre-rona), the dishes would end up on the night stand next to the bed and would make their way back down within a few hours to get loaded in the dishwasher.  That is not standard operating procedure during corona-cation.  Frequently, we will find our subjects in the kitchen at midnight, digging out the now rationed chicken nuggets and popping them in the microwave.  While they wait, they perform the latest Tik Tok dance because after all, midnight is now the time when they are most able to perform.  The timer goes off.  The girls get their nuggets out of the oven, my husband and I get up and begin preparing for work, unaware that it was the microwave and not the alarm clock.  We pass on the stairwell, them walking up to their rooms, mouths filled, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind that will remain on the carpet until I break down and get out the vacuum sometime next week; us, heading downstairs to make the morning coffee.  When realization dawns, we are frustrated about being out of bed.  Our girls are simply confused about the whole situation as their teenage brains have not developed the ability to comprehend the fact that old people tend to sleep at midnight and that noise will wake us up.  So, off we all go, back to our own bedrooms.

It is now morning. Technically this is true but since it is almost noon, one could make the mistake of thinking it much later in the day.  Our subjects are just beginning to stir.  They stumble down the steps with chicken nugget breading embedded in their gorgeous faces because they fell asleep on the plate while watching, you guessed it, Tik Tok. My old person brain is now more fully functional and is able to attend to their actual conversation.  Much like a linguistic anthropologist (I promise, this is totally a thing…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_anthropology ), I am now able to study the teenage girl in the wild and observe in real time the development of a new language.  I call it, “Meme-ish”.  You see pre-rona, my daughters spoke English, studied Spanish in school and had a vague familiarity with Polish.  Over corona-cation, “Meme-ish” developed with a mighty speed not unlike that of the changes brought about by the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution.  They are communicating in the kitchen entirely through memes.  This new language is fully understood only by them and the few teenagers in their Snapchat circles.  

This phenomenon is not specific to teenage girls.  There are multiple stories of young children who are fluent in PJ Masks but no longer conversant in English and teenage boys who speak entirely in video games. Parents and care givers are stumped when the youngsters are forced to the dinner table and they begin to relate stories of their days.  The look of confusion on the faces of the parents and care givers is entirely lost on the youngsters as they are not used to any form of communication which is not in the form of a “thumbs up” button.

The hours our teens keep are not unusual either.  Parents across this great land of ours are regularly awakened by microwave alarm clocks or kids playing Assassins Creed at 3:00 AM with their “friend Kenneth”.  The following scenario has occurred more than once.

Parent: “It is almost 11:00 PM, finish your game and head up to bed.”

Child: “OK, I will be up soon.”  Parent heads off to bed, trusting Child will do exactly what Child said he would do.  Parent settles in, drifts off to sleep and begins to dream.  The dream begins innocently enough, Parent is walking down a city street, enjoying the day.  Then, yelling can be heard from a distance.  It grows louder and more desperate.  Parent dreams that Child is yelling, in danger.  The dream turns into terror as Parent desperately looks for Child in Dream City.  Child is nowhere to be found.  Explosions are heard, gunfire in the distance, voices are louder now, more threatening.  Heart thumping, head pounding, stomach sick from fear, Parent wakes.  

From the basement, Child can be heard yelling, “Work in the dark to serve the light!”  Parent, now fully aware, and fully irate at the fact that,

1. Child woke Parent and

2. it is now 4:00 AM.

Parent, who is entirely rational at this point storms down stairs, yells something unintelligible to Child, marches to the game, rips the plug out of the wall, and stares at Child.  Child, dumbstruck, is completely confused by the actions of Parent and stares back.  

Child speaks first, “What did you do that for?”  Thankfully, Parent is now fully present and absolutely in control of their actions so Child is in no real danger of witnessing what scientists refer to as “a fit”.  Child heads off to bed grumbling about “parents who don’t understand” and “I never get to do anything in this prison….”

The previous episode leads us to our last piece of totally scientific and completely anecdotal evidence. I present to you the development of “attitude”.  In very young children this manifests as more tantrums and foot stomping.  Presumably this is due to frustration at the fact that they are not going out into the world as much and are unable to explore and develop emotionally and socially.  They have had fewer interactions with friends who are not PJ Masks than normal.  In the pre-teen and teenage youth, “attitude” has been able to develop unchecked by the normal limiting factors of summer leagues, camps, and jobs.  In these children the unchecked “attitude” will present itself with the following symptoms: heavy sighing, slamming, pouting, eye rolling loud enough to be heard next door, simple irrationality, and a general, palpable disdain for all things parental.

Should these symptoms appear, now is not the time to contact your healthcare professional. It is also not the time to blame your spouse because they are busy looking busy. Besides, blame probably won’t help right now. Trust me when I tell you, I know from experience you are doing your level best to keep your child on the straight and narrow to guide them through this unprecedented and unusual and historic and unique and challenging time.  I also know you are probably ready to pull out every single ridiculous threat your parents ever threw at you in order to find some semblance of normalcy and balance in your homes.  I submit that now is not the time to pull out, “Because I said so”, unless you are dealing with simple irrationality.  In that case, that really is your only weapon.

No, truly now is the time to take a deep breath and remind yourself how much you love your child.  Remind yourself that no one on earth can love them like you do.  Then, dig down deep and start the process.  Every kid will be returning to school in some form.  That means a re-entry into society in some form.  Kids need to relearn that the world really does work on a schedule, and that schedule does not begin when they feel like getting out of bed.  Kids need to relearn that sleeping with a plate full of chicken nuggets is not generally best practices.  Kids need to relearn to use standard English because I promise you, most teachers don’t speak Meme-ish or Assassins Creed or PJ Masks. Those languages would be frowned upon during day to day communication, not to mention formal essays. 

Finally, you must confront the “attitude”.  It is a dread beast indeed, but it must be vanquished like the dragons of yore.  When the beast rears its ugly head, you must not cower.  You must not run in fear.  No, you must put on your armor, weaponize yourself with the willingness to confiscate phones and shut down internet access, or, where appropriate send the dragon to time out to think about what it has done.  Do not fall to the temptation to negotiate.  Do not fall to the intimidation tactics of slamming, foot stomping and eye rolling.  That is a rookie mistake.  You are not rookies.  You have been around the socialization mountain before.  You did it once, you can do it again.  We teachers are counting on you!