How to Prepare Your Child for Safe from Corona Virus?

For the folks that are going to send their kids back to school and have that opportunity, talk to us as parents. You know, I've got three little ones at home going into elementary school. Having them wear a mask is a big deal just when we try to go to the grocery store, let alone all day in a classroom. Talk to us as parents about what we need to do to prepare our kids to be as healthy as they possibly can in an in-classroom environment.

I think the first thing is just acknowledging that in-person learning will come with a higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 than virtual learning. The nature of this virus is that it's passed person to person. So, being with other people in any setting, including schools, does increase one's risk. That being said, we know that there are measures that can keep people safe when they're around others. But I do want to highlight that children are malleable.

I've got young kids too. And I'm hopeful that social distancing will just become part of their normal routine, and same with masks, just as much as walking down lines in the hall and wearing backpacks have become for many students in school. But, given these challenges, what can you do as a parent? I'd recommend that you teach your children the best practices now and continue to practice them in the house and in the community to get ready for school.

This includes wearing masks whenever you leave the house, keeping a distance when you're in public and talking about it and practising it, and then washing hands regularly, and learning to wash hands well. All of these actions now can help them become habits before they go back to school. I want to bring up one other topic, which is a concern that I've heard from many people. And they ask about what's the risk of a child bringing COVID-19 home? There's been some recent research on this, and the early research showed that most COVID-19 spread is from adult to child, but there is a risk that a child could get infected and bring the virus home, potentially infecting a household member.

We're still learning a lot about the virus. And it's important to remember that regardless of age, anyone can carry and contract the virus. And while data shows that while children generally get a milder form of the disease, a more serious form of the disease can occur in adolescents. And so, this is important to think about that by having your child be at school or really any of us out in public, the virus is with us and we're all bearing these risks.

Specifically talking about the kids and having them execute these safety protocols, do you have any advice on how we can talk to our kids about making sure that they're staying safe while they're in the classroom? Yeah. Since wearing masks is mandatory in many parts of the country for children over a certain age, some of them have already gotten used to it.

But one thing that has worked for many kids is allowing your child as much choice as possible over what kind of masks they wear. So, have them get involved in choosing which mask to buy, the colour, the design if possible. Try to purchase a selection of them. And then, think about developmentally appropriate language when speaking to your kids about masks and these complex topics that COVID-19 brings up. For younger children, it might be helpful to say something like, "There are lots of germs right now, and there are people who are working really hard to clean them up and make them go away.

But we have to help ourselves by wearing masks to keep ourselves healthy.” Are there really any benefits, health benefits to having a hybrid learning approach? Or, is it really just the same as being in-person, the risks are the same? Yeah. In the hybrid model, the time in the school building in contact with the other students is less than a full-time in-person model. And so with that, you do have less risk.

However, children still face the same concerns and they, just by nature of being around other people, there will be some risk. And so, in a hybrid model, you still need to uphold the same mitigation tactics and you still need to do social distancing, mask compliance, hand hygiene, to reduce the risk of getting COVID-19 and bringing it home. So, I do think that one of the benefits of this hybrid model is fewer children allowed in the school building every day. This allows there just to be extra space, to make social distancing easier. And, reducing the number of close contacts between students and teachers and students and students.

Regards

TMS