COVID-19, School and Resilient Kids

My idea for a column was dashed. I expected kids to respond like adults to the COVID-19 pandemic. I thought they would be cowering in the corner of their closets crying or that they would be paying video games nonstop, sullen and boorish to their parents.

I talked to some older middle-class kids, and apparently they’re more resilient than I ever dreamed possible. They’ve made lemons into lemonade, and actually doing better at adjusting than older folks. 

Zen, 13, from Wynwood, said the greatest challenge for her was that she missed seeing her friends at school. She wears a mask always to protect others. At the beginning of the quarantine she played board games with her family and was able to bond with them like never before, because everyone had been so busy. She was disappointed her neighborhood parks were closed, Manatee Bend and Legions. It kept her indoors more than she would have liked. School did not motivate her. She found it a struggle having teachers online “talking at you instead of with you.” Even though she is not happy with online school she has chosen it because it’s safer. 

Zen has found new hobbies and has learned to braid her own hair. She admitted that the relationship with her older sister Phoenix has been rocky. She has been reflecting more than she ever did about life.

Phoenix, 17, was graduating from high school when the virus hit. She missed her prom and graduation ceremony. It devastated her but she quickly moved on. She started working on her just-released album, “Aw(ful)some.” One song she wrote was about the pandemic. She called it “Four Walls One Me.”

Phoenix has really been turned upside down. College had been a given but now she won’t be going. She said many of her friends are also reassessing their decisions. The friends in college are sorry they are paying big bucks to go to class online. Phoenix is starting an internship at an audio sessions studio in North Miami instead.

She is hopeful for the future. I asked her about the dominance of Black Lives Matter during the pandemic. She said for her it began with Trayvon Martin. Phoenix became a member of the Sunrise Movement chat group and has learned a lot to change her perspective on global warming.  

It is her opinion that the school system will never recover and return to what it once was. And the hugs she once shared have turned into fist bumps and bowing. 

Then we have Julian, 16, who is happy to get out of school. School was too unorganized for his taste. He feels Zoom school is more efficient. It has given him time to pursue a new hobby: dabbling in the stock market. He has also started a shoe and sneaker business on Instagram. He is reselling shoes he bought that he thinks will get popular and it appears he has a knack for it. Julian hopes to go to college on a scholarship, but I would guess he might be making too much money to get one. 

Little Bella, 10, said her friends are saying they don’t care about COVID. She tells them: “You should.” Only half the people around Miami Shores are wearing masks she told me. She misses her dance classes the most, and her Grandma, who has cancer.

Twins Kathy and Sandy went to school with happy faces when it reopened. I saw the photo on Facebook. Cheeks pink, ginger hair flowing, clothes impeccable and smiles spread across their faces. They came home crying and never went back. School was not the way it once was because they were separated from their friends.

So in my unscientific opinion, kids are doing pretty good, better than most adults. They’re finding the pandemic to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand they miss their friends and school as they knew it. On the other it’s given them an opportunity to bond with family like they never had. It’s given them time to pursue hobbies and dabble in business ideas. Will college life ever be the same? It was once the place you broke the bond with parents to become more independent and make adult decisions, find a team to follow for life and maybe find a life-mate. Is that a thing of the past? Will college ever be a stage of life many kids travel through? Always the pessimist, I say it will never be what it once was. The kids used the word resilient for themselves more than once. I am rock solid against change of any sort so I give them a lot of credit.