Consider the source.
I have an 11-year-old, a 7-year-old, and a wife who has dedicated her career to teaching and positively affecting the lives of high school students.
With my full disclosure out of the way, it is high time our country has an awakening.
You see, the past two years haven’t been so great for many, and, socially, our country seems to be stuck in a never-ending fingerpointing fest.
Trauma has come in all forms. Students are being drilled on what to do when an active shooter enters a classroom, knowledge that, sadly, is absolutely relevant. Standardized tests are being forced down kids’ throats in our performance-heavy education model that places unhealthy pressure square on the shoulders of babes.
The kids aren’t alright.
Forever, kids have had to bear the brunt of the messes adults create.
Whenever wars break out, decorated military leaders call in fresh-faced recruits and draftees to shed blood on behalf of their country.
When a child is born, it should signify a partnership between mom and dad to make all decisions in the best interest of that child. As parents, that is our charge, at least until the child is able to spread its wings. But countless children get caught as bystanders in battles between adults who can’t get along, resulting in verbal or physical abuse, separation, or divorce. The child, who did nothing to end up in that position, is swept into trauma.
Children also are pawns in the world of education, which should be exploratory, welcoming, and featuring a healthy mix between objectivity and subjectivity.
However, exploration and discovery take a distant back seat to objective metrics, which attempt to place a square peg in a round hole. Thus, stress is heaped on kids — many quite young — as schools build curriculum around standardized test performance and the rewards that come with “acing the test.” I have heard stories of kids, as early as third grade, becoming physically ill with test anxiety.
Creativity and growth get tossed aside because of broken, adult-centered structure.
Furthermore, whether it’s education, politics, or social issues, us adults love to debate, to fight, to make decisions that are wrought with emotion over reason. “Bleep Donald Trump” gets volleyed against “Let’s Go Brandon” in a sadistic merry-go-round that never stops despite the ticket operator shouting “nobody can hear one another!”
Don’t we realize our kids are watching? Don’t we realize our kids are living this, too? Don’t we realize our kids are suffering?
I think of my nieces — one of whom is a senior in high school, the other a junior. I think of their high school experience, which from the start has been fractured, frustrating, and non-traditional because of the extreme disruptiveness we’ve encountered in our lives. I’d argue there is no place that is more evident than within schools.
I’ve written about nurses, teachers, emergency personnel, business owners, and retail workers, all of whom deserve credit for their extreme resilience.
But no group has had to put forth more resilience than kids. And, yes, they are resilient vessels, but they also haven’t formed all the necessary skills to positively cope with the stress.
This will go down as the most traumatic era in generations, at the minimum. Children have had to deal with a lot, and much of the trauma may not show itself until much later into adulthood. For many, it will result in destructive behavior.
As always, there will be a disproportion to outcome, also. Those with the means and stability will weather this storm better than those who don’t.
The kids aren’t alright.
As we shake a fist at another challenging year and cling to the hope of a new start in 2022, I offer a suggestion:
Rather than create a list of resolutions that statistically will be hard to keep, anyway, create another list: How can you make a difference in a child’s life in 2022? How can you be a better dad, mom, aunt, uncle, friend, neighbor to children? How can you sacrifice to help improve the lives of the young?
Childhood still is a magic time and should be a beautiful time of growth, self discovery, and innocence before the trepidation of adulthood beckons in earnest.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the real world isn’t getting any less challenging.
The kids aren’t alright.
My resolution is to make a positive difference in kids — my own and others — in 2022.
Happy New Year.
Jeremy Speer is the publisher of The Courier in Findlay, Ohio, The Advertiser-Tribune in Tiffin, Ohio, and Review Times in Fostoria, Ohio. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com or jspeer@advertiser-tribune.com.