“Should we lower our standards during lockdown?” they asked me during a video conference with fathers. My intuitive answer was “No, but we change them.” ‘Lockdown’ is a tremendous opportunity to teach children how to deal with serious unknowns. They will face many in their lives: choosing a spouse, buying a home, caring for their first-born, facing unemployment, suffering through a major illness, or moving to a new country. All these are life-altering challenges never experienced before where mistakes could be costly. Lockdown is rehearsal time. Because they want to teach them how to use their heads — how to reason — savvy parents use questions to help children think things through for themselves. A key to survival is learning the difference between needs and desires, something most adolescents never get to recognize and articulate. Needs tend to be few; desires are endless. In ‘lockdown’ we take care of reality first. While imagination thrives on desires, reason thrives on reality — and gets the work done. Savvy parents also encourage their children to remove obstacles for others in the family and for their friends. The child who sees the connection between removing obstacles and becoming a leader is already wise. Lockdown can be a blessing, a dress rehearsal for some of life’s more serious challenges.
For the sake of the child, the future of the world.
Pat Fagan