This past year of the COVID pandemic disrupted the structure in our lives that provided security. School and work are part of our daily routines that brought us order and stability. COVID interrupted all lives, exposing us all to varying degrees of chaos and loss. Everyone has experienced some level of anxiety this past year. As parents, we want to press forward and get our children to learning and thriving. We are in a new year with new perspectives. With school shutdowns and home learning, we have seen a different side of the academics and our children’s process outside of the classroom. This is a time to reevaluate and reprioritize what is most important for our children. Mental, social and emotional health is just as or more important than academic success. One cannot be achieved at the expense of the other. Mental health must be acknowledged and prioritized. We must acknowledge that while our kids may be capable of doing certain things, does not mean they should do them. The increase in childhood anxiety is in part to the pressures that children today are exposed to unnecessarily. This is a time to evaluate and examine your parenting process and academic mindset. This may be a perfect time to reset your process.

Before COVID, I have always noticed from my conversations with parents that there seems to be an academic race. A huge part of the pressure is to be ahead. I have always said that I don’t know where everyone is headed. It takes 12 years to finish school. I have always been puzzled by advanced curriculums. And never really understood the benefits of being in a specific grade and working on a curriculum one or two grade levels above.

We are not allowing kids to learn at their pace.

We keep increasing the expectations without providing coping tools.

We are seeing a great increase in children having anxiety and mental health concerns. Typically, in summer, I see parents including academics in the summer day activities with the mindset of not wanting them to fall behind. I always encourage them that summer can be an opportunity to learn social-emotional and self-management skills that may be hard to focus on during the academic school year. There is also so much learning that different experiences, such as volunteering, can do.

Consider this summer allowing for plenty of time of leisure and rest. We need to acknowledge that the pandemic has left us all weary and fatigued. We need to have to time recuperate mentally, emotionally and physically.

As we press forward, let us note the residual effects of the past year that we all want to leave behind—keeping this in mind as some of our kids are returning to schools at different times. For so many kids, home learning was not successful, and there was a loss of skills. We must resist the anxiousness that can arise from the thought of our kids falling behind. There is plenty of time to learn we must dismiss this “falling behind” mindset; it’s unhealthy. This mindset pressures us to adopt an unbalanced pace. This Winter and Spring semester is a time for all of our kids to adjust and adapt to returning to school, still with a pandemic looming. Use this time to rethink your process and priorities before COVID. This is a time to press the restart button and have the opportunity to do things differently.

Reset: resist the pressure to dismiss COVID fatigue. Allow your child and yourself this later part of the academic year to adapt to the continued changes.

Realign: do not increase the pace or overschedule to compensate for the lost time. Allow for play and leisure time maintaining a balanced speed.

Restart: adjust your routines to incorporate healthy habits that may have been missing in your daily practice. 

This past year we have been shown the importance of health. Without our health, all else is impossible. There is still much to learn from this pandemic experience that can help us refresh our lives. We are still at the start of the year with the opportunity to reset.

What can help with this process is to make a list. Make a list of all that you would want more of this year on the yes column. Make a list of all that you would want to see or experience less this year on the no column.