“For the past six months we have been living through a pandemic.”
I say that as a matter of fact because the truth is that at some point our innate systems begin to falter. Our organisms were not meant to stay on high alert for extended periods of time. Much like other systems, our fight, flight, or freeze responses are intended to help us navigate acute life or death situations and then organically return to balance. In order for us to be in our healthiest state, these systems must maintain the ability to both expand and contract. If this balance is not maintained, we become unable to sense actual danger because our alarms are already turned on. To use an analogy, if the smoke detectors were mistakenly going off in your home when a fire started, the alarm cannot go off again. In this case, you would not realize that you were in danger from the fire which would likely have devastating consequences.
Again, we are living through a pandemic. There have been no days off from remaining hypervigilant, having to make increasingly impossible choices for the health and well-being of ourselves, our families, and our communities. And then summer came with all of its promises of lazy days off and an opportunity to burn off steam. After likely “sheltering in place” for nearly ninety days, it was not surprising that people were eager, even desperate, for a release. The body has been needing this release since those early days in March.
So, here we are, only a few short weeks before final decisions are being made regarding the risks and benefits of sending our children to school. More impossible decisions. More debate. More controversy. But are we understanding just how impossible these decisions actually are? While our leaders are typically tasked with these global decisions, we find ourselves having to make them independently for our own individual circumstances, but are we actually capable of making these decisions?
At this moment, we are beginning to see a rise in cases in another one of our most vulnerable populations, our children. While historically there hasn’t ever been much debate surrounding the vulnerability of our youngest members, this pandemic initially brought that into question. Most of the experts were suggesting that transmission and infection rates were not as concerning in children as they were in the elderly or adults with comorbidities. Until now. Weeks before schools are anticipating opening for in-person learning.
While the latest advances in Neuroscience have given deeper insights to the maturation of the pre-frontal cortex illustrating the capabilities of adolescents and emerging adults to assess risk and consequence, our expectations continue to be misaligned. And so now, We are beginning to see clusters of outbreaks in our children, adolescents, and emerging adult populations as a direct result of ignoring this research. We have already learned these lessons. Let’s not have to learn them again.
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