Children and youth look to adults in their lives for certainty and understanding. Our kids today are facing a world that has never existed before, dealing with the massive and collective impact that one virus has made. They are living through a time where everyday life has turned upside-down and is very different than anything imagined. Our kids are also watching the actions and decisions made by adults who are faced with uncertainty struggling to find proper understanding in this new world with covid-19. Because of this, our kids have been exposed to thinking and actions never seen before. Their thoughts will be different, and those thoughts will create new ideas: ideas that go far beyond what their daily routines will look like in the future.
Our kids are learning that they are to change their understanding of how to live in this world. Covid-19 has introduced to young children the reality that certainty is not to be assumed to be normal. Children now must be able to navigate a whole new world of different uncertainties of ideas, capabilities and possibilities. This is a substantial change because our lives and our decisions have always depended on a certain amount of certainty for us to make good decisions.
Certainty provides us with patterns and structure which help us to predict. The changes brought by Covid-19 go well beyond just staying home and learning how to use technology to continue their studies. The huge shift that I believe has happened is that our future generations now have a new way of understanding how to live in this world, based on change. They now realize at a much earlier age that certainty is not to be assumed to be normal. They also realize that being agile and nimble is required in their lives; it is no longer a choice. It will also be interesting to see where they put their priorities for their daily lives, their daily conversations and their future jobs.
It is incredible to experience and watch how such a little object can have a much greater impact on this world than the largest tsunami that the world has seen.