Kindness.

It's been notoriously hard this last year . 'Unprecedented' is perhaps one of the most frequently used words of this time. Circumstances that none of us saw, none of us anticipated, none of us wanted. This mind blowing disruption has thrown itself at our feet like shattered glass from a car crash. We all feel bruised, we all feel weary, we have all had enough. The pull to get back to seeing people we love, doing the things we love and just being 'normal' is enormous and we all feel it, we all need it. We all grieve that which we have lost and it can be argued, 'we' will never be the same people again. 

But what about our children? This generation of brilliant people who have had to adapt this year perhaps more than any other group of people. For children growing up in these times it has been a unique, challenging and difficult experience. Our children have had to learn and grow up in ways no other generation has ever had to. We have asked so much of them and they have adapted. They have been remarkable.  But there will always be a fallout from a situation of this magnitude. The hidden situations that as an inevitability of locking a country down are allowed to fester and go un-noticed causing unseen damage. I'm not talking about the big stuff like the fact that during the last twelve months reported cases of child abuse have fallen drastically, being neatly packaged away behind closed doors when no one was watching. Horrific as this is and deserving of a full article in itself, I am in this instance talking about the more subtle assaults on our children's mental health and their general well being.

The rise in social media usage and on line chat has been huge. For secondary school children in particular today, there can sometimes seem like there is no other way to communicate.  The effects of a higher use of social media for our children has already started to be seen in short term studies that have been published in recent days. Whether we like it or not, anxiety levels in our children are on the increase and as they try and navigate this already challenging time in their young lives, they will naturally look to their peers to give support and comfort through which ever medium works best. Yes for all its negatives, social media and on-line ability has also been able to keep our children connected during this pandemic, it has served as a perfect way to smooth over the loss of contact and vital developmental socialisation our children need. But as we all know, on line, electronic communication is no substitue for real contact, hand holding, hug giving, belly laughing human contact.

Friendships are all important for our children This becomes even more so as they start to navigate the machine that is secondary education. As children grow and start to make the change from childhood to adulthood they face some of the most challenging and potentially difficult times in their life. Friendships can be hard for adults but for children they can be life changing in their effects. The devastation that can be caused from a break down in relationship, from a feeling of being let down in a peer group can be utterley damaging and can (if not handled correctly) last a lifetime.

So as parents what responsibility do we have to teach our children to handle these relationships with care? Enabling our children to hold on to them loosely but with a firm hand. I believe we have to empower our children to allow others opinion of them to only have so much ground. We have to teach our children to develop the ability to create their own filters in their minds where they siphon off the destructive, hold onto the constructive and enjoy the positive. There will never be  a perfect friendship. Human relationships are complex, fraught with difficulty - fraught with humanity. But if we build our children up to know how valuable 'they' are, then we can teach them to shut out the voices that would seek to destroy them. 

One of the remarkable qualities I witness in my own children is the ability to forgive where (if it were me) I would find it very hard to do. I laugh with my daughter when I describe to her that we have a relationship like Saffy and Eddie in the comedy 'Absolutely Fabulous' - the child behaving more like the parent.  For example when someone cuts me up when I'm driving and she draws my attention to the fact they may have 'a lot on their mind and be having a bad day Mum'. The kindness I have seen in my daughter when she remembers the person who is suffering, the person who needs reassurance, and the child who just doesn't fit in, is a lesson to me to always think more kindly. 

I'm challenged to be more kind in my thoughts, be more kind in my actions and to put myself into the shoes of the person who has hurt me and to try and understand. I've seen this in my remarkable twelve year old and I stand in awe. Whether our friendships are forced to be through technology or through the joy of face to face, there has never been more need for us to be kind to one another. I once heard a quote that said " Kindness begins with the understanding that we all struggle". During this pandemic and all that it has thrown at us, I am seeking to remember this now more than ever. The kindness I have seen coming from my daughter at times when I know she is hurting has been a lesson to myself, a lesson to  take a step back, to be more childlike and to make the right choice - choose kind.