Should parents prioritize extreme safety or thoughtfully push their kids toward independence and self-reliance? It’s a question that moms and dads have long grappled with, and in light of the recent waves of lockdowns and school closures, there are likely plenty of lessons to be learned.
Alas, in addition to the many lives lost to COVID-19, the pandemic has led to significant suffering among children. While some have experienced severe learning loss with tilting disparities, others have struggled to cope with the effects of social isolation, leading to an increase in teen suicides and a string of other mental health-related issues.
Whatever one thinks of the prudence of the lockdowns as a means for containing the virus, they inadvertently doubled as an extreme experiment in what happens to children when they are over-sheltered and over-protected from the outward journeys of daily life. Yet, to a lesser degree, that experiment was already well underway before the pandemic ever began.
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