Empower kids and teens during COVID-19

girl looking out window at virus
girl looking out window at virus
Image by enriquelopez­garre from Pix­abay

Why empower kids and teens during COVID-19? They need it!

Tak­ing action is one impor­tant way to make a prob­lem seem more man­age­able and less fright­en­ing, so get­ting young peo­ple involved can actu­al­ly help them cope with the sit­u­a­tion we are all fac­ing. Giv­ing them a pur­pose gives them some­thing else to focus on besides what they’ve lost or what they’re wor­ried about. And remind­ing them that we are all in this togeth­er (even while six feet apart!), can help them feel less iso­lat­ed and anx­ious dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time.

We need them.

Dur­ing a cri­sis, we need all hands on deck to get through it as well as we pos­si­bly can. And young peo­ple have a lot to offer, even in the case of the cur­rent COVID-19 cri­sis. But try­ing to come up with ways for a young per­son in your life to BE A CHANGEMAKER while com­ply­ing with social dis­tanc­ing guide­lines and keep­ing every­one safe dur­ing this COVID-19 cri­sis may feel like an impos­si­ble task. It’s true that life looks very dif­fer­ent now for most peo­ple, but there are still many use­ful ways for kids and teens to give back.

So, how can we empower kids and teens during COVID-19 in a safe and responsible manner? Here are a few ideas and resources for them to choose from:

    • Do you play a musi­cal instru­ment? Per­haps you can per­form a “dri­ve-by” con­cert to cheer up neigh­bors or sched­ule one for your apart­ment build­ing. I’ve even heard of one group let­ting peo­ple “hire” them for this pur­pose, and then donat­ing the mon­ey raised to orga­ni­za­tions in need dur­ing the cri­sis — win, win!
    • Do you have some durable mark­ers or paint? How about dec­o­rat­ing some rocks with pos­i­tive mes­sages to leave along the side­walk, in build­ing entrances, or on trails in your area? I’ve also seen a lot of fan­tas­tic chalk art on streets, side­walks, even the fronts of hous­es or build­ings (be sure get per­mis­sion before dec­o­rat­ing some­one else’s pri­vate prop­er­ty!). Art, espe­cial­ly that with mes­sages of hope and con­nect­ed­ness, can go a long way toward lift­ing peo­ple’s spir­its these days.
    • Write let­ters or draw pic­tures for senior cit­i­zens or any­one else who may be iso­lat­ed now. Reach out to your local senior cen­ters and ask if you can send pho­tos of the let­ters and pic­tures for them to share with their residents.
    • Clean your room! Seri­ous­ly. Now is a great time to tack­le that over­due chore. Some items to con­sid­er purg­ing include gen­tly used cloth­ing you no longer wear, sports equip­ment you’ve out­grown, toys, books, etc. You may not be able to donate them right now, but it’ll be nice to have them out of your way now, and orga­ni­za­tions will appre­ci­ate them when things open back up again.
    • Check in on friends and fam­i­ly. Use the phone or oth­er avail­able tech­nol­o­gy just to see how they’re doing. Talk about how you’re doing. No mat­ter how old or young you are, this is one that ben­e­fits every­one. It may seem triv­ial, but it may be just what the per­son on the oth­er end needs.
    • Be kind to your teach­ers. Whether your cur­rent teach­ers are your usu­al teach­ers, your par­ents, your grand­par­ents, or an old­er sib­ling, all of this is new to them (yes, even if you are home­schooled!) and they are doing their best to help you be suc­cess­ful while also doing all of the oth­er things they need to do right now, many of which are also new to them. Offer a word of encour­age­ment, a thank you note, or a gen­uine smile when­ev­er you can.
    • Youth Ser­vice Amer­i­ca has a bunch of oth­er great ideas here, includ­ing hold­ing a vir­tu­al dance-a-thon, orga­niz­ing a ted­dy bear hunt, rais­ing aware­ness for an issue you care about, and more!
    • For teens, look into mutu­al aid orga­ni­za­tions in your area and see if you can con­tribute. Not famil­iar with mutu­al aid? The basic idea is that every­one has some­thing to give and that we are all depen­dent on one anoth­er. You can read more about the idea here, but, in short, they are net­works cre­at­ed by indi­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers among spe­cif­ic groups of oppressed peo­ple or dur­ing local emer­gen­cies like nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. With the cur­rent pub­lic health cri­sis, how­ev­er, they’ve been sprout­ing every­where. Paired with the pow­er of today’s read­i­ly acces­si­ble tech­nol­o­gy, they are an even more pow­er­ful force. There’s a mas­sive list of exist­ing mutu­al aid orga­ni­za­tions here. If you can’t find one that fits, start your own with this Mutu­al Aid 101 Toolk­it, and be the hero of your community!

What­ev­er you do, be sure to check fed­er­al, state, and local guide­lines to make sure you are com­ply­ing with the most recent advice. And… stay safe, stay home!

Decisions, decisions

BabyMap runs a reg­u­lar col­umn called Deci­sion Digest, where they sum­ma­rize all sides of impor­tant issues that expec­tant and new par­ents face. In this issue, I tack­led two ques­tions: whether to bank cord blood for per­son­al use, and using cloth dia­pers ver­sus disposables.

Deci­sion digest — Pri­vate cord blood bank­ing and dia­pers”, BabyMap, Fall/Winter 2005–2006

Keeping love alive after baby arrives


Here’s one where I have some hands-on expe­ri­ence — main­tain­ing a healthy mar­riage after kids join the fam­i­ly. My extra­or­di­nary hus­band and I will cel­e­brate our 10th anniver­sary this year. We make time to care for each oth­er and our rela­tion­ship, as well as for our two young children.


Keep­ing love alive after baby arrives”, Par­entMap, Sep­tem­ber 2005, pages 13–14

Jogging? Ugh.

I love hik­ing, but my bike has been parked for years and jog­ging has nev­er been my thing. To look at me is to clear­ly see that I am not a great author­i­ty on fit­ness. Nev­er­the­less, I accept­ed an assign­ment for an arti­cle on exer­cis­ing out­doors with a child under two. Yes, I actu­al­ly got out the sneak­ers and went jog­ging for this one, all in the name of research. I broke a sweat but had a good time. If you look close­ly, you can see I also took the photo.

Get out and get fit — with your baby”, Par­entMap, July 2005, page 13

A little stretch

All of the arti­cles I’ve writ­ten before this one have been on top­ics that I already knew some­thing about or have had some first­hand expe­ri­ence with. Not this one! It was real­ly fun to do, though. Most of the research came from inter­views, so at first I was a lit­tle ner­vous. Every­body I talked to was so help­ful and inspir­ing, how­ev­er, that now I look for­ward to interviewing.

Young teens need prac­tice man­ag­ing mon­ey”, Par­entMap, June 2005, pages 19–20

Tiny article, but extremely important

Here is a very short arti­cle about a top­ic I am quite pas­sion­ate about, umbil­i­cal cord blood. Sev­er­al major hos­pi­tals in our area have teamed with the blood bank to col­lect and store the stem-cell rich cord blood and donate it to indi­vid­u­als in need through a nation­al reg­istry. Now some­thing that is typ­i­cal­ly dis­card­ed can instead save lives — magnificent.

“Donate cord blood and save a life”, BabyMap, Spring/Summer 2005, page 4

[Note: Because this ran in the Post­ings sec­tion, it was not archived on the Par­entMap web site, so there is no link to an online ver­sion. Sorry!]

Early language delays can hamper learning

This arti­cle is about diag­nos­ing and treat­ing lan­guage delays before chil­dren enter school in order to pre­vent learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties lat­er. My daugh­ter, as well as the chil­dren of sev­er­al of my friends, are for­tu­nate to have received speech ther­a­py as preschoolers.

Ear­ly lan­guage delays can ham­per learn­ing”, Par­entMap, Novem­ber 2004, page 13

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