Toddler mask reaction

[Whosaysyoucanthaveitall]

I have no problem wearing a mask, I think it’s a social responsibility - even if they don’t prove to have a medical impact if they make another person feel more secure, it’s worth a few moments of overheating.
But I feel an overwhelming sadness that this is the world that my DD is living in. She’s just turned two and has been trying on masks when she’s been playing. Today I was about it pop into a shop carrying her and she touched my face to show me I need to put a mask on. It’s great that she finds it normal, I guess I’m just sad she has to think that!
Am I the only one?

askmehowiknow

I said children aren't resilient. Mental health in adult years tells us that
Because childrens' resilience will depend on how the adults around them "spin it"

They're not ok because kids need normality. Facial expression. Language subtleties etc to develop

Dummies are shit for childrens' development (speech) but they are seen as normal in our society...as PP said - normal varies.

Children will act out whatever they see, just playing around with the idea and coming to terms with it. It doesn't mean they are disturbed. As an Early Years teacher I watched children play queuing for petrol (during a petrol shirt8in the 90s), re-enact the 9/12 twin towers with building blocks and a toy plane and Titanic (from the film obvs) in the water play. It's what children do. When I started school in the late 50s children were still playing War with English v the Germans.

It's crap that we need to SD and wear masks but you don't need to worry that it will adversely affect your child.

Someone I know had been helping their child with the who communication and facial expression but playing games using masks - can you guess from the eyes of the other person is smiling, sad, etc?

And actually it seems often the children can. They pick up on other cues from the persons body language and tone of voice etc.

So maybe with practise it might help us all to learn more about one another - we don't just focus on one feature of our facial expression and body language to work out how another person is feeling.

@ineedaholidaynow before her preschool closed, one of the other children told her that old people that got Covid died. She got extremely worried about my parents (who she’s very close to and normally sees a lot). They were actually on holiday when lockdown came into effect and struggled to get back because of flight cancellations, so I couldn’t even take her to see them through the window to show that they were fine. She was waking up screaming every night convinced that they had died. We did a lot of video chatting to try and reassure her, but it didn’t make much difference.