What are our kids learning from COVID?

As much of Australia is once again in lock down, I have been reflecting on what our kids will be drawing from this whole pandemic experience, what they might be learning from it.

Certainly, awareness of hygiene such as handwashing, sanitisation and mask wearing to stop the spread of germs will be one thing. Being much more vigilant about staying home when we have a cold and not spreading our illness to others is another.

However, I am more interested in the “soft skills” that our kids are developing from this strange time.

Soft skills are the skills that relate to how we do things, and include things such as interpersonal skills, attitude, flexibility, work ethic, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership.

Flexibility and adaptability

Certainly, it is clear that children and young people (along with all of us!) have developed their flexibility muscle in the past 18 months. Where previously routines were set, the way to do things was known and locked in, after the initial shock and upheaval, we have become more malleable, more flexible, more able to roll with the changes. Our kids are more adaptable.

Worldview

It would also seem that our kids have had their eyes opened up to seeing the world in a completely different way and their minds have been cracked open to different ways of doing things, different potential futures, different connections with the world and others – a new and ever changing world view.

Interpersonal skills

Connectedness and interpersonal relationships have been highlighted during this time, with many of us spending much more time with our immediate families, and figuring out the best way to connect with family and friends in other places. Our kids have enjoyed having their parents around a lot more than they may have had previously and have also spent much more time with their siblings. Reconnecting with each other and re-calibrating these personal relationships has been a significant part of this pandemic time.

Creativity

With so much more time at home, children have upped their creativity. Bigger, better, more improved cubbies, imaginative play, using the backyard so much more than ever before, coming up with different games, activities, ways to entertain themselves, ways to connect with their friends – these all use creativity and the imagination, BRILLIANT for our kids’ brains.

Problem solving

With their normal routine completely out of the window, kids’ brains have had to think in different ways in order to make sense of what the new normal is. And then the new normal after that as situations change again and again. They have needed to use problem solving skills to work out how to get along with each different way of doing things. Remote learning, zoom learning, self-directed learning, no learning, all these things have required them to use problem solving skills.

Resilience

And perhaps one of the greatest of the soft skills – resilience. During this time of incredible upheaval, change and uncertainty, our children have been developing resilience. Each change, each new direction from the Government or the school about how to do things has required our children to develop more and more resilience.

So while you may worry about the impact lock downs and remote learning or less school time than normal is having on your kids’ learning, I urge you to broaden your context for learning and look for the soft skills that our children and young people have developed during this time.

Flexibility, adaptability, a broader world view, interpersonal skills, creativity, problem solving skills and resilience. These are all such important skills and will go far in helping our children throughout their lives. In fact, soft skills are often the skills that employers look for when recruiting, and are the skills that impact on a person’s success in life.

So for these skills, COVID, we can thank you.