Ep. 2 Who is the COVID Generation & How Do We Support Them?

Today we're talking about the title of this show, why you're here, why you're listening.  You're a pandemic mom, and that has many meanings. So let's break it down. You can be a pandemic mom if you had an infant or a toddler or a preschooler when the world shut down in 2020.

You were still responsible for supporting your little person's development as they grew through the phases and stages off their first few years of life.

The world changed overnight

And so did how you were expected to parent. So did the opportunities that you could provide for your kids, and so did  the environment, or lack thereof, multiple environments that your child now had the ability to go to.

Instead of daycare, preschool, mommy and me groups, just going out for coffee, hearing lots of other voices, seeing lots of other kids, hearing how other kids talked, watching other kids move at the playground, they had one environment.  It was a huge shift.  So you may have a child who knows pre pandemic living  and post pandemic living.

That's one way to be a pandemic mom.  The other is that you had a baby. Got pregnant and had a baby during the pandemic.  In that case, you have a true COVID child who was born into a world of limitations.

All the same experiences I just described, except your baby doesn't have the before and after perspective that the kids who were already here in March of 2020 do.  Your baby knows one environment, one set of voices, one home.  They also know big love because let's be real, 

Pandemic babies were a bright, shining, beautiful spot.

A dark, dreary, terrifying time, that's just the truth.  And so they were showered, and rightfully so, with all the love that we wanted to be out in the world sharing with other people.  They also, being emotional little creatures who come into the world only knowing how to make sense of it through their senses, their five senses, they also felt and absorbed a lot of worry, a lot of stress, a lot of overwhelm.

How they move forward in this post pandemic parenting stage that we're in now directly depends on you understanding that. It directly depends on you understanding that they will likely not meet their milestones according to the chart that your pediatrician is sending home.

They will likely need a lot more of you and a lot more experiences outside of the home.  The practicing, the repetition, to regain those skills and maybe learn them for the first time and it's okay. As moms, you cannot hold yourself responsible or accountable for the fact that the journey that your COVID baby is going to have is going to look and sound different than the ones you had before, or your neighbor's child, or the preschools kids.

Mom guilt can't live here.

We need to arm ourselves with understanding why this is happening and then learn how to support your tiny people to develop the skills they need to be successful beyond the walls of your home.  That's why I'm here. That's why I started this podcast.  It's what I'm passionate about. And it's what I'm capable of doing for you.

The why matters.

So, I'm spending some time on it today. Okay.  Can you tell, I get a little fired up when I talk about all this.  If you are too, if you're feeling connected, if you're feeling inspired, please jot it down for me, put it in the podcast comments, make sure that you're subscribing, that you're reviewing, that you're sharing your story.  I'd love to hear from you because each one of you is unique. Your COVID experience and your parenting journey is unique, just like your child is a unique human. That sometimes means that you need a little bit more, something more personalized, answered more directly.  I promise I'm listening.  If you ask the questions, I will answer them.