Encourage Unmasking if Possible
🌟Weekly Inspiration🌟
The following commentary by me is not political or medical. Please take it with a grain of salt if it doesn’t resonate with you. I am purely offering my opinion based on the mental health concerns that I have in the community where I live and serve youth (South Bay, Beach Cities area). In Los Angeles County where I reside, it was announced recently that masking will be optional at school beginning March 14th for all children. I received this as welcome news and a step in a positive direction, after all collectively weathering two years of parenting and working in a pandemic. It is a hopeful sign that COVID is becoming an endemic, that we have vaccinations and treatments that are effective, and that children can again learn in a more “normal” environment.
I’ve been talking about it all week with the adolescents and young adults that I serve. I have been shocked by the majority of kids being fearful to unmask in the near future. I was struck by the fact that they were not actually scared of getting COVID (majority are vaccinated, have had COVID at this point, and don’t have an underlying medical condition).
Here were some of the responses I heard this week:
"I feel nervous about showing my face."
"I don’t like my face."
"Teachers will be more able to tell if I’m falling asleep in class."
"I sometimes make weird expressions with my mouth under my mask and now they might show."
"It makes me feel socially anxious to imagine people really seeing me."
"I don’t want to possibly catch germs and give them to some physically fragile person."
"I like to hide behind my mask."
UNMASKING = BEING SEEN
It is not a surprise that adolescents today are more anxious than they were before the pandemic. Yes, in my therapy office, I have sensitive kids that are more likely to be anxious and concerned over unmasking. These are precisely the kids that need to feel comfortable and encouraged to breathe, relax, take their mask off, and be seen 😊—assuming they don’t have an underlying medical condition or live with someone that does. I also think mainstream kids will feel cautious and nervous about unmasking because it’s more about being seen…often children and teens think they would rather shirk away, hide, or be invisible in the classroom or social scene. Ultimately, we know that these kids actually long for connection and being seen and valued—and depression, anxiety, suicidality, and substance abuse become problems when they lack this important connection.
This transition to unmasking will feel similar to the nerves around returning to in-person learning after online instruction. It will be an adjustment, but it’s time and we should encourage this for our children. Though many were worried and slow to return to in-person instruction, it has been clear in our community that children have adjusted and are thriving being back to school in person. I believe that adjusting to being unmasked in a classroom will also help them thrive, connect, and learn. It is subtle, but they will start forgetting to be scared of their own breath, and the breath of their classmates and teachers. Less fear is better for the cohort of kids growing up during the pandemic.
Ask yourself:
How do I feel about my child going unmasked at school?
Do I have good reasons for encouraging them to stay masked at school?
How do I think the masking has affected my child’s social-emotional health over time?
How do I connect with people in my life—by gazing at them? Smiling? Showing emotion?
How has masking at work and in the community affected my social connections?
How can I encourage my socially anxious child in this moment? How can I remember that exposure to the stressor (being seen) is exactly what an anxious child needs in order to learn to cope with their fear?