¡Gracias por compartir! / Thanks for sharing!

«Anything they would ask him to do he would start screaming and complaining. One day, he told his mom, crying, that all he wanted was to go back to school and play with his friends«.

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Pre-pandemic:

Nico is 9 years old and since he was a little boy was very active, he wouldn’t stop for a second. Always running. Sitting to eat lunch with him was instant dizziness, he would get up, run around the table and then sit down to continue eating his meal. People would call from school, “Ma’am, Nico finishes an activity, gets up and leaves the classroom to play outside without asking for permission. He does not follow the rules”. “Oh my, is he doing his school work wrong? Is he not learning?”. “Actually, he understands and learns the class given, it seems like he is not paying attention, but when I ask him something, he answers correctly. When he finishes an activity, he gets bored waiting for his classmates to finish, I think that’s why he just gets up and leave”.

Nico grew up doing many extracurricular activities, under recommendation from experts, since he was tireless. Besides school, he had music class twice a week, basketball class twice a week, and since he was a baby learned two languages.

To have fun during long rides, he and his mom decided to learn a new language together. For Nico it was too much fun to pronounce very good and by memory pop songs in Chinese, while his mother sucked at it. They used to read other cars’ plate numbers is Chinese and it was a lot of fun. With his dad, physical activities were the best. They would go out for walks with their dog Legolas and hit the pool for a swim.

A year ago, he discovered the Fortnite world and created a community online with his school friends, he used to play only on weekends at the afternoon. His energy was endless, very sociable, and his happiness was infinite; his 10 hours of sleep every night were a huge contribution to that. To his mom, balance was the key.

During the pandemic:

Nico feels trapped and doesn’t want to do anything. Everything bothers him. He started to spend too many hours playing video games: he played online with his classmates and that gave him a sense of closeness to them, but his mood started to change. His parents had to restrict his game time. Anything they would ask him to do he would start screaming and complaining. One day, he told his mom, crying, that all he wanted was to go back to school and play with his friends. Impotence. Again, calling experts to find a way to help him.

His mother received comments from friends such as “poor kid, you always drowned him with extra activities, that’s why he is like this right now”, “what’s happening should make you realize that you forced Nico to do so many activities and that had to stop, this is a calling for you”.

His mother was shocked. Was it my fault what was happening? Did I drown my son for cultivating his love for music? Did I drown my son for taking him to his favorite sport’s lessons? Was child abuse to teach him two languages? Am I a beast because we started learning Chinese together? She cried; she cried a lot. She felt guilty for the suffering of her son, for a moment she believed what other people saw from outside. When her son went to bed, she talked to her husband and crying she told him about her failures and everything her friends thought about Nico’s current behavior. As always, she only needed one sentence from him to come back to reality, to find her north again.

She waited two days and while they were playing, she sat in front of Nico and said “sweetie, I’d like us to take a break from music and Chinese, how about we take some time off?”. “Mom, what is wrong with you!?” “Why are you telling me this!?” “You are talking like my friends who think you are forcing me to learn!” “I don’t want to stop doing my activities, all I want is to get back to normal, I want my life back!”.

Nico just turned 10 years old and has been in lock down for almost 2 months now, he is doing better, he is more calmed. He is getting used to his new life. He even decided, on his own, to tutor one of his music buddies who had to quit his lessons; Nico didn’t want him to stay behind and lose the chance to learn. His mother is very proud of him.

The other day Nico told her: “Mom, I want to learn Italian, I’ll start my lessons today”, and the first thing she thought was “shit, now everyone is going to come after me”.

Related posts:

How to help our children cope with quarantine

An open letter to the planet after two weeks of quarantine

Coronavirus quarantine, stay home for crying out loud!

¡Gracias por compartir! / Thanks for sharing!