A Month in Isolation

I wasn't going to do a post about the pandemic but, well, here we are. Yes, this is the biggest thing that's happened to the world in the last 100 years. Yes, global economies are stagnating or failing. Yes, thousands of people are dying. How could I not talk about it?

There are, however, a lot of people far smarter than I who can talk about those things. Historians. Economists. Doctors. I am not any of those things. The closest I come is having majored in history at University, but the 1918 pandemic didn't feature highly in my studies.

What this post is going to deal with is the real world impacts on every day people. People like me, and probably you, who have no immediate political, economic or medical influence on the course of events. We will look at the day to day impacts of a global pandemic on predominantly the working and lower classes.

On Monday 23rd March my workplace officially shut down due to the pandemic. We knew it was coming. Personally, I was quite happy for it to happen. Others weren't. There was a mix of feelings due to the fact that no-one quite knew how long it was going to last, what it meant for our wages, and how our Government run welfare system would cope.

I'm not going to lie. I am in the fortunate situation that a shutdown was not going to affect me financially. I would have qualified for government benefits, I had enough leave I could take to carry me for a short period, and my workplace was able to apply for Job Keeper payments set up by the government as a wage reimbursement for permanent staff (yes, I have oversimplified this package but it's long and boring and as long as I'm getting paid, I'm happy) so financial concerns were not an issue for me.

For other people, financial concerns have hit very hard. Renters who were laid off (rather than stood down) can't pay rent. Landlords relying on rent because they have no other income can't pay bills or mortgages. Businesses have closed, at least for the duration of the shutdown, but many for good. Stocks have crashed. Relying on investments for income has always been a bit risky but, right now, it's probably the worst possible income stream, especially if those stocks are in oil.

So, as far as economics are concerned, pandemics are not good. Those who are rich, and by rich I mean really, super rich billionaire types, won't really notice. They are beyond money. Economics really only affects people who, if they lost a years salary, would be significantly worse off than before. That is, the 1% wont notice the stress of an prolonged economic downturn on a personal level but the 99% will.

Moving away from the economic impact, historically, this pandemic is unprecedented. Even though there have been other major pandemics in history, the most recent being a little over a century ago, the movement of people and things has never been more prevalent. The travel industry in the 21st century is massive. Countries import and export goods on a daily basis. This increases the ways in which virus' can be transported from one area to another. The method for disease control hasn't changed however. The best way we have limit the spread of any disease is prevention.

The prevention of disease transmission as a society comes about in several ways. Vaccination is a medical way of preventing transmission, however, it only works on a individual level unless enough of the population is vaccinated and then we develop what's commonly referred to as herd immunity. Vaccination is an imperfect science, though. No vaccine is 100% effective. They also take a long time to develop so, when faced with a novel virus as we are now, we cannot rely on vaccination being the first line of defence. It is going to be a year at the very minimum before we have a working vaccine suitable for humans. While it isn't going to be part of the first wave of stopping the spread of Covid-19, it will become important for subsequent waves of this virus by protecting individuals and providing herd immunity.

Not wanting to get inundated by anti-vaccination types: yes, you can get herd immunity through natural immunity. How this works is exactly the same as vaccination induced herd immunity except that it requires the vast majority of the people in a given population to contract a virus, develop antibodies and survive. This is perfectly reasonable for diseases that are fairly mild. It's not such a great thing for diseases with highly unfavourable outcomes. This leads into the discussion of death rates and contagiousness of Covid-19 and as this is getting too far to into the medical side of this pandemic, I will leave that aspect to the virologists and other medical experts.

The other way to halt transmission is through contact denial. Washing your hands and keeping physically distant from people is how this works on an individual level. Shutdowns and quarantines are how this works on a societal level. Where I live, we are in what we are calling Stage 3 restrictions. The basics of this level of societal distancing means that people are not allowed to congregate in groups of more than 2 outdoors unless in a family group. Restaurants and cafes are restricted to take away menus only. Schools are not closed but students are advised to stay home unless their parents are essential workers. No sports are running except horseracing. Beaches and public spaces are either closed or limited in the number of people allowed to be in the area.

What does this mean for me? I'm not working as I work in sport and rec, which came under Stage 1 restrictions. I also live with a person considered to be in the vulnerable category - my mum. She's 82. She's pretty healthy for her age but she is a much greater risk of unfavourable outcomes. This means that my son and I have to be extremely careful with bringing the virus back into our house. I pulled my son out of school as soon as I could. We have been self isolating now for a month. My son has been going out and walking to do exercise, I have been exercising at home. This means that, except to do grocery shopping, I have not left the house in a month.

This extreme physical isolation has profound psychological ramifications. I suffer from anxiety and depression, though I am not currently medicated for either, I am also an introvert. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was quite happy for my work to be shut down early. For the first week, I was doing extraordinarily well. My anxiety was low because I wasn't being potentially exposed to the virus. Our family was safe. But here's the thing: as any introvert will tell you, it's not that we only want to be in our own company, it's that we reach our social exhaustion level a lot quicker than other people.

For me, I missed the kids I worked with. They exhaust me completely. I complain about work a lot. But I do miss it when I'm not there, especially for extended periods of time. So while my anxiety was low, my depression was growing. It was not a suicidal depression. It was just an overwhelming emotional fugue. During the next two weeks, I had three migraines, I would cry at the drop of a hat, and I was irrationally irritable. My motivation for anything productive vanished completely. I would think about things to do because I fundamentally knew I had to do something to get me out of this funk but I constantly procrastinated, doing anything to not do something.

I eventually had to do something. I had to go grocery shopping. I had to get dressed and leave the house. And I did it. I like grocery shopping. It's not something I find stressful (except when everyone has been hoarding and I can't actually get half the stuff on my list) because its a very structured experience. That's when I started to realise it wasn't just the kids I was missing from work. It was the structure. It didn't come as an epiphany. It sort of burbled around in my brain for a few days trying to come to some sort of conclusion.

What finally got my brain to click was a post of Facebook by one of my friends of an isolation well-being checklist which contained things like "do one thing to get your heart rate up" and "be mindfully present to something you see." Most of the things on that particular checklist were of no interest to me at all but the concept it represented grabbed hold of me. Here was the structure I needed.

How did I put this into practice? I made myself a schedule. It seems really obvious but this is what happens with depression and anxiety. Your brain just doesn't make connections like it should. My schedule wasn't just a list on a piece of paper, though. It is on my phone, as a list of reminders, with alarms to tell me to do the next thing on the list. I've broken the day between 9am and 9pm into hour long increments. There's meal breaks scheduled. It's full of things I like to do. Obviously, some things can be done at the same time. Some things take longer than others. But that's ok. It's not the actual time it takes that's important, it's the sense of achievement in ticking something off once it's completed.

This blog (as well as my poetry one) are on my schedule. This post has taken me several hours to write, others mostly won't be this long. Probably. It is one of the last things on my schedule precisely for this reason. If it takes longer than its supposed to, it's fine.

So what has this previous 4 weeks in self imposed isolation taught me? I do need social contact and social media just doesn't cut it all the time. I need strict structure. It's why I'm bad at online learning. I don't have the self discipline. I need an external schedule to follow, even if it's one I've created. Anxiety and depression don't go away when your circumstances change, they just change their manifestations.

And what does the future look like? Immediately, much the same as it does right now. For the next 10 to 12 weeks, I probably won't be working. My son won't go back to school until we are out of restrictions and will continue to do home schooling. I'm hoping that the grocery shopping will return to some sort of normal soon because this hoarding is completely ridiculous. I'm also hoping that people manage to stick with the social distancing guidelines and the government don't rush the reopen purely for the sake of the economy.

Lastly, maybe we can carry some of the lessons we've learned into the future. The ability to work and school from home more easily, especially for those with disabilities, is hugely important. The respect and love for our emergency services personnel needs to move into our future interactions as well. And we need to look out for each other. In the last 4 weeks, I've seen more people ask their fellow humans how they are, and actually mean it. Let's not stop doing that when this pandemic ends.

Discipline and the word “no”

In my profession I deal with a lot of children. Most of them are pretty good. They listen, they follow instructions and they are polite. They can also be loud, annoying and confrontational. They are normal children. They have good and bad days, just like everyone else. If you’re lucky and know what you’re doing then the good days outnumber the bad days.

In my profession I also deal with a few spoilt children and a few children who never hear the word “no” from their parents. Some of them have a Nanny who enforces some sort of discipline. Many of them have little real discipline at all. I had one child who would cry everytime I said that they couldn’t have something or do something. After a whole lesson of this I knew that something had to be done if the child came back. The child did come back and before the lesson even started I took the child aside and said to them that I wouldn’t tolerate them crying everytime they heard me say “no.” I also explained to the child the reasons why I say no (usually safety or time constraints). Some people will say that children can’t be reasoned with. I think it depends on the child. Some children can be and I was lucky that this child could be. I also think it comes down to how you reason with the child. Giving them owner ship of their actions is, I feel, very important.

Of course, discipline isn’t always about saying “no.” There has to be a positive reinforcement of desirable behaviours. There also has to be an understanding by the child of the consequences of their actions. There is no point punishing a child for doing something they shouldn’t have if they didn’t know they weren’t allowed to do it. Setting clear rules is important. Depending on the age of the children, the simpler the better.

For under 5s, the basics are:

• No hitting, kicking or biting
• Stay with the group
• Ask to get a drink or go to the toilet
• Listen to the instructor

For children who are at school most of the basic social rules should have been dealt with at school. The ones I most often need to emphasise are:

• Keep your hands to yourself
• Wait your turn / No pushing in

Of course, these are my rules for work but the same basic rules apply at home. My son knows there are rules and knows that there are consequences if he breaks the rules. He sometimes forgets the rules. He sometimes tries to get around the rules. In the end, he’s a child, he’s pushing boundaries. He wants to find out which are all the time rules and which are sometimes rules.

An all the time rule is one which applies no matter where you are, no matter who you’re with. For our household these include “no hurting” (hitting, kicking, biting, pinching, etc) and “manners” (please, thank you, excuse me, sorry, etc). Bubba is pretty good with those.

A sometimes rule is one which doesn’t always apply. It might have to do with the volume of speech or the speed of movement in different places. For example, at the park Bubba can be noisy and run around but in a restaurant he has to be quiet and sit down. It might also be a rule that is in place for a fixed period of time. Staying out of the kitchen while someone is cooking is one. Playing quietly while someone has a headache is another.

There are several strategies for dealing with behaviour problems that I have found to work. From a young age, since he understood the concept of numbers, he learnt that he had 5 seconds to stop doing whatever I didn’t want him to do. If I counted from 5 to 1 he was in trouble. If he stopped before I got to 1 then he’d just get the lecture about not doing it.

I also use the three strikes rule. It’s pretty simple. If Bubba does the same thing wrong 3 times in the one day then the big punishments get wheeled out. An example from a couple of weeks ago was Bubba was told not to jump off the arm of the lounge chair and when he did so I told him off. A while (maybe 2 hours) later he did it again. He got told off and timed out for a minute and told that if he did it again he’d have to pack away all his toys. After the time out he went back to playing for an hour or so, then jumped off the arm of the chair again. He got told off, time out for 5 minutes then I made him pack up his toys.

Time out is a tricky punishment to master. I was once told that the time out should only be as long as the child is old, so if the child is 3 years old then the time out should only be 3 minutes. It’s not a bad rule but I’ve never met a child under the age of four who has any concept of time when they are angry or annoyed. Time out also only works if the time out place is not somewhere they enjoy being. When Bubba was younger I used his step stool for going to the toilet and he had to sit facing the front door. It meant that is wasn’t all that comfortable and there was nothing to keep him entertained.

The child also has to know that the time out will finish. Telling them to go to time out for 2 minutes tells them that the punishment will end but it’s important that they know that it is a straight 2 minnutes. If, after 1.5 minutes they get up and wander off, the time must start again.

The important thing to remember about discipline is follow through. If you set a consequence then you have to be prepared to make it a reality should the need arise. Threatening to give their toys to charity only works so long as they believe you will actually do it and once that belief is gone it’s near on impossible to get it back, and it becomes increasingly hard to set consequences that they will believe. It’s a bit like Maxwell Smart saying to the KAOS Agents that he has an army of Control Agents surrounding their hideout, then saying “would you believe a well trained poodle?” when they don’t believe him.

As I said at the beginning, positive reinforcement of desirable behaviours is always a good option. Some people think it’s bribery. Personally, there’s nothing wrong with bribery as long as it’s not routine and not expected. Rewarding a child with love, praise and affection is a far better method than sweets and toys.

The hardest thing to do where discipline is concerned is to be the disciplinarian in the face of other parents who don’t discipline their child to your standard. Young children apply the “monkey see, monkey do” philosophy to their actions. If the rest of the children are throwing sand then your precious angel will probably also throw sand. You can’t let the inaction of other parents stop you from disciplining your child. Some of the other parents may not have noticed and will be glad you said something. Some of them won’t care. Some will think you’re over-reacting. Their reaction makes no difference to what you should do. If you think it needs disciplining then do it.

It is hard for the child who gets disciplined when none of the other children do. One way you can minimise this feeling is to tell the whole group not to do it. I use this technique a lot at work. Rather than isolate one child (especially if they are new to the class), I tell the whole group not to do it; however, if they continue to do the undesirable behaviour then individual attention is required. This can work in social situations as well. I have quite often reminded my friends children of the correct way to behave. It doesn’t always work but your child won’t feel like they are being picked on, at least by you.

The last word to be said on discipline is that it’s important for children to understand the “my house, my rules” concept. This is very important to me at work as the children have to understand that, while they may be allowed to run around and wreak havoc at home, while they are with me in my “house” they have to follow my rules. The same applies to my son when he goes to other peoples houses or to the shops or wherever really. For example, I have a rule that bubba is allowed to play with a small football inside as long as he keeps it below the height of his own knee. Other people may have a “no balls inside the house” rule. I can’t tell him the rules for every single persons house but I can give him the understanding that different people have different rules.

In the end, everyone finds their own disciplinary style and if it works for you and your child, then that’s awesome news. Don’t allow other people to dictate to you how you should and shouldn’t use discipline, even me, but do allow them to offer advice. The more information you have to work with the better it is, even though it may seem that every piece of advice you get contradicts every other piece. If you find that your style isn’t working then try to work out what specifically isn’t working, why it isn’t working and how you can change it. Remember, changing your mind is not a sign of weakness but a sign of growth.