Sane voices

Last week I spent time listening to some of a Global Resilience Summit. I signed up because it has some of my favorite brain people on the list... Daniel Seigel, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, etc. How could I pass it up, especially since it was free?

There wasn't a whole lot new or surprising in it, but it was done in interview form so it was interesting to here the panelists having a conversation rather than just presenting material. Each of them wound up with the same conclusion. In order to become resilient, it takes a combination of physical safety and connection with others. Without these two main scaffolds in place, emotional health cannot be replaced. If you've read here for any length of time, these ideas are not new to you.

There was something that caught my attention. I believe it was Stephen Porges (who wrote The Polyvagel Theory) whom I was listening to at the time. The interviewer was asking about how to support children in returning back to school after a couple of years of bizarre pandemic school schedules. Dr. Porges' response? 

[I'm paraphrasing, by the way] He replied that he thought it would be best if they could be left to just play for quite a while. Play would be the best way to build social connections and a sense of safety which would be necessary for future learning. Not a word about the imaginary specter of being behind. 

I was mucking the dry lot, but practically stopped and cheered. Finally someone being sane about how children learn and what they need. So if a very intelligent doctor and neuroscientist espouses this, why can't others? It was like a lovely breath of sanity to hear him continue on about why this would be important.

I know parents are concerned. Parents are always concerned about their children. It's pretty much in the job description. Yet these already concerned parents only hear about how all the children are behind. They hear breathless news articles about the direness of the situation. Behind it all is the implication that children will never be able to be all they can be because they missed a bit of school. 

Sigh. 

Boy I wish the news outlets would focus on other voices. But quelling panic is not really in a news outlet's job description, is it?