As German lockdown leaves kids adrift, citizens step up support
Swetlana Frim teaches children to find their “superpower.”
When the German child coach logged onto Zoom for a resilience training event last December, she found 6,000 children ages 5 to 12 across Germany ready to learn about coping.
Germany was nine months into an on-and-off pandemic lockdown. The government had just closed all schools and mandated a no-group-playdate rule that effectively isolated children and their families. Working parents were struggling to balance work with family duties, which meant children’s emotional well-being was often out on the back burner.
The kids needed help.
“In a situation like corona, you must have resilience – the ability to deal with change,” says Ms. Frim, who lives in the central German town of Lollar. “Once children have learned and mastered this superpower, they
A call to actionReaching disadvantaged kidsA tentative reopening
