Speaking Up And Supporting Our Children During These Unprecedented Times

For Parents • Jan 8, 2021

On Wednesday, many of us were glued to our screens trying to process the shocking events taking place in our Nation’s Capital. We have heard from parents and teachers alike they feel shocked, saddened and angry. We can only imagine how our children must feel.

We quickly put out a message to our teachers offering them tools, resources and best practices for supporting our learners during these stressful times.

Here at Outschool we take seriously our role in creating safe spaces for our kids to talk about current events, educating them on civics and connecting them with other learners from around the country often of different races and religions to share different perspectives. Diversity in learning just as in life is valuable and not to be feared.

As such, we believe this is a moment in history where we must set an example for our children and model decency by unequivocally condemning the disruption of our democratic process and incitement of violence by extremists on January 6th, 2021.

We believe Black Lives Matter, and it is an outrage that symbols of hate - Nazi imagery, nooses and confederate flags - were brazenly paraded around the home of our legislative branch of government. We also see the different standards applied to protesters this past summer versus those trashing our Nation’s Capital as appalling. Our children are watching these historic events too and are looking for us to help them understand what is happening.

While there are no simple answers we want to offer some guidance from Mother.ly that we found helpful about how best to speak with your children regarding the breach at the Capitol: you can find that here.

We also encourage you to explore age appropriate Outschool classes that address topics such as civics, history, social justice, and social emotional learning.

We understand that not everyone in our community will see the events of January 6 in the same way we do. We do however know that everyone in this community wants only the best future possible for our children.

At Outschool, our goal is to stand for learners and support them. We’ll do this together no matter what happens in the weeks and months to come. Take care of yourselves and your children.