I’m Just So Sad About This: Our Kids and Their Mental Health Now

Written By Miri Gindin

“Ugh, I’m just so sad about this.”  Her voice broke.  “The weight of the last nine months feels so heavy today.”  

The parents and caregivers in our close-knit strata had called an emergency Zoom meeting the day after the news broke about the new restrictions in British Columbia.  

The mother whose voice broke expressed such genuine heartbreak: for her children, for our community’s children.    This has been hard on everyone.

As the founder of an NPO that seeks to bring yoga to everyone, particularly underserved kids and families, my first reaction to her sadness is empathy-closely followed by a second reaction- what about the kids and families who are marginalized, racially and socioeconomically.  Who struggles getting their basic needs met, who don’t have access to the things that have kept so many of us sane during this time?   

A study just came out of SFU.   It says that kiddos’ mental health is really going to suffer because of this pandemic.  As usual, it’s the children who are already struggling who will get the worst of it: foster kids, racialized and Indigenous kids, poor kids, kids who had mental health issues before.  

The BC government knows about this problem and is talking.  I hope they invest more money in services for these children.  What can we, ordinary people do, who want to help marginalized kiddos through all this?

Trying to answer this question is why we exist.  It was a passion to bring tools for coping--and not just coping but thriving!--to all kids that inspired me to create it in the first place.   And inspires us, every day, to keep bringing the healing power of yoga to kids-however we can.  
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