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> TBH I had not thought very hard about the toxicity of the reagents.
Forcing parents and children to endure a situation such as the one you depict should have
> TBH I had not thought very hard about the toxicity of the reagents.
Forcing parents and children to endure a situation such as the one you depict should have also been thought about a lot harder than it was.
Who cares about the reagent toxicity when this very process is riddled with psychological warfare, the denial of what humans need to feel safe and comforted in a group, and explicit scapegoating of swathes of people?
Even when doing it "right," these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds. The testing itself is toxic.
> Even when doing it "right," these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds. The testing itself is toxic.
Kids, it turns out, are hugely resilient. I reckon the covid generation kids are going to be much better at dealing with the anxieties of medicine.
> Even when doing it "right," these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds. The testing itself is toxic.
"We're off to visit grandma, I'm gonna q-tip your nostril for ten seconds" has not induced much horror in my children. In fact, they're significantly more upset when I tell them they have to go back and wash the soap out of their hair after showering when I can still see suds in it. That produces a full-on tantrum.
The only way kids are likely to see the occasional nose swab as toxic and horrifying is if the parents are priming them for that with their own histrionics.
> these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds.
Clipping my kids’ fingernails is far more dramatic than swizzling a swab in their nostrils for 10 seconds.
If your kids are experiencing horror and mental problems from an antigen test, you’re the one causing it.
The level of drama from people arguing against COVID prevention measures is absurd. “Kids are being tortured with these tests!” “Oh my god, I cannot breath with a mask on!” I’m sick of this stuff, too, but the teenage-level angst is not helpful. No one takes criticism seriously when it’s wrapped in so much dishonest hyperbole.
> If your kids are experiencing horror and mental problems from an antigen test, you’re the one causing it.
This, though, is a crude overgeneralisation. Swizzling a swab in their nostrils (or around the back of their throat) could well cause instant, significant distress if they have a hypersensitivity disorder or other trauma.
It's necessary, it's appropriate, it's the right thing to do, and parents should try to do it.
But you're making a crude assumption about the difficulty of something that some very good parents of children with a variety of challenges will tell you may not be possible, especially with a very young child.
I am pro-vaccination, pro-testing, pro- whatever sane measures the appropriate health authority deem necessary. But just because they are necessary and appropriate in the aggregate does not make them easy and breezy at the individual level.
I am amazed at what some parents have stoically put up with and what kids will adapt to -- they are as I say, astonishingly resilient in general -- but not all kids can adapt and not all parents necessarily find it easy to medicalise the relationship with their children.
> Swizzling a swab in their nostrils (…) could well cause instant, significant distress if they have a hypersensitivity disorder or other trauma.
This is like saying that it’s absolute torture to make kids walk up two flights of stairs, and then when rebutted by someone else saying the kids will be fine, trotting out that some kids are in wheelchairs.
Yeah, some kids are special needs. It is intellectually dishonest to trot that out as an opposition to a general thing. Some kids legitimately cannot wear masks for various reasons. Some kids probably can’t handle being swabbed nasally. And some kids can’t walk up stairs. This is why we have accommodations while general guidelines apply to kids who do not have these uncommon issues. We still expect kids to learn math and to run around in PE even though some kids unfortunately can’t do either of those things.
> or around the back of their throat
I don’t know anyone who has ever swabbed their kid’s throat for COVID. Maybe that’s a thing some places. Sounds unpleasant although most kids would survive that just fine, too.
> This is like saying that it’s absolute torture to make kids walk up two flights of stairs, and then when rebutted by someone else saying the kids will be fine, trotting out that some kids are in wheelchairs.
No, it's not, because you're talking about an unusual and gross medical test. A literal, very personal intrusion, poking something far up where kids are told not to poke things. Not walking upstairs.
> I don’t know anyone who has ever swabbed their kid’s throat for COVID. Maybe that’s a thing some places. Sounds unpleasant although most kids would survive that just fine, too.
Most test kits don't require it; it's still the best way to get an accurate result, though (and it's very definitely part of the adult routine that they may have witnessed). Kids may have experienced the throat swab in a medical situation and be very resistant to the swab full stop.
> Yeah, some kids are special needs. It is intellectually dishonest to trot that out as an opposition to a general thing.
But it's intellectually honest to generalise saying "if your kids experience trauma, you caused it"?
You're proud of this argument so I'll leave it at that.
I don’t think kids generally see the tests as particularly gross. (They like to put their fingers up there, remember?) And certainly not unusual, not now at least. Maybe intrusive, but kids put up with far more intrusive stuff all the time. I brush my kids’ teeth for them. That is way more intrusive than a nasal swab. It also takes way longer.
Kids are quite adept at accepting things if the parents are consistent and reasonable. I see lots of little kids wearing masks whenever they’re in public because their parents and caregivers expect it. I see other kids who don’t and some of their parents explain to me all about how their kids “can’t” (with no hint of why they can’t). No surprise. If you don’t expect something, you’ll find your kids don’t do it. (My kids are ridiculously picky eaters. I’m willing to accept that this is my fault.)
And yeah, some kids are special needs in some way. But most are not. I’ve also had parents tell me that the only way they can get their kids to ever calm down is to put them in front of the TV. Sure. That’s definitely your kid and not your fault.
> I am not feigning outrage. I'm suggesting to you that you're being overbroad with your assertions in this context.
I‘ve been pretty clear that I agree some kids have special needs and should get special accommodations.
My point was that in general kids are totally fine with being swabbed for tests. (At least in the US. Sounds like your UK kits maybe suck.) Claiming that in general kids are being traumatized by being swabbed is an outright lie. Kids adapt to all sorts of things they don’t actually like.
To be clear, I also did not actually attack any particular parents here. I responded to this originally:
“Even when doing it "right," these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds.”
This is incorrect, but regardless it doesn’t even say that he has kids. My statement (“You’re the one causing the problems”) was a rhetorical device to answer the general claim that kids are being traumatized, not a literal accusation of blame.
> (My kids are ridiculously picky eaters. I’m willing to accept that this is my fault.)
Just to say, out of an urge to find some common ground: I was a "picky eater" -- initially whimsically and then ultimately rather more seriously, until early adulthood (though never to feeding tube territory, I was definitely underweight).
My parents would want me to tell you that it almost certainly isn't your fault.
And I can tell you from thinking it through that it was never really about foods I did or did not like. It was always about disgust, and deep-seated, too.
As I've said before in comments, it's actually a diagnosable eating disorder (ARFID) even at the fussy/faddy stage, and can become problematic even when it initially manifests as quite a mild or simply defiant thing.
To keep it on topic, here's where you might find yourself at odds with your own position further up the thread: if they do have any psychological basis for why they are picky, then you trying to make them do better through assertive parenting is more or less guaranteed to make it worse. Most of your parental instincts will be at odds with the outcome you desire.
I could tell you what worked for me if it would help.
My kids were both excellent eaters until we began to indulge their pickiness too much. For both of them we chose “eat more of the stuff you like” over “eat more variety” because we were more concerned with weight gain (as in our kids are both at the bottom end of the weight charts). I’m pretty sure that we created much of the problem. Most kids go through some picky phases but parents can definitely magnify them.
And sure, there are kids who are perhaps picky to the point of disorder. I don’t think that’s my kids.
"Eat more of the stuff you like" is definitely strategy zero -- it will keep even the pickiest kids alive with less intervention.
It's also why parents get called bad parents who when their ARFID kids will only eat two kinds of potato chips and one kind of cheese.
Strategy one: baseline foods and well-liked gravies/sauces. Do they eat rice? If so, Asian food is an amazing way to extend taste and texture tolerance, because special fried rices (like Nasi Goreng etc.) allow you to experiment with the amount of a thing you can bear at any one time, and also to add small amounts of other dishes to the safe rice as they want to.
Strategy two: comparable foods. Choose a restaurant not always because it has the thing they like, but sometimes because it has a different kind of meal that is extremely similar. Again, Asian food is amazing for this -- chicken katsu curry, if I'd known that was a thing when I was nine...
Strategy three: outsourcing. Your kids friends' parents are likely to get them to eat things you cannot. Because eating the thing at home, disappointing you by not being able to eat it, etc., is different.
Strategy four: participation. Cook the thing they'll eat but ask them to them stir it/help prepare it/be responsible for it.
Strategy five: cookery. Get them to choose a thing from a recipe book and be involved with it to the point that they are doing all the non-dangerous bits themselves quite young.
Strategy six: send them off to uni/college. I came back from uni in my second term largely cured, though I was never able to (and I am still unable to) eat breakfast with anyone else.
FWIW my ARFID was almost certainly triggered by an emotionally stressful environment and childhood illness.
I don't remember, but apparently I pretty much just catastrophically stopped eating most things; within a matter of weeks. I am one of three siblings and the other two are fine.
My issues with food had/have not very much to do with food itself. It's an eating disorder, and eating disorders are weirdly not much to do with food.