Quarantine is Crushing My Extroverted Child
And he now aspires to be Dr. Dolittle
My extroverted son is slowly suffocating during this Covid-19 lockdown. To say he misses his social life would be an understatement. I am worried about the impact this is having on his emotional well being. And to be honest, I have no idea what to do about it.
We are doing all the things we are told to do. My son attends his class Zoom “Playdates” that I have taken on planning and scheduling for his sake. We do his daily Marco Polo submissions with his teachers and classmates. Both my kids get to Facetime with their extended families whenever they want. So neither one is starved of human interaction. It is just not at the level they are used to.
All of us are feeling the stress of social isolation in one-way or another. Humans, by nature are pack animals and prefer social order. However, for my son who is a larger than life extrovert, the toll is real.
You see, he is exhaustingly extroverted. When I was pregnant with my daughter, people would ask what we wanted. My answer was always the same: an introvert. I didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, as long as they were an introvert. And she is definitely more introverted than him. But this shelter in place may be making her more extroverted than I realized.
