Find Your Beebo

The pandemic is having a disastrous effect on children. Mental health experts have warned that the effect can be compared to the trauma children suffer after a calamity or a natural disaster. It’s going to take a long time to help children overcome this trauma.

Those of you who have young kids at home know that a year long lock down and remote learning has created challenges for both the children and for parents. At an age when children learn so much from social engagement, an important phase of their development has been compromised.

I am worried that they are missing experiences that help develop their social skills, curiosity, capacity for empathy and compassion. I am concerned that they are deprived of some of the real world encounters that fuel their curiosity, imagination and creativity.

To help parents with the process of compensating for some of these missed opportunities for learning from the real world encounters, I have been working on introducing a new friend in your children’s imagination. My hope is that my upcoming book of poems “Find your Beebo” will trigger conversations between you and your child and between Beebo and your child. Beebo will bring into their consciousness simple provocations, sensations, and images that they normally receive from real world encounters. My hope is that Beebo will be their friend, who will keep them from straying into isolation, confusion and helplessness.

Here I present another image of Beebo. Beebo is a child inside each of us, who we often forget as we grow up. Please remind your child to find their Beebo and to hold on to Beebo because Beebo knows a lot about living life with curiosity, compassion and creativity.