Tag: Children

Categories
Politics

Biden Administration Directs FEMA to Assist Shelter Migrant Youngsters

Biden Administration Directs FEMA to Help Shelter Migrant Children

WASHINGTON – Biden’s government is instructing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help process an increasing number of children and teenagers who have occupied detention centers on the southwest border as the treatment of young migrants has come under increasing criticism.

FEMA, which usually provides financial assistance during natural disasters, will help find shelters and provide “food, water and basic health care” to thousands of young migrants, said Michael Hart, a spokesman for the agency, in a statement.

The government also urged Homeland Security officials to volunteer to “look after and assist unaccompanied minors” held in border prisons run by Customs and Border Guard.

Previous administrations also sent FEMA to help migrants cross borders. However, the Biden administration cannot use disaster relief to assist in processing migrants in Texas after crossing the border without the consent of Republican Greg Abbott. The states must apply to the federal government for funding.

A spokeswoman for the governor did not immediately respond to questions about whether he would apply.

More than 3,700 young people were in customs and border protection facilities this week, more than the around 2,600 children and young people who were detained in such detention centers in June 2019. Troy Miller, the acting commissioner for customs and border protection, said last week that 9,457 children, including teenagers, were detained at the border without parents in February, up from more than 5,800 in January.

The Biden government has so far failed to process the young migrants quickly and move them to emergency shelters managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, where they will be held until the government matches them with a sponsor. The administration has made efforts to expand the capacity of these shelters, which have held around 8,500 migrants this week. The Biden government recently ordered shelters to return the children to normal capacity despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“A border guard is not a place for a child,” said Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security minister, in a statement on Saturday. “Our goal is to have unaccompanied children brought to HHS as soon as possible.”

Mr Abbott and other Republicans have characterized the rise in border crossings as a direct result of Mr Biden’s aim to roll back President Donald J. Trump’s restrictive immigration policies. But Mr Biden has maintained a pandemic-pandemic emergency rule that allows border officials to quickly turn away migrants at the border, with the exception of unaccompanied minors.

“They express surprise and shock at the fact that they are overwhelmed when the Border Patrol and everyone here in Texas knew this was coming,” Abbott said.

Updated

March 14, 2021, 5:06 p.m. ET

New York Republican Representative John Katko said if FEMA was involved, “by definition, it is a disaster.”

“I have serious concerns that this will strain an already tight FEMA workforce and budget,” he said, “with an ongoing pandemic and Atlantic hurricane season in less than three months.”

The spate of crossroads increases the pressure in a divisive political struggle that has also faced the last three governments.

Mr Biden’s critics have moved swiftly in recent days to blame him for the surge in arrivals which they say jeopardize the security, economic recovery and health of the country as the coronavirus pandemic continues Thousands of lives claimed.

Many of them seem eager to draw attention from the president’s handling of the pandemic and his publicly well-received $ 1.9 trillion stimulus plan on an issue that unites the Republican Party as opposed to Democrats could.

The spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi described the influx of migrants, especially children, on Sunday as “a humanitarian challenge for all of us”. But she was determined to blame Mr Trump and his policies, as well as the longstanding unrest in Central America that had driven waves of migrants north.

“What the administration has inherited is a broken system on the border, and they are working to correct that in the interests of the children,” she said in “This Week” on ABC.

Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat of Texas, who also referred to the Trump administration, said she found the situation “unacceptable” at a processing facility she visited in El Paso on Friday.

Nicholas Fandos and Chris Cameron contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Politics

Dealing with Stress, Biden Administration Scrambles to Shelter Migrant Kids

Facing Pressure, Biden Administration Scrambles to Shelter Migrant Children

Republicans refer to the situation as a crisis causing Mr. Biden and signal a goal of using his immigration agenda as a political weapon against him in 2022. California representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, plans to take other Republicans on a trip to the border to highlight the problem. Republican James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, called the surge in migration a signal “to the world that our immigration laws can be violated with little or no consequence” on Wednesday.

However, Mr Biden has continued to apply a Trump-era rule to quickly turn away most migrants at the border, with the exception of unaccompanied minors. The government last week ordered shelters to return the children to normal capacity despite the coronavirus pandemic.

To find extra space for the kids, the Biden government is considering moving them to disused school buildings, military bases, and even on NASA’s Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, California. This emerges from a memo from the Times. The NASA site would “remain unoccupied but would be available for use when HHS urgently needs additional shelter,” the memo said.

Darryl Waller, a NASA spokesman, confirmed in a statement that the government is considering moving migrant children to “currently vacant lots” on the site. “These efforts will not affect NASA’s ability to conduct its main missions,” he said.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr Biden advocated a more humane approach to border immigration, with priority investing in Central America to prevent illegal immigration. But it has resulted in those who have fled poverty and persecution and see a better chance of entering the United States than they did under the Trump administration.

“One of the things I think is important is that we’ve seen waves before,” said Ms. Jacobson. “Surges tend to respond to hope. And there was great hope for a more humane policy. “

Part of the Obama administration’s response was to create a program to allow Central American children to seek protection from their home countries.

Categories
Health

Covid vaccine for elementary college kids doubtless coming in 2022

Covid vaccine for elementary school children likely coming in 2022

Saundra Murphys third grade students participate in silent reading at the start of class on the first day of class at Weaverville Elementary School on Monday, August 17, 2020 in Weaverville, CA.

Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Primary school children are likely to get Covid-19 vaccinations early next year, said Dr. Anthony Fauci on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday advance.

Fauci, the government’s leading epidemiologist, said vaccine safety studies for younger children are ongoing.

“If you realistically project when we will be able to get enough data to say that elementary school children can be vaccinated, I would think that this would be the end of the year at the earliest and very likely the first quarter of 2022 “said Fauci.

Federal regulators have approved three Covid-19 vaccines to fight the pandemic. Two vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are approved for adults aged 18 and over.

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine can be given to people aged 16 and over, although currently eligibility for young people is strictly limited to those who meet certain criteria, e.g. B. the underlying diseases.

Vaccinating children could help states and communities open schools and safely return to teaching in person. Fewer children than adults may have Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but they can still contract the virus, become seriously ill, and pass it on to others.

Fauci said students can likely get vaccines early in the fall school year.

“I’m not sure if it’s exactly the first day the school opens, but it’s pretty close,” he said.

According to CDC data, more than 72 million vaccine doses have been administered in the US to date. About one in five adults has received at least one dose and about one in ten adults has received two.

Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine was approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday and is designed to expedite the campaign to vaccinate every American. The federal government plans to hand out four million cans next week.

Subscribe to CNBC Pro for the live TV stream, deep insights and analysis of how to invest during the next president’s term.

Categories
Health

New Findings on 2 Methods Kids Turn into Severely Ailing From the Coronavirus

New Findings on 2 Ways Children Become Seriously Ill From the Coronavirus

A large nationwide study found important differences in the two main causes of serious illness in children from the coronavirus. These results can help doctors and parents better identify the conditions and understand more about the children at risk.

The study, published Wednesday in JAMA magazine, analyzed 1,116 cases of young people being treated in 66 hospitals in 31 states. Just over half of the patients had acute Covid-19, the predominantly lung-related disease that affects most adults with the virus, while 539 patients had the inflammatory syndrome, which in some children follows a typical mild one weeks Disease broke out, initial infection.

The researchers found some similarities, but also significant differences, in the symptoms and characteristics of the patients, who ranged from infants to 20-year-olds who were hospitalized between March 15 and October 31 last year.

Young people with the syndrome known as Pediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, or MIS-C, were more likely to be between 6 and 12 years old, while more than 80 percent of patients with acute Covid-19 were either younger than 6 years or older were as 12.

More than two-thirds of patients with both conditions were Black or Hispanic, which experts say most likely reflects socio-economic and other factors that some communities have disproportionately exposed to the virus.

“It is still shocking that the vast majority of patients are not white, and that goes for MIS-C and for acute Covid,” said Dr. Jean A. Ballweg, Medical Director, Pediatric Heart Transplant and Advanced Heart Failure at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, who was not involved in the study. “There are clearly racial differences.”

For unclear reasons, while Hispanic adolescents appeared to be equally at risk for both conditions, black children appeared to be at greater risk for developing the inflammatory syndrome than the acute disease, said Dr. Adrienne Randolph, the study’s lead author and a specialist in pediatric intensive care at Boston Children’s Hospital.

One possible clue that the authors mention is that in Kawasaki disease, a rare childhood inflammatory syndrome that shares similarities with some aspects of MIS-C, black children are more likely to have cardiac abnormalities and are less responsive to one of the standard treatments: intravenous Immunoglobulin.

The researchers found that young people with the inflammatory syndrome were significantly more likely to have no underlying illnesses than those with acute Covid. Nevertheless, more than a third of patients with acute Covid had no previous illness. “It’s not that previously healthy children are completely unscathed here,” said Dr. Randolph.

In the study, obesity was assessed separately from other underlying health conditions and only in patients 2 years and older. It found that a slightly higher percentage of young people with acute Covid were obese.

Updated

Apr. 26, 2021 at 1:54 am ET

Dr. Srinivas Murthy, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the study, said he was not convinced the results show that healthy children are at higher risk for MIS-C. It could “mostly be a numbers game where the proportion of infected children and the proportion of healthy children is out there, instead of saying that healthy children have something immune that puts them at disproportionately higher risk,” he said.

Overall, the study’s documentation of the differences between the two conditions was useful, especially because it reflected “a reasonably representative group of hospitals in the US.”

Young people with the inflammatory syndrome were more likely to have had to be treated in intensive care units. Her symptoms more commonly included gastrointestinal problems and inflammation, as well as skin and mucous membranes. They were also much more likely to have heart problems, although many of the acute Covid patients didn’t get detailed heart exams, the study said.

About the same large proportion of patients with any disease – more than half – required airway support, with slightly less than a third of patients requiring mechanical ventilation. About the same small number of patients in each group died: 10 with MIS-C and eight with acute Covid-19.

The data does not reflect a recent surge in inflammatory syndrome cases that followed a surge in total Covid-19 infections across the country during the winter holiday season. Some hospitals have reported that there were more seriously ill MIS-C patients in the current wave compared to previous waves.

“I’ll be intrigued to see a comparison with this group from November 1st because I think we all felt that the kids with MIS-C have been even sicker lately,” said Dr. Ball path.

An optimistic sign from the study was that most severe heart problems in young people with inflammatory syndrome improved to normal within 30 days. Dr. However, Randolph said any remaining effects are still unknown, which is why one of her co-authors, Dr. Jane Newburger, assistant director of academic affairs in the cardiology department at Boston Children’s Hospital, conducted a statewide study to track children with inflammatory syndrome for up to five years.

“We can’t say 100 percent for sure that everything will be normal in the long run,” said Dr. Randolph.

Categories
World News

Squealing Kids and Noisy Neighbors? There’s a Map for That

Squealing Children and Noisy Neighbors? There’s a Map for That

Noisy kids skateboarding in the streets. Couples quarrel in their homes. People gathered on the sidewalk and clapped for hours. Some people would describe these activities as noise pollution. A new website in Japan put the perpetrators on a map and sparked debate about those who are disturbing the peace.

The DQN Today website describes itself as a crowdsourcing guide to help house hunters avoid neighborhoods where “stupid parents let their children play in the streets and parking lots”. It is populated by maps depicting the Dorozoku or the “street tribe”. This term applies to people who block the path or wreak havoc in public.

Local residents who find noise unbearable have found a point of sale on the website that collects anonymous information about neighbors and records each complaint on an interactive map to create a detailed record of the irritating sounds and sights of Japan.

Noise complaints have increased in the capital, Tokyo, and police saw a 30 percent increase between March and April last year. At that point, the government closed schools and advised residents to work remotely because of the coronavirus, which led some to become all too aware of noises in their home country that they had previously paid little attention to.

Outside, most of the parks have remained open and crowded, although some play areas were cordoned off during the Japanese state of emergency.

The website creator initially responded via email to questions about the website on Wednesday but declined to provide his full name. He said the map was a less subtle clue to residents – they know who they are, although they’re never named – and to government officials, whom he hoped would look out. The creator, who describes himself as a freelance web developer based in Yokohama, Japan and using the Twitter handle @hotaniya, later stopped responding to emails.

The site started in 2016 and initially had a few hundred users. It has grown exponentially since then, as it fueled debate, especially about what experts say appears to be society’s growing intolerance of the sounds of children playing.

While many on social media have praised the site for shedding light on the problem of noise, some parents find their approach problematic and fear a growing gap between families with children and neighbors they can’t stand. Among the 6,000 wide-ranging complaints covering topics such as parking violations, excessive swearing, or stray cats scratching car tires, there are many entries that single out areas frequented by unsupervised children.

Saori Hiramoto, 35, an activist who successfully campaigned for the Tokyo metropolitan government in 2019 to allow strollers on crowded trains, said the card showed a breakdown in communications and the rupture of a society that was once interdependent.

“I really find it so difficult to raise children,” she said. “People say parents should be responsible for childcare, but it’s very difficult, especially for single parents.” We have reached our limits.

“I think society or community should observe and raise children as members of society,” she added.

Akihiko Watanabe, a professor in the Faculty of Education at Shiga University near Kyoto, said in an interview on Wednesday that the card has the potential to harm children and adolescents by revealing places they hang out unsupervised. But some parents become defensive about complaints about their children, making it difficult for others to reach out to them with concerns, he said.

“In the past, parents have apologized and disciplined their children,” he said. “But now parents are becoming hostile to people who scold.”

Between March and April last year, at least 1,500 new users registered to use the card. One complaint reads: The assemblies “are terribly talkative and loud. I stared at each other for a long time, but they didn’t stop. Children are also left unattended and make strange noises. “

Another says, “Three or four kids gather and play loudly on vacation, and a high-pitched voice echoes around the neighborhood.”

“I forgot this was a road,” wrote another user of an asphalt track frequented by teenage skateboarders.

The Dorozoku website isn’t the first digital map to cause controversy over the details. Oshimaland logs “stigmatized real estate” in Japan and around the world where murders, suicides and fires have occurred. Recently, new users of the Dorozoku card have attempted to log complaints about public harassment in Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and the UK. However, the publication is restricted to Japan for legal reasons.

The mapping page does not allow comments aimed directly at private homes or schools, but does allow references to unsupervised children playing on nearby streets and points out that it was ultimately the responsibility of parents and schools to supervise children at all times.

Over the years, residents in different parts of the country have opposed the building of kindergartens, even though parents have called for cheaper day care options. Kobe residents sued a kindergarten for playground cacophony in 2016, but the case was dismissed in 2017.

Experts see a growing intolerance of children playing as some in the country’s aging population become less familiar with the sounds of young children. Over the years, residents of various counties have opposed the building of kindergartens, despite parents calling for cheaper daycare options and economists fear that people in Japan with the oldest population may not have enough babies.

Public parks have signs prohibiting all types of activity in response to complaints from local residents. Nishi-Ikebukuro Park in Toshima, Tokyo, has drawn attention for its bans on 45 different activities such as skateboarding, jumping rope and soccer. A local official said the bans were due to a decade worth of complaints.

Ko Fujii, founder and executive director of Makaira Public Affairs Agency and visiting professor at the Center for Regulatory Strategies at Tama University in Tokyo, has seen incidents in recent years where disgruntled commuters harassed mothers who were carrying babies on public transport.

The father of two young children, Mr. Fujii, said he put a sticker with the slogan “We love babies, it’s okay to cry” to show support to other parents.

“I think some people are so frustrated with city life that they can get so insidious,” he said.

There is no shortage of noise disputes between neighbors in Japan. A 38-year-old construction worker was stabbed to death at his parents’ apartment in Tokyo in May by a 60-year-old resident of the building who told police he “couldn’t stand the loud footsteps and voices”.

On Wednesday, a couple in Kyoto won a case against six neighbors who had sued them for harassment over noise disputes involving their children. When one of the plaintiffs, Shu Murayama, was reached by phone, he said he saw the map as a helpful resource for others.

“You can avoid problems with it,” he said, adding that he had noticed complaints in his own neighborhood.

Categories
Health

Kids Are Consuming Hand Sanitizer. Right here’s The way to Preserve Them Protected.

Children Are Consuming Hand Sanitizer. Here’s How to Keep Them Safe.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers became a must have during the pandemic. But as sales rose and families stocked up, poison centers received more and more calls about small children they’d accidentally picked up.

Even now, roughly a year after the frenzy of stocking up on disinfectants began, hand sanitizer is still easy to get hold of in many households, and calls to the country’s poison control centers are at a faster pace than before the pandemic.

In the past year, there were more than 20,000 exposures to hand sanitizer in children under 6, an increase of 40 percent over 2019. This is based on data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers obtained from the New York Times.

Most of these exposures involved children up to 2 years of age who had ingested the disinfectant. In many cases, no symptoms were noted, which means the child may have just taken or licked a brief taste, which usually doesn’t have significant health effects, said Dr. Justin Arnold, the Medical Director of the Florida Poison Information Center Tampa. In other cases, vomiting, coughing and mouth irritation occurred in children.

While most cases are mild, by properly storing the disinfectant and monitoring young children while using it, parents can avoid the stress of calling poison control or taking an unnecessary trip to the emergency room.

The increase in exposures has continued over the past few months. In January, for example, almost 34 percent more exposure to hand sanitizer was reported in children under 6 than in the previous year.

Exposure to household cleaners such as liquid laundry detergent packs, bleach, all-purpose cleaners, drain cleaners, and oven cleaners also increased, increasing 10 percent in children under 6 years of age in the first few months of the pandemic. This comes from a report published in August by the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

But when it comes to hand sanitizer that we regularly reach for when we’re outside and all our hands frothed up, it’s easy to let go of your guard, experts said. Mainly because hand sanitizer does not come with a child-resistant closure.

“People don’t realize how toxic it is when ingested, what effects it has, and what to do to store it safely,” said William Eggleston, clinical toxicologist at the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse, NY. and an assistant professor at Binghamton University School of Pharmacy.

It depends on how much is swallowed.

If children take enough alcohol-based hand sanitizer, they can get “dangerously drunk,” said Dr. Diane Calello, a pediatric toxicologist and executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Center.

Last spring, Dr. Calello co-authored a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the rise in calls to poison centers warning parents to keep hand sanitisers, detergents and disinfectants away from children. The report highlighted the case of a preschooler who became unresponsive in her home near a 64-ounce bottle of ethanol-based hand sanitizer. Her blood alcohol level was 0.27 percent, more than three times the legal limit above which an adult is not allowed to drive.

Updated

Apr. 25, 2021, 2:50 p.m. ET

Hand sanitizer is 60 to 95 percent alcohol, a much higher concentration than beer, wine, or most liquor. A child weighing 20 pounds who drank a tablespoon or two could get high, said Dr. Calello and “a little drunk” appear.

“If a dose goes higher, they can become very sleepy and have difficulty breathing, just like we see with severe alcohol intoxication in adults,” she added.

After drinking a small amount of alcohol, children are more likely than adults to experience dangerous blood sugar drops, which can make them sluggish from about six to ten hours after consumption, said Dr. Calello.

Ingesting disinfectants can also be irritating to the throat or stomach, especially if they’re formulated with isopropyl alcohol, an ingredient often found in alcohol, the experts say.

Keep all hand sanitizer out of the reach of children – and out of sight, even if you only have a small bottle tucked in a purse or backpack.

“It is important for parents to treat it like household drugs,” said Dr. Eggleston.

You may be wondering if your family should avoid hand sanitizer entirely. While hand washing is the most effective way to get rid of germs, the CDC nonetheless recommends using a hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus when soap and water are not readily available.

If you have children under 6 at home, supervise them while they use it, said Dr. Arnold.

“You don’t want the kid to pump their own and start trying,” he added.

There was a surge in calls to U.S. poison centers in July and August after the Food and Drug Administration warned about hand sanitizer, which may contain methanol, which can be toxic if ingested. Hand sanitisers should never contain methanol.

“You can die if you drink methanol – and people do,” said Dr. Calello.

However, the absorption of methanol into the skin is “quite low,” she added.

You can visit the FDA website for a list of disinfectants that should not be used (including several brands imported from Mexico that contain methanol). If you find you have any of these products at home, the FDA recommends placing the hand sanitizer bottle in a hazardous waste container, if available, and contacting your local waste disposal center for advice on the safest disposal. Do not flush, pour it down the drain, or mix it with other liquids.

If your child has swallowed hand sanitizer, don’t try to induce vomiting, the experts said. Call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 for quick instructions on best course of action.

If your child is passed out, behaves abnormally, has difficulty waking up, or has difficulty breathing, call 911.

“Fortunately, the milder cases are much more common,” said Dr. Calello. “More likely we’ll say, ‘Stay home, watch him, I’ll call you back in an hour or half an hour.’ In this way we keep a lot of people away from the hospital by giving them real-time telephone instructions. “

You should also call poison control if your child has hand sanitizer in their eyes. In the United States, there were about 900 reports of eye exposure in children under 6 years of age in 2020, up 54 percent from 2019. A recent JAMA Ophthalmology study in France, reviewing data from poison centers, found this hand to be related to the eye Disinfectant exposure in children increased seven-fold in 2020 compared to 2019, and the number of surgeries performed to Addressing the resulting chemical injuries required has increased.

“In an emergency, any clean liquid can be used to rinse the eye after chemical exposure,” wrote Dr. Kathryn Colby, an ophthalmologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, in a comment published in JAMA Ophthalmology last month. “Finally,” she added, “parents need to understand the importance of an eye exam when exposure occurs in children,” as early diagnosis and treatment is critical.

Categories
Health

Covid-Linked Syndrome in Kids Is Rising, and Instances Are Extra Extreme

Covid-Linked Syndrome in Children Is Growing, and Cases Are More Severe

“We’re getting more of these MIS-C kids now, but this time it just seems like a higher percentage of them are really seriously ill,” said Dr. Roberta DeBiasi, Infectious Disease Director at Children’s National Hospital in Washington. DC During the first wave of the hospital, roughly half of the patients needed intensive care treatment, but now 80 to 90 percent do.

The reasons are unclear. The surge follows the general surge in Covid cases in the US after the winter holiday season, and more cases can simply increase the likelihood of serious illnesses occurring. So far, there is no evidence that newer coronavirus variants are responsible, and experts say it is too early to speculate on the effects of variants on the syndrome.

The condition remains rare. The latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 2,060 cases in 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, including 30 deaths. The mean age was 9 years, but infants up to 20 years of age were affected. The data, which are not complete until mid-December, show that the case rate has increased since mid-October.

While most young people, including those who became critically ill, survived in relatively healthy condition and went home, doctors are not sure if they will experience persistent heart or other problems.

“We really don’t know what’s going to happen in the long run,” said Dr. Jean Ballweg, Medical Director of Pediatric Heart Transplant and Advanced Heart Failure at the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., Where April through October. The hospital treated about two cases a month, about 30 percent of them in intensive care. That rose to 10 cases in December and 12 in January, with 60 percent requiring intensive care – most of the ventilators needed. “Obviously they seem sicker,” she said.

Categories
Health

Juggling My Kids, Their Alcoholic Sitter and My Personal Sobriety

Juggling My Children, Their Alcoholic Sitter and My Own Sobriety

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says she should stay. It is said that it is important to be of use. Another alcoholic’s community is crucial, they say. Still, I wish she hadn’t confessed. I wish she hadn’t told me about the kitchen island, in front of the kids as they ate spaghetti, as they ate every word, and saved her questions for the morning when I know they’ll ask me: what is drinking? What is sober Why is her face so fluffy?

They don’t know what it is to be bloated. They don’t understand edema or addiction. You’ve never seen me drink alcohol, not once, never. I have to explain it to you. They share my blood so it is possible that this thing, this alcoholic ailment, could metastasize within them, even now when they are in their beds chatting back and forth. I’ll have to explain at least part of it to them in the morning.

One day they’ll want to know everything. How I stopped drinking How I writhed as alcohol and drugs went out of my system. How dry I was. For years I was dry like a desert, like the air in winter, like a heap of ash. Angry. Pimples. Thirsty. That first year I locked myself in a halfway house where I learned how to shower, how to clean a toilet, how to cook spaghetti, how to wash dishes, how to make a bed, why to care should take care of making his bed. And AA meetings every day. Every day for three years. I had almost memorized the big book – the acceptance passage, the serenity prayer, how it works, the steps and traditions. I remember so little now.

I’ve been sober for 18 years, so I haven’t even thought about drinking and drugs for that long. Not really, anyway. Not often. Definitely not every day. But every now and then, maybe at dinner with friends, when someone orders a red wine, a beer or a vodka tonic.

Vodka. I would like seven vodka tonics. I would like to slip into a bottle of vodka, bathe in it, slosh in it, only for the night, only for a short time.

So I know my addiction is still there, still lurking, still hungry. After 18 years, it is likely to be starved, but it is not starving. Hunger is something you die of, and addiction cannot be killed. You can’t cut it out or eradicate it. You have to contain it. Damn. Barricade it. Even then, it whispers. It gurgles through the levees you build. It spurts out a Morse code of desire. You get a certain type of numbness, a certain numbness, every day. That’s the job. This is how you develop from drunk to dry drunk to sober person. You will never be human. You will always be a sober person – a person almost, but not quite.

My babysitter has been sober for nine days. When she tells me she says how proud she is. I gave her my children for the night. If I go downstairs, they will sleep or lie in bed thinking about going to sleep. You and I will talk. I’ll tell her how it was, what happened, how it is today. I’m going to tell her half-truths – not even. She will tell me today, with her nine sober days, how it is for her now. I’ll believe half of what she says – not even.

Categories
Health

Grief Movies For Kids – The New York Occasions

Grief Films For Children - The New York Times

There’s no way to gloss it over: the pandemic has plunged the world into a crisis of grief. It caused the deaths of over 290,000 people in the United States, including many grandparents and parents. According to a study by the United Hospital Fund, 4,200 children in New York state alone lost a parent or caregiver to Covid-19 between March and July. (These were the latest available numbers on the death of the parents from Covid.)

For every family who lost a loved one this year, regardless of the cause of death, the pandemic has prevented them from properly mourning their loss. And now the holiday season has arrived, which can be a cause of grief, especially for children.

Children who lose a parent are at greater risk of permanent mental health problems, including anxiety and depression. To support a grieving child, one needs to normalize their feelings and give them tools to cope with – but talking about death can sometimes feel overwhelming. Parents and children may both be reluctant to have conversations that create difficult emotions, but it is important that parents provide opportunities to recognize their child’s feelings.

Film can be a gift in these times. Often times, a film about death can provide just enough space for productive discussion. Providing examples of the loss of others can help children feel less isolated in their own bereavement. Watching a character in a movie can make the child think about their own journey of grief and the tools they may be able to cope with.

The films below, suitable for children ages 6 and up, provide helpful ways to explore death and the emotions associated with it, as well as a chance for parents to talk about loss. Contents that could be disruptive to young children are noted.

109 minutes; Rated PG; available on Disney +

Based on the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), this colorful, Oscar-winning Pixar film follows 12-year-old Miguel’s journey to the land of the dead. There he reveals family secrets and learns that the dead continue to exist in the memory of the living.

118 minutes; Rated G; available from Amazon.

After a young boy named Alec and a horse were washed up on a desert island by a shipwreck that killed Alec’s father, the orphaned boy and the animal soon form an inseparable bond. The couple is rescued, and Alec is determined to turn “The Black” into a racehorse with the help of an old trainer. Alec’s connection with the horse brings him comfort and helps him deal with his grief for his father.

107 minutes; Rated PG; available from Amazon.

After her mother dies in a car accident, 13-year-old Amy (played by a young Anna Paquin) is sent from New Zealand to Canada to live with her father. She adopts a nest of abandoned goose eggs, and when they hatch she is responsible for teaching the goslings’ survival skills – including flying south for the winter. While Amy takes on the role of mother for the goslings, she can mourn her own mother. Please note: the car accident is shown in the opening sequence of the film.

100 minutes (subtitles); available from Amazon.

After her mother dies, 6-year-old Frida has to move from Barcelona to the countryside to live with her aunt, uncle and younger cousin. The young girl soon struggles with grief and her place in this new family. The film is often presented from Frida’s point of view, with overheard conversations and waist-high camera angles, and is based on the director’s personal experiences with loss.

128 minutes; Rated PG-13; available from Amazon.

Conor’s mother is seriously ill and the 13-year-old struggles with anger, sadness, guilt, and expectant grief. To deal with all the overwhelming emotions, Conor (Lewis MacDougall) conjures up a monster who offers three fables and then demands one of him – it has to be his ultimate truth. MacDougall gives an authentic performance as a boy who learns to face the truth even though it is contradicting and complex. Please Note: There is some property demolition, physical bullying, and verbal abuse.

103 minutes; Rated PG; available on HBO max.

In this feature of the Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli, Anna is sent by her foster mother to bring relatives at the seaside into the fresh air after an asthma attack. There she ventures into an abandoned mansion and discovers a new friend, Marnie, who may or may not be her grandmother’s ghost. Anna is then forced to grapple with feelings that she has avoided because of the loss of her family.

98 minutes (subtitles); Rated PG; available from Amazon.

The matriarch of a family in China is diagnosed with terminal cancer, but no one told her. The family gets together one last time under the guise of a grand wedding, but it really is a goodbye. The film is based on the personal story of the writer and director Lula Wang and shows profound cultural differences in attitudes towards death and grief.