Caroline Watts, a practicing child therapist and Penn GSE’s Director of School and Community Engagement, shares how parents can address questions and fear around the virus.
Kids are going to have questions and fears about the COVID-19 virus.
Caroline Watts, a practicing child therapist and Penn GSE’s Director of School and Community Engagement, says parents should be prepared to address three areas:
“First, the health and safety issues at hand. What information and behaviors do we want to teach our kids?
“Secondly, I think about the emotional tone of things. How anxious am I? How anxious is my child? How anxious is the community they’re in? How can I help them feel stable, safe, and secure while also taking this very seriously?
“Third, I think about the context. This virus has brought out a lot of ugly rumors and prejudices, often directed at people from China or other Asian countries, as well as at Asian Americans. I want to make sure kids know that the virus doesn’t pick targets based on ethnicity."
Watts shares her suggestions for how parents can convey those messages to their kids in a thoughtful way.
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
Griffin Pitt’s upbringing made her passionate about water access and pollution, and Penn has given her the opportunity to explore these issues back home in North Carolina and abroad.
Helping robots work together to explore the Moon and Mars
Penn Engineers, NASA, and five other universities tested robotic systems designed to help unmanned explorers cooperate in the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico, paving the way for Moon and Mars exploration.
From framework to actions: Provost John L. Jackson Jr. talks Penn Forward
In a Q&A, Provost John L. Jackson Jr. explains the relationship between the strategic framework In Principle and Practice and Penn Forward—a new University-wide process and action plan that will advance Penn forward for the next decade and beyond.
