Or that they only learn how to emote and facial expressions from their limited interactions outside their home?
Wear a mask. The kids will be fine.
The way that neurotypical Americans currently use facial expressions for public social interaction isn't set in stone, inherent to humanity, or essential to normal development. It is a collection of accidental cultural practices, which are not shared throughout the world right now and will change in the future anyway. So, something might be speeding up the evolution of our cultural conventions right now--so what?
The kids will be fine.
They will take more harm from missing faces because their psychological development depends on reading face emotions. Covid death rate among children is extremely low but they can spread it to their parents are grandparents tho.
After this pandemic is all gone and done why don't we all wear Guy Fawkes masks for the rest of the life if faces don't matter as you imply. Maybe that way we can preserve our privacy and fight CCTV surveillance.
IMO masks are severely harming social and interpersonal development of young children, but any suggestion of removing the masks creates shit storm of controversy. The solution seems to be online learning, but it’s worth noting that a major group pushing for masks in school (teachers) are the same pushing online teaching. IMO That’s a disingenuous conflict of interest, but since pediatricians are also pushing masks for children in school, what’s the solution here? Maybe the solution is to create little plastic enclosed boxes so no child gets within 3 feet or 4 feet of another child. Everyone is surrounded by plastic like they are Hannibal Lecter, but at least they can see the smile on each other’s face…
That's because serious illnesses which are easily transmitted can severely harm social and interpersonal development.
Yes, kids do mostly OK with covid, but their parents and other close contacts may not. If wearing masks brings the risk level down enough to have school in person, that's probably better than online school without masks.
You can take the masks off when you are at home with your own kids.
Our kids still see other people's faces all the time. They see our faces, they see other kid's faces during meals / snacks, they see adult faces from a slight distance when we're outside.
I think my daughter was glad she was wearing a mask at that moment. Probably she'll have to wear that mask to school for most of the school year. I'd hate to be a teacher trying to figure out what my kids were actually thinking.
I see absolutely no reason to believe that, and plenty of reason to think it's total bunk. E.g., blind children exist, and they are not psychologically damaged by not being able to read faces.
If it doesn't matter, don't worry about it--and if it does matter, just ask! You don't need to be able to guess someone's emotions from their face for society to function.
This has not been my experience – I suspect I've always relied on body language at least as much as facial cues, and that other people wearing masks doesn't deprive me of as much information as it does for many others.
I wonder how much of that will stick around out of habit when we are eventually done with masks.
