My Child’s School Demands A Covid Test — How Do I Respond?

This email ticked me off

A parent writes:

Our school is asking that we upload a negative COVID test result to Primary Health before returning from breaks, although as far as I understand it's a California Department of Public Health linked site, and so we are not very comfortable uploading anything there.  What are other people's experiences regarding the same?

Thanks and Regards,

A California Mother

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Dear California Mother,

Please do not give your child that horrible test.

You are paving a road for so much bad by encouraging your child to take this test and by allowing the school to think that it is okay. So few people will stand up to the nonsense, which means that the nonsense will never end.

It does not end by the bad people suddenly backing down and saying they were wrong. It does not end by most folks just getting tired of it. I have an endless list of examples through history of neither of those bringing change. Change takes place when the resolute person refuses to give in.

I do not know anyone at your child's school, but I suppose the school is likely to laugh at you if you tell the principal that you draw a boundary between uploading to the school website, or to some app, or directly to California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) database. Where the test is uploaded is a rather frivolous concern when one is following all the other protocols.

But perhaps this is the hill you wish to die on. If it is, I would like to congratulate you for having had enough.

Values v. Preferences

So we arrive at a question — Will you pull your child out of school over a test? (Which would indicate that it is a value to you.) Or do you merely have a preference that the test not be sent to CDPH?

The question of value versus preference is an important one to get straight about.

If it is a preference to you then tell the headmaster that your family will not be following this directive. If he objects, get your lawyer to send a threatening letter and follow up with a call. If the headmaster still objects, find out what the consequences will be. If the consequences are too great, then give in. You can feel good that you put up a little fight before giving in.

If it is a value to you, then I have a solution and I am sure you will win.

Drawing Your Boundaries A Little Wider

You see, if you do not take the test, and you do not force the test on your child, then you do not have to fight this fight over where to upload it. By drawing an earlier and wide boundary, you avoid the actual fight. There is an even better earlier boundary to draw. If you will not wear the mask you do not have to fight the test. If you resolutely say “No!” to all of this nonsense, you do not have to fight this “death by a thousand cuts” game that is being played with parents.

If you play the death by a thousand cuts game, let me tell you how it ends — you lose.

Even worse, it is your child who loses.

I say that, because this is what happens — If you will take the test, then you will do worse. If you will mask your child, you will do worse. You have simply not heard the right reason yet.

Maybe I am wrong.

Maybe you are the uncommon exception.

But that has been my experience to date — if you will put the mask on your child, you will put the shot in your child's arm, you just haven't heard the right reason yet. Again, we come back to the question of preferences v. values and being very clear with yourself about where you stand.

Perhaps You Like The Shot — Your Current Trajectory Seems To Indicate So

Perhaps you like the shot. Perhaps you do not. I do not know. The most certain way to prevent the shot is to say “No!” to the mask. In doing so, you build your muscles for resisting the health mandates and you do so on a less difficult issue.

The face mask was one of the great gifts of 2020 and beyond, as it allows those who see the evil for what it is to exercise their muscles to oppose this evil in all of its forms.

If you do not like the vaccine, then at the pace you are currently going, by the time a vaccine mandate comes you will have not practiced saying “No!” and you will have, in fact, done even worse — you will have shown your child the same. Your child (whether 8 or 18) will have little ability to engage in the self-deception needed to make sense of what is happening beyond this: my parents lie, my parents put me at risk, and my parents have poor boundaries with me.

Again, that is almost certainly three of the messages you are communicating to your child. Surely you are also communicating other messages, but these three are quite harmful on the parent-child relationship. That harm may be uncomfortable to you in the long term and short term, but is ultimately most damaging to your child, who you have an obligation to protect from such senseless and frivolous harm.

I will explain each of those a little more in depth.

You Are Lying

You are lying when you allow your child to wear the mask. You are telling the lie that the face mask works to prevent the spread of a respiratory virus. It does not. If you know already it does not and your child knows you know, then that is even worse. Then you are telling your child that it is okay to lie to others even when you know they are wrong. You are telling your child this behavior (lying) is acceptable, as long as it makes it easier to get through the day.

I have little certainty what is on the surface of the test or how it biologically harms people. The test however is a lie. It does not measure for anything meaningful, yet it triggers false negatives and allows the state of emergency to continue. You are telling your child that not only do you believe it is okay to lie, but that it is okay to lie in a way that has a harmful effect on individuals you know as well as on society.

No matter how much a child loves a parent, few children are deceptive enough with themselves to generously ignore the lying of a parent. Our children see our flaws (our lies among them) more clearly than we ourselves see them. That close examination of our own personalities as parents is very good for us if we let it be.

I am not saying to let the child make the decisions, not at all. I am saying to make the most ethical and moral decisions you can so that if you oppose your child, that at least the child has an upright example to follow. The example of forcing, coercing, or even allowing your child to take the test is simply a massive lie with no solid moral footing. Your child is not likely to soon forget that.

You Are Putting Your Child At Risk

As for the putting the child at risk issue, one of the jobs of the parent is to care for the child and to bring the child into adulthood as a functioning member of society. Of course there is rebellion among children, but you need to help be a safe refuge and carry a high standard for the child to continue to return to and to continue to improve towards.

You are not doing that, dear reader, you are inviting danger into your home. You are the one refusing to protect your child from the psychosis of this day. You appear to recognize the psychosis but are not stopping the psychosis. That is not acceptable. These times may be hard times. There may be reduced affluence for a time for those who stand firm on their values.

There may be reduced opportunities. There may be untold difficulties. That is normal for all periods in time. Seldom is doing the easy thing synonymous with doing the right thing. If you see the difference between right and wrong, then you need to be doing right. And there is no gray with these health mandates, they are across-the-board lies. There is very clear black and white.

You Are Showing Poor Boundaries

And finally -- boundaries. Your job as an adult, the job of any adult is to identify their boundaries, communicate their boundaries, and defend their boundaries. That is the same as to say: identify your values, communicate your values, and defend your values.

This is fundamental work of a functioning adult. You do not seem to be stepping into that roll right now. This sends a very bad message to a child and these boundaries are so important for a child now and for decades into the future, almost certainly one day impacting your grandchildren as well.

If you cannot have healthy boundaries on this very cut-and-dry issue, there are likely other crucial areas of life you are allowing to fall in neglect as it relates to your child.

This Is The Solution That Will Guarantee Victory

So here is my solution and it is guaranteed to bring you a win.

1.) Go home and talk this over with your spouse (or co-parent) until you come to an agreement,

2.) Gather the family together and tell the family that you are going to take a different plan of action,

3.) Tell them that no one is going to be allowed to participate in any of the health measures,

4.) Tell them that there may be consequences, but that those consequences are worth it for the values you hold as a family,

5.) Collect all the masks and all the tests and take them outside to burn them. Do not just throw them away or give them to someone else. Make it so that there is no going back and make it so no one else has access to your supply of devices that have been used for such evil. The horrors in our society that have taken place since the Ides of March 2020 rest upon devices such as the mask and the test. When I say they have been used for such evil, it is not with hyperbole that I speak. And then finally…

6.) Follow through on your word.

I have no idea what will happen at school when your family does that and I have no idea what CDPH will do. Most likely nothing will happen. But you may also be treated very badly.

Whatever happens, you can rest well that you have stayed focussed on your values instead of being distracted by the public-health-industry-authored, executive-order-of-the-week. To your immediate concern that you ask about: I think anyone who asks about how to upload a child's test results to one database and not another is really missing the forest for the trees.

You are in a tough battle.

That is how you win.

And make no mistake, you can win. You can emerge victoriously from this. And it all comes down to which choices you make.

An Invitation To Keep In Touch, Because I Love Hearing About Thriving Families

If you follow my advice, or at least generally follow my advice, please keep in touch. I would love to know how it goes and I would love to help support you in any way that I can.

If you do not follow my advice, please lose my contact information and never write me again. I know approximately what your child's future looks like and I have heard too many sad stories of parents who couldn't recognize the ill they were doing to their children until it was too late.

If you do not feel remorse already, you will almost certainly feel remorse after it is too late. If it were February, or March, or April, or May 2020, I might have a different response to you, but to be so cavalier with the wellbeing of a child is either negligence or malice and I do not desire to surround myself with anyone who would engage in either with a child.

I simply do not want to hear another sad story of a person I had the chance to help and failed to help, especially not a child.

Forgive the directness of that and the lack of decorum. The ignorance that I have seen so many parents so callously show their children weighs heavy on me. This may not at all describe you. It describes many in our ranks, though.

However you choose to proceed, I wish your child the best. Thank you for reaching out to me.

Allan Stevo