[Teacher] Has anyone else hard that term, coronavirus?
What is that?
[Girl] It's a virus that's been going around.
[Girl] Why do we have to keep worrying about viruses?
[Teacher] Why do we have to keep worrying about viruses? I know!
[Boy] It can spread really, really quickly.
[Andrew] The questions here are honest.
[Girl] How did the coronavirus start?
[Teacher] That's a really good question.
[Andrew] Sometimes, they're awkwardly blunt.
[Girl] Should we eat food that comes from China?
[Teacher] There is nothing to worry about when you're...
[Andrew] But they're never brushed aside.
[Girl] Like, I wonder if they run out of food and then they can't leave the house or something.
[Teacher] Yeah, I wonder that too. So I wonder if the grocery stores are still open.
[Andrew] These kids are textbook examples of how
rumour and half truths can slosh around
in a child's mind.
[Boy] How much do people get sick?
[Andrew] And come out looking pretty scary.
[Andrew] The first time 11-year-old Samantha Shannon heard about coronavirus.
[Samantha] My friend came to school and he started saying nobody touch me, nobody touch me.
[Andrew] Why was he saying that?
[Samantha] Because he heard about it on the news].
[Andrew] He heard about it on the news?
[Samantha] Yeah.
[Andrew] And that was the first time you heard about it? When he said don't touch me.
[Samantha] Yeah.
[Andrew] And a similar startle for 8-year-old Kale.
He's only in grade 3 but the things his friends say they've seen on
[Kale] Doctors had like this white suit, like you know to get like wasps?
[Andrew] Yeah, like a full protective suit.
[Kale] Yeah and they were fixing the person.
[Andrew] And how did you feel when you saw that?
[Kale] I felt like it might get viral around places
[Kale] and it might come to new places and spread like
[Kale] Quebec, Canada, New Jersey, Ottawa.
[Andrew] All those places.
[Andrew] It sounds like you were a little bit worried.
[Kale] Yeah.
[Andrew] Fact is, for many kids, their first exposure to the coronavirus
isn't from what's overheard among grownups.
It's from other kids.
[Andrew] What were the kinds of things they were saying?
[Samantha] They were just like um the coronavirus is going out.
[Samantha] Somebody ate a bat.
[Andrew] Someone ate a bat?
[Samantha] Yeah because of a snake. The snake ate the bat and then it kept going on.
[Andrew] It's at this point Kelly Farrel steps in.
[Kelly] They'll hear something on the news and they'll come to school the next day
And say I heard that we're all going to die.
We're all going to get a virus.
And, like where'd you hear that?
Let's talk about that.
[Andrew] She's the director at this school and lately she's been doing a lot of talking
but also listening.
[Kelly] I think kids feel what we portray to them.
So they knew that people were getting worked up about it.
People were getting, talking about it a lot.
And so they were worried because they felt
the worry of other people.
But they know why they had to be worried.
[Andrew] I wonder, these are young kids.
[Kelly] Yeah.
[Andrew] Is there, is there a part of this that feels like they're almost too young to be
to learn about the coronavirus?
[Kelly] I don't think so. I think we have to give them the information
at a level that's accessible to them.
They have a lot of trouble differentiating between what is a rumour
and what is a fact.
And the more we talk about it and the more we teach them how to differentiate that
the better they become at it.
[Andrew] And there's more to this than just helping kids feel better.
Consider what 13-year-old Daniella told me about one of her friends.
who's Chinese.
[Danielle] He was getting bullied and everybody was saying that he
shouldn't be here, he should go.
And everybody was like not going near him or talking to him.
So he was like really lonely.
And like I stood up for him
with all the people and told them that it's not
all Chinese people that have the coronavirus.
[Andrew] And how did you know that?
[Daniella] I kind of like researched.
Because I don't know, I get pretty worried about that stuff.
But when I know more about it, I oon't get as worried.
[Andrew] And so why do you think some of the other kids were
acting the way they were acting.
Either being afraid or bullying other kids because they
think maybe they have the virus.
[Daniella] I think cause they just don't know about
what's happening and they're just, i don't know
they might be trying to act cool like they know about it
or like make conversation I guess.
And they're just scared maybe.
[Andrew] Call it the wisdom of a 13-year-old.
But one who clearly feels best prepared for the world when
grownups loop her in.
[Kelly] They're going to hear about it anyway so I think
we all need to recognize that they hear a lot more than we think they do.
If they have a question, answer it.
[Andrew] Does it help when you guys talk about it?
[Samantha] Yeah.
[Andrew] Like why does it help? How does it help?
[Samantha] Um, because when you talk about it you know what's happening about the whole thing.
[Andrew] And what would you want to tell grownups about how they should
be talking to kids like you?
[Daniella] I feel like they should just be straight up
because kids can take a lot.
They're not weak in the sense that
parents think that we are.
And that we...
[Andrew] You guys can handle it.
[Daniella] Yeah we can handle it.
[Andrew] And the funny thing is, the more weight these kids are allowed to
carry on their shoulders, the more they seem to feel free to just be a kid.