We've heard so often through COVID that the virus is largely sparing our children.
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They're not immune, we know that, but the evidence suggests that when they are infected they generally experience milder symptoms.
What's not recognised enough - or, at least, too often minimised - is the impact the corona crisis has had on kids.
This week an event that has been part of my life since before I can remember was cancelled. The Wynyard Christmas Parade is a Christmas Eve tradition for my family and so many others.
For a time, somewhere between no longer being a child and becoming a dad, it admittedly lost its gloss. So much so that I once derisively referred to it - in print - as the Wynyard Truck and Vintage Car Parade.
But it's always been about the kids, and it is fun to see their reaction to the wail of sirens as the fire trucks drive by or the way they scramble for tossed lollies.
Waving to Santa - and perhaps shouting a last-minute request - builds their excitement, and the slow drive home gives them a chance to come back down and hopefully go quietly to bed.
Even when our third child was born early on Christmas Eve I still took the older two along to the parade because we couldn't have them missing out.
It's sad they're all missing out this year.
The local Lions Club had little choice but to pull the pin with enforcing social distancing an impossible ask. Yet, as much as that might be understood, people are upset and frustrated that events still some way down the track are being cancelled.
News like this makes the light at the end of the tunnel shine less bright. It leaves us wondering once again when our lives will be able to return to the way they were.
News like this makes the light at the end of the tunnel shine less bright.
Our children have already lost so much over the past six months.
Their education was interrupted and that's bad enough, but so too were the after school activities that are their passions, that give inspiration to their dreams.
My daughters are dancers, which supposedly makes me a dance dad.
Until last year eisteddfods were of little interest and not exactly sought-after assignments when I was a young reporter.
Then I got to see my eldest taste that thrill of success - second-place in her first solo - and later feel even prouder as she bravely got back out there after a hiccup.
The eisteddfods are more than an opportunity to showcase their talent, the work they have put in, along with all the costumes and hairstyles. They are a learning experience.
From finding the strength to deal with pressure and disappointment, to displaying good sportsmanship and supporting others, they grow in confidence and build character.
Dancing is no different in this regard to junior sports that have similarly had to cancel their competitions and/or impose COVID restrictions. All the kids who participate have lost out on those experiences.
For my daughters, and dancers across the North and North-West, there is some consolation in that a competition scheduled for Launceston next month is set to go ahead.
Even so it's not quite the same as in previous years, with limits on attendees able to cheer them on and mums not being allowed backstage to help do their hair and keep their nerves under control.
Next year will be better, we can say, but many children have been denied opportunities that don't come around again.
School camps have been canned and end of year celebration dinners will likely be lower key affairs.
Kids' milestones have also been marked by coronavirus. The first three-word sentence I heard from my now two-year-old was "wash your hands".
Many would argue there is so much more to be upset or worried about; that people are losing loved ones and jobs. This is true.
Yet the fact there will always be someone worse off is neither comforting nor a fair response to our children. We can and should acknowledge that they are being effected by an event not seen in our lifetimes.
Our kids shouldn't have had to worry about COVID-19 and all the restrictions imposed on us, but they do. They're living through it like the rest of us; and the extra stress that many adults are under is, as always, being taken home.
The idea some express too that children are resilient is dismissive of the impact and also isn't necessarily the case.
We can support the measures taken to try to save lives, but we should not lose sight of, nor downplay, the cost to our kids.
- Anthony Haneveer is a deputy editor with Australian Community Media