27 January 2022, by Marian Nathan

Prepping three of my children for Covid-19 shots

Vaccinating our children is nothing new. For the first 18 months of life, babies in Singapore go through a myriad of inoculations along with developmental checks. Being a mum of 4 adorable kids, I’ve been through this process many times, and each time I am thankful that we live in an era where children do not needlessly have to get ill and suffer from preventable diseases.

In Dec 2021, when the government announced their plans to begin vaccinating children aged 5 to 11, I knew I would have to prepare 3 of my 4 children for this important milestone. My 2 older boys are in Primary 1 & 2 this year, while my third-born turns 5 at the tail-end of the year. Amusingly enough, my boys were super excited when I told them that I had booked their first dose in January 2022. My eldest was surprisingly well-versed in understanding how vaccines work, rattled on about how it taught the body to remember and effectively fight off the real infection, and went on about white blood cells and T-cells. (I owe my thanks to the Young Scientist publications and other great resources that his school has made available to him for this). My second boy told me how many others in his class and school had received their vaccination and he was thrilled it would finally be his turn soon. If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m really not. For 2 weeks I endured constant questioning on how many more days it would be until they got their vaccination.

The onus is on us as parents too to explain the important details such as reasons for the vaccination, that there will be 2 doses, and what to expect on those days. So I did what many enterprising parents would have done: I found some great simplified videos on YouTube and streamed them on TV for the whole family to watch and learn. Everyone got to learn more, and it also opened the doorway to lots of healthy discussions so that all questions were ironed out. If there was something else they wanted to clarify, we just searched for another video that could explain it simply.

A friend had relayed to me that he had brought his daughter for her first dose recently, and while she took it like a champ, there were a few other children who cried, and told me to brace myself. I’m glad he did because I then knew that my tactic to keep my boys enthusiastic about getting vaccinated was to remind them that it was a brave thing to do, and reminded them all that this was yet another of the many vaccinations they had received since infancy, but were too little to remember it.

The day finally comes around, and after dinner, we take a short stroll to the vaccination centre. I chose a Friday evening for their timeslot, as they would have the weekend to recover from any possible post-vaccination soreness before resuming school on Monday. The first thing that happens when we reach there is to weigh the children. I was surprised to find out the weight of my boys: my 6-year-old was almost 25kg and my 7-year-old was almost 30kg! After the weighing, we were ushered to the registration counter, where we were asked health-related questions, after which we proceeded to the vaccination booths.

Both boys were well-behaved throughout and sat perfectly still as they received their injections. The medical personnel was friendly and professional, and it was a relatively quick affair. The 30-minute wait thereafter went by quite as fast, as I had gotten the boys to bring a book each to occupy their time productively. An ice-cream treat awaited the boys for their brave conduct, and that it was a short stroll back home again.

While my boys were old enough to understand its importance and what to expect, I knew my third-born was not quite there yet. She falls in the window of only being eligible in November this year when she turns 5. My youngest daughter turns 2 in February and thus is not eligible. All the more it was important to vaccinate my eligible kids as soon as I could get an appointment for them, to protect my girls who were not yet able to get that kind of protection yet. She could understand that there were bad things out there that made her sick and that this vaccination was a sort of “medicine” to protect her from getting too sick, if at all.

My sons excitedly showed their sisters their “badge of honour” when we returned home: their band-aids on their arms. It’s safe to say she is now excited for her turn to be vaccinated, and in time, my youngest as well.