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Considering a play date for your kids right now? Think hard before you say yes

Before you say yes, think it through, says Dr. Stephanie Duggins Davis, phyician in chief at NC Children's Hospital.

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Play date
By
Sarah Lindenfeld Hall
, Go Ask Mom editor

It's tempting. The kids are out of school, and it's a beautiful day and there's a park down the street. Their friend calls, and they want to play. It would be so easy to say yes right now to a play date.

But before you say yes, think it through, says Dr. Stephanie Duggins Davis, physician in chief at NC Children's Hospital.

We're currently experiencing a global pandemic when health experts are asking us to maintain social distance from anybody we don't live with to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. And while healthy children typically experience mild symptoms similar to a cold or flu when they get Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, there's a lot to consider.

"We have not gone into a quarantine at this point, from a national perspective," Dr. Davis said in an interview. "Just use smart thinking with this. If there are no symptoms from anybody, no exposure that anyone's aware of and it's not in a large group — you don't want 20 kids getting together — I think that that is OK, but you just have to be smart about thinking through that," she said. "Are their siblings sick at home? Is a parent sick at home? Is there any type of exposure? This is going to be a long haul here. It's not just going to be a week. We want to be really thoughtful when you're making a decision about that."

And part of your decision, said Dr. Amy Ursano, a psychiatrist and training director for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at UNC School of Medicine, should consider your own individual anxiety levels as well.

"We would expect as things become more available, we are going to find out that some of our mild adult cases here that presumed they had a cold or flu, may find out they are Covid positive," she said. "How much guilt is somebody going to feel about having had a bunch of kids in their house even when they thought they were OK?"

Said Dr. Ursano: "This might be the time to hunker down a little bit more and as we get more information, things will get a little bit more clear."