While some participants claimed to always adhere to the rules and few gave accounts of open disobedience, most children described constantly navigating between adherence and defiance. As they employed different rationales for modified rule adherence, the themes of trust, magical thinking, acceptance, and reframing emerged.
Navigating trust
Trust reoccurred as a crucial aspect of decision-making and resolving dilemmas between the measures, risk, and other interests. Illustrating this line of argumentation, Alina introduced the concept of Corona-friends, explaining that she had two friends whom she regularly met without adhering to the rules:
A: Yes, I meet friends sometimes.
CA: Yes. And what do you do then?
A: … mostly homework or … my neighbour with whom I sometimes meet, she has mice and then we play with the mice, or we go outside, but rarely.
CA: Okay. So you do meet indoors sometimes? … A: Actually, always.
CA: … And do you always manage to follow the rules?
A: Erm, no …. I meet with two people, and these are then my Corona-friends, so to speak.
(Alina, Berlin)
While others did not explicitly use the term, several children described having such contacts, which they perceived to be similarly safe as their own families. Many considered it safe to meet with their Corona-friends as long as none of them had symptoms, trusting each other on the shared information: “… [my friend’s] mother will surely tell me and say that I can't come anymore because she can suffocate …. Or I” (Meera, Stade).
Similarly, children emphasised the importance of honesty in the context of safe behaviour. Saada explained that people might lie about following the rules, but luckily her parents knew who these people were, so they did not meet them:
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My father says it’s best if we don't meet anyone, even if they take a [Corona] test ….
There are people, just because it's [the festival of] Eid1, they say … ‘Well, we don't have any [Corona] now, we can go outside now, you can come to us’. But we know they always lie just because it's Eid, because they want to go outside (Saada, Stade).
For other children, like Sinan, the uncertainty of not knowing who might have Corona meant meeting others exclusively outside and with a face mask on:
S: I go to the playground with my little sister, play and then we come back half an hour later or so. …
CA: … And can you play there normally, as usual?
S: Um, no. … I always wear a mask. … CA: … Even … despite the negative test?
S: … Yes, because otherwise … there are friends who talk to us.
(Sinan, Stade)
Later, Sinan described how he had navigated a situation where he found himself torn between trusting his friend and feeling at risk without a mask:
S: [My] friend, had a cough all the time, … I was a bit scared, and so I put on a mask ….
CA: … and then?
S: Then, well. I told him to put it on, too, before we get infected, and then we continued playing normally.
(Sinan, Stade)
This situation illustrates how Sinan created a space of freedom by drawing on his knowledge of Corona and using the mask as a protective item that would allow him to continue playing while mitigating his perceived risk.
Whereas Sinan illustrated a successful tactic to navigate his own and his friend’s risk perception and with his interest to continue playing with his friend, Alina explained that in a similar
dilemma, she would likely choose a solution more socially accepted by her peers, thereby defying
1 Festival of breaking the fast at the end of Ramadan
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her own risk perception. One day after school, she recalled encountering a group of peers who did not keep their distance from one another nor wear masks. Finding this a risky situation, Alina decided to cross the street, which suited her anyway because she did not like the other children.
While claiming that she would have considered this behaviour equally risky if her friends had displayed it, she conceded: “… if it had been my friends, I don't think I would have really done that [crossed the street] because then they would think I was angry at them or something” (Alina, Berlin).
This fragment demonstrates the difficulties Alina anticipated if she had to weigh the risk of contagion against social desirability. In the context of self-testing, Mathilda hinted at a similar feeling of social ostracism, her worst fear in case of a positive test result being the
embarrassment:
M: [a positive test result] would be a bit embarrassing for me. [ laughs ] CA: … Why?
M: Because then probably everyone in class would have to do tests again, and I would be the first, and then everyone would say, ‘Mathilda has Corona now’.
CA: … What would they say about you then? What would you worry about?
M: Actually, they wouldn't say anything, but word would get around that I had Corona.
(Mathilda, Berlin)
She argued that she would prefer to avoid this situation by taking the test at home, where she would be spared the attention.
At the same time, like several other children, Mathilda emphasised the possibility of a test result being wrong. While for her, this possibility was a relieving thought when imagining a positive self-test, others primarily questioned the validity of a negative test. For Sinan, the test’s questionable quality directly impacted his everyday decisions. He explained that not knowing exactly when the risk of contracting Corona was highest required a constant weighing of how much time he could spend outside before it was risky:
Then I know, ‘Yes, okay, I've done [a test]’, then I can go out a bit … And if I am also negative next time, … I still stay at home because I know that if you are outside too long, touch everything, then you can get Corona (Sinan, Stade).
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This fragment illustrates how difficult it was for Sinan to know when he was navigating within safe or risky spaces and temporalities, ultimately choosing a middle way that allowed him to spend some time outside, but that did not feel like a permanent risk. Bela summarised that the tests’ insecurity implied the necessity to follow the rules at all times:
I actually stick to the rules all the time. Even when I've done a test with a doctor, so to speak. Even then, I stick to the rules. Firstly because you have to, and secondly, because there is always the danger that the test went wrong (Bela, Berlin).
Magical solutions
In such instants of uncertainty, magical elements of thinking emerged as a means of dissolving contradictions. When encountering risky others in environments where they could not be avoided, several magical solutions came to light in the children’s descriptions. Natalia explained that looking away when she saw others disobeying the rules would reduce her fear of contraction, alluding to the childhood idea that objects that cannot be seen do not exist (Baillargeon
1993:266). Another participant explained that walking close to her mother would make her feel safe in risky situations. Two participants suggested a different approach to avoiding contact with risky others or, in this case, their air:
A: Well, I always think it's weird when you're walking along the street, and then someone comes along, they don't have masks on, and they're walking next to each other, so there's hardly any space. And then they don't make any room, which means that I have to squeeze past without keeping the distance, and that's not so nice.
CA: … And what do you do then?
A: Um, well, just keep walking? … and sometimes I hold my breath.
(Alina, Berlin)
Inhaling dangerous air was not the only encounter with a risky material for which the children suggested superstitious solutions. Having elaborated on the different risks of pens, papers, and desks, Saada defined a category of items that were safe to exchange: items that belonged to the school and stayed there, such as papers the girls secretly exchanged in class. While the school rules apparently forbade this activity, Saada and Meera related this rule to the general requirement to pay attention to the teacher. Through this argumentation, they placed the rule in a different category than Corona rules. Breaking the school rules was unrelated to the risk of contagion,
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releasing the girls’ from worrying about potential risks they posed on themselves and their friends. When Saada proudly told me how good they had become at exchanging the papers without the teachers noticing, it became clear that she considered circumnavigating school rules a fun activity with merely disciplinary consequences, contrasting the far riskier implications of breaking Corona rules.
In turn, Sinan argued that despite his repeated emphasis on the necessity to stay at home, not meet any friends, and wear a face mask on the playground, encountering his friends at the ice cream bus was safe. Having explained before that Corona was transmitted through saliva when people talked too loudly, and saliva landed in someone’s mouth, he argued that eating ice cream could not be dangerous because his friend “eats his ice cream, how should he speak to me?”
(Sinan, Stade). They could talk to each other once they had finished eating: “So we always eat- we just eat, and then mask and then we can talk” (Sinan, Stade). Aligning his practices with his interpretation of risk, similar to Saada’s elaboration, Sinan navigated to a position that allowed him the liberty to eat ice cream without defying his understanding of Corona.
Interestingly, tests were often attributed equally magical qualities of protection, resembling measures such as masks and physical distancing. For instance, Bela explained that testing made visiting his grandparents safe:
Well, I kept my distance, of course, and then I did another test in the middle of the week, just to be on the safe side. But I knew at some point that nothing could happen because we did a test at the beginning, and it was negative (Bela, Berlin).
Like several other children, Dejan explained that adherence to the rules was always essential, reasoning that there were remaining uncertainties about who had already done the test and who might be positive without knowing it:
CA: If the test is negative and you know you don't have Corona, do you have to follow the rules less? …
D: … No, you have to follow the rules.
CA: Okay. Why?
D: Because you don't know who has Corona and then the one next to you comes, and then you have Corona.
(Dejan, Stade)
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Interestingly, he also explained that a negative test enabled him to meet relatives or friends without masks and distance after a negative self-test “because they also did the Corona test.”
(Dejan, Stade). Thus, despite their questionable trustworthiness, Corona tests had powerful qualities.
Accepting uncertainties
While magical thinking and attributions of trust solved several dissonances, some aspects remained unresolved. A tactic that many children outlined in these cases accepting the tension without forcing a solution.
For one thing, uncertainty was often involved when participants found it challenging to adhere to the rules. Yara, for instance, explained finding it challenging to know how far 1.5 m were when there were no points of orientation. In the schoolyard, she used the dots on the ground, indicating the distance. However, in other places, she expressed confusion:
Y: So there [at school] are points outside when we line up, and they have already been measured. Then each child stands on one point.
CA:… And if there are no points?
Y: Then I don't know. … when I go shopping, I know that you have to use the trolleys.
(Yara, Stade)
Similarly, different participants explained how difficult it was to keep the distance during their soccer training. Fynn, Berlin explained that he tried to solve this problem by running in zigzag lines:
If you train a bit, do a few things, for example, in a queue, then you have to dribble around cones at some point, then you try to stay behind each other in a zigzag pattern (Fynn, Berlin).
However, when marking up an opponent, he felt that it was impossible to keep the distance: “…
when I'm running after someone, somehow I can't help it. You can't keep your distance” (Fynn, Berlin).
While the participants recognised these situations as risky, they generally did not connect this risk to themselves.
51 Reframing difficulties
Several participants described challenging situations that they did not only accept but that they managed to give a positive nuance by reframing them.
One way of doing so was using the otherwise annoying masks for different purposes. Yara explained that she regularly wore her face mask during the winter when the wind was cold because “my cheeks freeze” (Yara, Stade). Moreover, Antonia explained that she wore her mask in her father’s car as protection against the smell she disliked.
Another tactic was trying to see the positive side of the situation. Several children mentioned the advantages of homeschooling, like having learned a lot about computers or working at their own pace and creating more free time when they had finished their work. With a mischievous smile, Cem even explained why he did not mind quarantine: “… I somehow got almost everything, when I wanted a mobile phone, I got it; when I wanted to game here with friends, I also got the PC” (Cem, Stade). Moreover, he found fasting during Ramadan much more manageable now:
Because otherwise friends always say: ‘Come out!’ and so, and then we play soccer sometimes, and then I'm thirsty. And here I just sit and play … all the time (Cem, Stade).
While these half-joking evaluations illustrate only small elements of the participants’ everyday lives, Bela made clear that reframing was not always easy to do:
Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages with all things, and yes, there are definitely things that are a bit better now. But you only really see the things that are worse. And which are not so cool. But if you look a bit more, there are actually some things that are a bit better (Bela, Berlin).