(WSIL) -- Dr. Jeff Ripperda's family is musically talented.
"Each of us plays music independently, and every so often we'll get together and jam when I can talk the kids into doing that."
While there may be music in their blood, there's also shots in their arms.
"So my wife is an essential worker because she's a teacher so she qualified fairly quickly. I qualified quickly being a physician, and I have four children, and basically we had to wait until the vaccine was approved for those ages before they were eligible."
Relieved to finally get their vaccines, the Ripperda family says they honestly just wanted life to return to normal.
"It wouldn't be as big of an impact for us as it would be for the other half of our family, like our sister would be missing stuff and our parents would be online doing work," says daughter Elena.
"Especially because it was Greta's senior year so if we got vaccinated then we wouldn't give it to her or anything and she could go to the events," says her sister Lucy.
"Well, I wanted to go to prom this year, and honestly, getting the vaccine ensured that I could do that," says Greta.
But not all of their peers are so eager, primarily for two reasons.
"They're afraid of needles, or they've already had COVID and they don't feel it's necessary," says Elena.
"Especially since my peers have had COVID, they just assume that they don't have to get the vaccine since they have the antibodies," says Greta.
Dr. Ripperda says while the antibodies from a COVID infection may give you some protection, he says current data suggests that vaccine protection lasts far longer. But for a child who's nervous about the vaccine, he says the best way to calm them, is to not treat it like a big deal.
"Your kid might feel tired and take a nap the day after they get the shot, and that's not a big deal, so I think to some degree raising a big fuss about it is probably going overboard a little bit. You just have to say hey, this is what's gonna happen, it's good for you, it's good for your community, let's get it done."
Ripperda's son Xavier just wants life to return to normal.
"So we just want to get the vaccine so that we can go do stuff as a family again."
Dr. Ripperda says while children don't typically experience COVID-19 symptoms as severely as adults do, he says they can easily spread it to them. He says in order to end the pandemic we need to vaccinate as many people as possible, including children.
