Going to School During A Pandemic
Reopening schools is a mental health issue
It began in January, with an outbreak of a novel strain of the Coronavirus in Wuhan, China. It evolved and quickly spread around the world, despite actions taken by the Chinese government to quarantine the city. The strain began to show itself in every country in the world, and by March, much of the world was in various stages of shutting down in an attempt to flatten the curve and slow the spread.
Restaurants closed their doors to all dine-in guests. Offices closed and sent their employees home, either on temporary furlough or to do their jobs from home. Schools sent kids home and teachers were forced to throw away half their year’s lesson plans and learn how to teach in a whole new way that many of them were unprepared for.
For many, furlough became a permanent job loss. The federal government sent out $1,200 stimulus checks to every adult in an attempt to keep the economy from completely tanking and unemployment benefits were extended and enhanced with extra federal money.
People began to debate and fight over whether or not the unemployed deserved more money just for staying home while “essential workers” were not receiving any kinda of extra bonuses or incentives for the hard work of keeping grocery shelves stocked for masses of people hoarding toilet paper or hospital beds clean for people coming down with the Coronavirus who needed to be put on ventilators.
Cities began to run out of places to store the dead bodies as there was no conceived way to safely have a funeral.
Then police killed another unarmed black man, resulting in protests against police brutality led by the Black Lives Matter movement. Some of these protests were undermined by various white supremacist groups posing as ANTIFA, leading to further racial tensions between not just white police and black civilians, but white and black civilians as well. Multiple black men were lynched in what were immediately deemed suicides without any further investigation.
Because all school and summer activites were cancelled for the forseeable future, our children were home to see and hear about every bit of this. As were we, their parents.
Now, here we are in July and the discussion has turned to what to do about the next school year. It is less than two months away, after all.
Because of the presence of the Coronavirus, the CDC put out guidelines for schools to adopt in determining when and how their reopening should look. From social distancing in the classroom, wearing masks when unable to do so, to how the school day should be arranged to minimize contact and hopefully prevent a new outbreak of the virus among our nation’s children.
With some school districts saying they just do not feel safe reopening, the White House and Secretary of Education have said if schools do not reopen normally, they are going to strip schools of federal funding.
Some are arguing that we cannot truly get the economy going again until we get the schools open since parents of school-aged children are unable to return to work until they have some means of taking care of their children when they go back to work.
Teachers are expressing concern for their own safety and health. Parents are afraid to send their kids back for the same reasons.
With all of this debate and discussion and tension happening all at once, someone forgot to check on the kids and ask if they are doing ok.
The new normal for schools is not going to look like the old normal. At least not any time soon.
A classroom that once seated thirty kids may only be able to accomodate fifteen due to social distancing guidelines. Children over the age of two are likely going to be required to wear face coverings, possibly for most of the school day. There will be more regular hand washing and sanitizing happening than was maybe done previously.
These couple of examples alone are going to have a huge impact on our children’s ability to learn and focus. Some, particularly those with ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or who are on the Autism spectrum, may find some of these rules particularly challenging. Especially if there are sensory issues involved. As if yanking our children away from their friends and classmates was not hard enough, going back to school in this environment runs the risk of adding to their feelings of isolation.
Is anyone checking on the kids to see if they are doing ok?
For our children to return to school, we must be prepared to address the mental health impact that the Coronavirus pandemic has had. Children are largely neglected when it comes to mental health issues to begin with, but precious little has been done or said on the subject with relation to what we have seen in the past few months and our nation’s children.
Going back to a more structured learning format is going to be hard for all of them. We cannot just diagnose them all with ADHD and prescribe medication to calm them all down. Much of their energy is a result of needing to express what is wrong or how they are feeling about all of this, but because much of what they are experiencing is beyond their developmental age, they have been exposed to some very adult things the past couple of months, they are not sure how to express it. And parents can only get so far when it comes to talking to their kids about their deeply personal issues.
Some of these children may even have become sounding boards for their parents’ stress and struggles. And in the worst of cases, they have become victims of abuse at home with no one to tell about what is going on, since the only contact they have had with a teacher is during the weekly Zoom meeting, and mom and dad are in the room as well, doing their own work.
If anything, going back to school is going to first and foremost require a large infusion of funds directed not just at providing hand sanitizer and masks, but, rather, towards ensuring there are enough Life Coaches, resource officers, counselors, and mental health experts to help our children process the past four to six months worth of pent-up emotion.
Our nation’s teachers also need to be trained in verbal de-escalation, if they are not already. Children will be coming to school, having been around their parents and influenced by, sometimes, toxic ideas about race and mask wearing that are likely to lead to confrontations in the classroom. And this will require time and financial resources as some teachers may not be able to afford proper training or certification.
And let us not forget the children who’s parents choose not to return their children to a traditional school environment and rather opt to enroll their kids in online schooling or homeschooling. These children are potentially being further isolated from other students, and we need to ensure that there are mental health resources available to them as well.
In short, reopening our schools requires an investment in the mental health of our nation’s children. Any plan to reopen schools that neglects this is not worth pursuing.
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As a certified Life Coach, I am available to help you and your family navigate the new normal that we are all emerging in to. If you have any questions or want to know how I can help, visit my website or send me an email at jeremyzerbycoaching@yahoo.com.
