According to the new CDC study, parents whose children received virtual instruction or a combination of virtual and face-to-face instruction reported an increased risk in 11 of 17 indicators of child and parental well-being. The agency’s researchers examined responses to the October and November 2020 surveys of 1,290 parents with children ages 5 to 12.
Nearly 25% of parents whose children received virtual or combined instruction reported that they worsened their children’s mental or emotional health, compared with 16% of parents whose children received face-to-face instruction.
They were also more likely to say that their children were less physically active, spent less time outside, and spent less time with friends.
“The difference is like night and day, especially for my kids,” said Stephanie Kokinos, a mother of two in New York City. “I think we’ve normalized this form of remote learning and there’s nothing normal.”
Kokinos has two daughters, ages 5 and 7. She is currently unemployed and her husband works from home.
“I can’t even begin to think if I would be working during that time,” he said. “It’s really been a full-time job, just to make sure your needs are met from an academic standpoint, but more specifically from an emotional and well-being standpoint.”
Since the pandemic began, their children have had to face four separate school closures and have returned in person on March 19.
“It’s very, very harmful, this back and forth with children, especially at this age. It’s very difficult to put yourself as an adult, having a frontal lobe in full operation (with your shoes) with which they live and how they are acting said Kokinos.
“Because you see it differently (in every child). Some kids are stepping back, some have lost their spark, they’ve lost their spirit. Some kids no longer have a love for learning,” he said. “They’re burned, they have headaches, their eyes hurt. They don’t have social interaction. Their needs aren’t met, period.”
Parents also feel the effects
This trend was maintained when parents answered questions about their own well-being.
About 54% of parents whose children received virtual instruction reported emotional distress, compared with 38% of parents whose children received face-to-face instruction. Parents of children receiving virtual instruction were also more likely to report job loss, job stability concerns, child care challenges, the conflict between working and providing child care, and difficulty sleeping. .
Parents of children receiving combined instruction were more likely than those of children receiving face-to-face instruction to report job loss and the conflict between working and providing child care. About 43% reported emotional distress.
Lauren Dover, of Brighton, Illinois, is a four-year-old mother: 11, 6, 4, and 2 years old. He has chosen to do remote learning with his two eldest, Brady in fifth grade and Ben in second, since the beginning of the pandemic.
“I’m a stay-at-home mom and I think it was better for our family to do it at home, mostly because I know a lot of parents don’t have the option to stay home. So I wanted them to be able to occupy that space in the building, ”he said.
While Brady has struggled to lose the social aspect of face-to-face school because of what in his home they call the “big germ,” Ben has had it even harder.
“(Ben) is very outgoing. When he was pre-K, he was the classroom leader. He was just the social butterfly; everyone wanted to talk to Ben,” he said. “He has so much energy and it’s hard to get home.”
Resolve this year’s particular mental health concerns
Non-white parents and those with children in public school were more likely to report that their children were receiving virtual instruction. Nearly 66% of Hispanic parents and 55% of black parents reported that their children received virtual instruction, compared to approximately 32% of white parents.
Stephanie Burrow-Carpenter teaches third graders at Frayser School in Louisville, Kentucky, who have just returned to face-to-face classes.
“I think it definitely varies depending on the student and the situation. We have some kids who have experienced a lot more trauma than others,” he said.
Because of this trauma, in addition to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic and the shift between remote learning and face-to-face learning, he has placed special emphasis on the mental health of his students.
This appears in her students ’“ eating meal ”session with a mental health counselor. Students also had weekly visits with the advisor, where they were provided with an online form to ask for help without saying it out loud.
Children who do not receive instruction in person and their parents “may experience a higher risk of having negative mental, emotional, or physical outcomes” and may need more support to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, the researchers wrote.
“Actions across the community to reduce the incidence of COVID-19 and support mitigation strategies in schools are very important to foster students’ return to face-to-face learning, ”the researchers wrote.
Not everyone is ready to make another change
President Joe Biden’s administration has pushed for the reopening of schools during the pandemic, and the CDC recently issued guidelines for K-12 schools on how to safely open face-to-face learning.
Now, her children’s schools are moving to a hybrid system, where she said a teacher will serve two classrooms, virtual and face-to-face, at the same time.
“I’m sitting here trying to balance, do we try to roll the dice and put our kids in school? At the risk of everything? Or do we get into that knowing that invariably, it will only be harder for this last push until the end of the year “It will only be more difficult,” Fagundes said.
Experts say going back to face-to-face school will not be good for the mental health of all children. Some children who had been teased or harassed at school or felt more free to express themselves at home outside the social hierarchies of their schools will not necessarily want to go back.
Some of these benefits that children may have seen at the beginning of the pandemic may still be at stake, such as increased independence and better skills such as executive function: the ability to plan, solve problems, and move on.
“The fact that we were used to children attending school in person five days a week and then spending most of their time on adult-led activities organized by adults doesn’t mean that this was the only thing. or the best – way to pass childhood to children, “said Skenazy.
For parents struggling to navigate this difficult time, Skenazy recommends that they think about their childhood and devote themselves to the extra time their children may have outside of remote classes.
“When children explain games or make new ones, they develop their communication skills. Cooking? Basic math skills. Helping at home teaches responsibilities, without which it is difficult to succeed in school or anywhere,” he said. .
“So I would love for parents to feel good about this weird year’s‘ downtime ’and recognize the growth their children are experiencing, even when things seem unfamiliar and a little crazy and the part of remote learning is not going so well. “