Parents whose children received virtual instruction or a combination of virtual and face-to-face instruction were more likely to report increased risk by 11 out of 17 child and parental well-being indicators, according to the new CDC study. The agency’s researchers analyzed the responses to the October and November 2020 survey of 1,290 parents with children aged 5 to 12 years.
Nearly 25% of parents whose children received virtual or combined instruction reported worsening of 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 away from home, and spent less time with friends.
“The difference is like night and day, especially for my children,” said Stephanie Kokinos, a mother of two in New York City. “I think we have normalized this remote form of learning and there is nothing normal about it.”
Kokinos has two daughters, 5 and 7 years old. She is currently unemployed and her husband works at home.
“I can’t even begin to think if I was working during that time,” she said. “It really has been a full-time job, just to make sure your needs are met from an academic point of view, but more specifically from an emotional and well-being point of view.”
Since the start of the pandemic, their children have had to face four closings from different schools and returned in person on March 19.
“It is very, very damaging – coming and going with children – especially at this age. It is really difficult to put yourself as an adult, having a fully functioning frontal lobe, (in their place) what they are experiencing and how they are performing” said Kokinos.
“Because you see it differently (in each child). Some children are backing off, some children have kind of lost their spark, lost their spirit. Some children no longer have a love for learning,” she said. “They are exhausted, they have headaches, their eyes hurt. They are not having social interaction. Your needs are not being met – period. ”
Parents are also feeling the effects
This trend continued 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 who receive virtual education are also more likely to report job loss, concerns about job stability, problems with child care, conflict between working and caring for children and difficulty sleeping.
Parents of children who received combined instruction were more likely than those of children who received instruction in person to report job loss and conflict between working and caring for their children. About 43% reported emotional distress.
Lauren Dover, of Brighton, Illinois, is a mother of four children – ages 11, 6, 4 and 2. She chose to do distance learning with her two oldest, Brady in fifth grade and Ben in second grade, from the beginning the pandemic.
“I am a housewife and I think it was better for our family to do this at home, mainly because I know that many parents do not have the option of staying at home. So, I wish they could occupy that space in the building, “she said.
Although Brady struggled to overlook the social aspect of the face-to-face school due to what they call “the big germ” at home, Ben went through an even more difficult period.
“(Ben) is very outgoing. When he did the pre-K, he was the leader of the class. He was just a social butterfly – everyone wanted to talk to Ben, ”she said. “He has a lot of energy and it is difficult for him to be at home.”
Dealing with this year’s specific mental health concerns
Non-white parents and those with children in public schools were more likely to report that their children received virtual instruction. Nearly 66% of Hispanic parents and 55% of black parents reported that their children received virtual education, compared with about 32% of white parents.
Stephanie Burrow-Carpenter teaches third graders at Frayser Elementary in Louisville, Kentucky, who have just returned to face-to-face classes.
“I think it definitely varies according to the student and the situation. We have some children who have gone through a lot more trauma than others,” she said.
Because of this trauma in addition to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic and the shift between remote and face-to-face learning, she placed special emphasis on the mental health of her students.
This appears in your students’ “lunch group” session with a mental health counselor. Students also had weekly check-ins with the counselor, where they received an online form as a way to ask for help without saying it out loud.
Children who are not receiving face-to-face instruction and their parents “may be at increased risk of negative mental, emotional or physical health 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 extremely important to support students’ return to face-to-face learning,” wrote the researchers.
Not everyone is ready for another change
President Joe Biden’s administration pushed for schools to reopen during the pandemic, and the CDC recently released guidelines for K-12 schools on how to safely open for face-to-face learning.
Now, his children’s schools are switching to a hybrid system – where he said a teacher will serve two classrooms, virtual and face-to-face, at the same time.
“I’m sitting here trying to balance myself, are we going to try to roll the dice and put our kids in school? At the risk of everything? Or do we get into it knowing that, invariably, it will only be harder for this last push until the end of the year? it will get more difficult “, said Fagundes.
Experts say that going back to school in person will not be good for the mental health of all children. Some children who have been bullied or bullied at school or felt more free to express themselves at home, outside the school’s social hierarchy, will not necessarily want to return.
Some of these benefits that children may have seen in the beginning of the pandemic may still be at stake – such as an increase in independence and better skills as executive functions: the ability to plan, solve problems and move on.
“Just because we were used to children attending school in person five days a week and then spending a lot of their time on activities run by adults, does not mean that this was the only – or rather – way for children to spend childhood, “said Skenazy.
For parents struggling to overcome this difficult time, Skenazy recommends that they think about their own childhoods and focus on the extra time their children can have outside of remote classes.
“When children are explaining games or inventing new ones, they are developing their communication skills. Cooking? Basic math skills. Helping at home teaches responsibility, without which it is difficult to succeed in school – or anywhere,” she said.
“So I would love for parents to feel good about this strange year’s ‘rest time’ and recognize the growth their kids are experiencing, even when things seem disjointed and a little crazy and the remote learning part isn’t going too far well . “