Probably as made up as all the “pediatricians” advocating sending kids to school during a pandemic, but here is another view that has not been mentioned:
A therapist’s perspective has been absent regarding children’s mental health in the debate to open schools or not. This is posted with permission from a therapist in Maryland, Jean Ann, LCMFT, RPT, CFPT.
As a child and family therapist, I strongly disagree with the arguments that "schools should reopen for children's emotional health". No version of this situation is good for children's mental well-being, so we are choosing between bad situations here. Calls to open up schools are shorted sighted and illogical. Here are some things bad for emotional health about reopening:
- Children experiencing so much more death of their loved ones, friend's loved ones, and community members.
- Having to obey rigid and developmentally inappropriate behavioral expectations to maintain social distancing for hours at a time.
- Restricting their engagement with their peers even though those peers are right in front of them.
- Having to constantly actively participate in cleaning rituals that keep their community trauma present with them
- Somehow having to have the executive functioning within all of this to meet educational standards and possibly experiencing overwhelm, shame, and self-doubt when they reasonably can't
- Being unable to receive age appropriate comfort from teachers and staff when dysregulated from all of this, thereby experiencing attachment injuries daily.
- Lack of any predictability as COVID takes staff members for weeks at a time with no warning while children wonder if that staff will die as well as the looming threat of going to back into quarantine any random day
Returning to school as things are now is NOT better for children's mental health. It is a complete rationalization by people who are uncomfortable with children not engaging in productivity culture. The majority of schooling NEEDS to stay virtual to protect our children and teachers and to make room for the safe return of the populations of students who actually do need to be in person.