This week between Christmas and New Year’s is usually the week kids are still occupied with their new toys and gifts and happy that they don’t have to go back to school for another week or two.
And normally, most parents, while happy the kids are home from school and the family is together and doing things together, by the end of the week, they’re ready for the kids to go back to school.
But this year, in these final days of 2020, the pandemic has changed things.
Most kids haven’t been in school for nine months and most are not returning after the holidays and no one knows for sure how much longer it will be before they it’s back to school time.
Distance learning has been going on, but most everyone agrees it’s not the same, because it isn.t
Parents are worried about their kids getting behind.
Educators are admitting there will lots of catching up to do.
And mental health professionals are seeing the effects of all these months of not going to school are having on kids.
As the head of behavioral health at Rady Children’s Hospital told the San Diego Union Tribune, “Mental health was already a crisis for children before the pandemic and it’s only made it worse, because of the isolation of being at home, family stressors or personal stressors without the formal or informal network they received at the school”
What’s happening is reason enough for medical experts, government officials, faith leaders, and each of us individually, to do all that can be done to help our kids at a time when they need us most.
LISTEN BELOW: My interview with Dr. Jean Twenge, author of "i-Gen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood"
(Photo Getty Images)
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