Parents of 5th graders - let’s talk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like every parent who has kids with issues attributes them to the lockdown; whatever the age. I don’t see how staying at home for a year can alter every generation of kids so much. And if it was lockdown, why is it your kid and not all the kids in your kid’s grade?

I think that when we are seeing immaturity and learning difficulties across age groups it has as much to do with parenting, copious screens at home, and copious screens in school. Many parents think they’re “on” their children’s behaviors, but they aren’t. They let many many MANY things go and favor their children instead of the good of the group. If we went back to the school days before smart boards in the classroom and chromebooks in every hand, we would see better behavior. If kids weren’t handed iPhones at the store and iPads at restaurants to keep them quiet they would be better off. I don’t think it was the lockdown, I think it was the shift in parenting that came with it and that hasn’t gone back.

The bolded is an argument in favor of Covid having a significant impact, in my opinion. It was a major stressor event for some (but not all) parents, similar to a job loss or divorce, so heavily impacted how some people parented. And it causes many kids to be in screens much more often during the duration of school closures/hybrid schedules than they would have been otherwise -- some kids were using screens for school, entertainment, and socializing for the duration of social distancing, which for some places lasted a full year. If that happened during a key developmental time, I could see it having a long-term impact. Especially if combined with parents having their own mental health crises (these spiked during Covid).

I think my own kid weathered this ok but can understand why many kids might be struggling.

I agree that covid necessitated more screens at the time. But kids have been back in school for 2 years now, longer than the covid shutdown. And kids are screen obsessed. And they are on them a lot. At home and school. I am a teacher and I’m anti-screen. I do as much as I can on paper. But when 5th graders have their own phones and have tik tok and YouTube and constant access to social media—it’s destroying their mental health and their ability to sustain their attention…yet parents are afraid to take the phones away. There’s also a victim mentality culture right now (amongst adults), which feels exacerbated by social media. We complain about work being too much, we complain about the weather, we complain how the past changed everything. Teachers (and like I said, I am one) are complaining more than ever. Is it hard? Yes! But I feel like the complaining is making it worse. And we need solutions, not more complaining. Same with people who feel Covid messed up their kid. Sure there are some who were more profoundly affected than others. But please don’t discount the screens and lax parenting and shift from unstructured play to structured activities and sports teams being the focal point of many kids lives. And…nobody knows it their child would have had these same problems had Covid not happened. Depression, anxiety, learning disabilities, etc all existed before Covid.

It’s time to move on and stop blaming and start thinking of solutions. What can we do to get kids back on track? How can we hold boundaries so they feel safe? How can we have high expectations of them, while also letting them play and be children. My first suggestion is to take away their phones. And stop the chromebooks in school except for special occasions.

This should be required reading.

[Anonymous]

1000% we need to get rid of school Chromebooks. It is making kids lazy and teachers lazy. Oh, I have a 45 minute math block to fill? Here’s a few slides on the topic, a video someone else made, a link to an online assignment someone else made, and then a link to some online math games for the rest of the time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1000% we need to get rid of school Chromebooks. It is making kids lazy and teachers lazy. Oh, I have a 45 minute math block to fill? Here’s a few slides on the topic, a video someone else made, a link to an online assignment someone else made, and then a link to some online math games for the rest of the time!

I have brought up multiple times to the school that our kids have too much online learning.

My friend is livid because her child was getting good grades in math but lacks basic math skills. Parents had no idea the child was struggling. Multiple parents realized that this teacher doesn’t teach. It is like handing your kid an iPad so you can get a break except the teacher is handing your kid a Chromebook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1000% we need to get rid of school Chromebooks. It is making kids lazy and teachers lazy. Oh, I have a 45 minute math block to fill? Here’s a few slides on the topic, a video someone else made, a link to an online assignment someone else made, and then a link to some online math games for the rest of the time!

I have brought up multiple times to the school that our kids have too much online learning.

My friend is livid because her child was getting good grades in math but lacks basic math skills. Parents had no idea the child was struggling. Multiple parents realized that this teacher doesn’t teach. It is like handing your kid an iPad so you can get a break except the teacher is handing your kid a Chromebook.

For us it didn’t start until 6th grade but both of my kids complain all the time that the teacher “teaches” for 10-15m and the class watches online videos or does online assignments individually for the rest of the 80 minute block.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1000% we need to get rid of school Chromebooks. It is making kids lazy and teachers lazy. Oh, I have a 45 minute math block to fill? Here’s a few slides on the topic, a video someone else made, a link to an online assignment someone else made, and then a link to some online math games for the rest of the time!

Yes and yes! It is terrible. I feel like I have to have practically home school by kids or they would have zero growth. And I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1000% we need to get rid of school Chromebooks. It is making kids lazy and teachers lazy. Oh, I have a 45 minute math block to fill? Here’s a few slides on the topic, a video someone else made, a link to an online assignment someone else made, and then a link to some online math games for the rest of the time!

I have brought up multiple times to the school that our kids have too much online learning.

My friend is livid because her child was getting good grades in math but lacks basic math skills. Parents had no idea the child was struggling. Multiple parents realized that this teacher doesn’t teach. It is like handing your kid an iPad so you can get a break except the teacher is handing your kid a Chromebook.

Yeah, my middle schooler’s math class consists primarily of Zearn. The teacher may present a small amount of material, but they spend the majority of time on Zearn. What is happening ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most vulnerable children suffer from the slightest negative change in their environment.

My autistic kid, who was asocial before Covid, did not make the hoped for progress during the pandemic.

Am I blaming Covid or school response to Covid?

Not at all.

My other kids's development was not affected in the least! I recognize that this autistic kid of mine is fragile and that ANYTHING going wrong would have affected him, and will affect him in the future. He's just wired that way: we provide as much support and mitigation as we can, and when we're no longer able to help, he'll have to deal with things with the tools he has.

OP and others need to stop whining.
You don't sound credible.
You don't have perspective.
You're really not that bright.

How convincing...

The teachers who say they see the effects in many of their students don't have perspective and are dim? Can you hear yourself?

SMH

Then that teacher is unintelligent as well.

Times change and not everything can be attributed to Covid. Screentime and the incredible development of media content for children was going to snowball into a huge problem regardless of Covid. It's because of excess screentime that you're seeing developmental issues in the social realm. The pandemic and the social isolation it created for a while, combined with screens used to occupy and educate kids, revealed that problem earlier than if Covid hadn't shown up, but it would have happened anyway, and crucially, *is still happening* because more kids use screentime excessively.

The point is that many kids experience trauma during their childhood. My kid, for example, might not be as autistic and learning disabled if he hadn't had a traumatic birth event. If you consider the pandemic a trauma, then instead of wringing your hands and whining about it, you have to provide more support and training to your kid to mitigate the issues you observe.

This is what I've always done, and this is why I appear callous. I'm not. But as the parent of a kid with actual special needs, who has had years and years of special ed, speech/occupational/physical therapy and expensive tutors...

... I've had to figure things out for my family. Pull myself up by my bootstraps, so to speak, to get my kid a shot at a normal life. We didn't have the benefit of a society who suffered the same trauma along with us. We were all alone in our corner.

Your kids are going to be fine. Provide whatever support you think they need, but come on. Don't pretend that this is a huge deal. It's not. They will end up as functioning adults. I seriously hope you won't be pulling out the Covid card in 20 years! Focus on the solution, not the issue of origin.

But you don't sound callous. You sound narrow minded. Move past your N=1. There are other children in the world, even other adults.

Pretending the cause doesn't exist means that focusing on a solution is ineffective.

[Anonymous]

Kid is now in 5th grade. They had lockdown spring of 1st grade, then 2nd grade kid went in person for 2 days per week, so over fall/ winter had 19 in person school day wearing a mask. 3rd grade was everyday in person, I think still wearing mask through fall.

Did it affect them? Yes, but it was more on the social interaction side and was most felt in 3rd grade when they all were in person daily. There may be lingering effects but they decrease as kids grow older. My 5th graders memory of the pandemic is also getting kind of hazy.

[Anonymous]

We caught leaning disability during covid. I had always asked teachers at every conference about possible ADHD and they said no. ADHD seemed so apparent when I observed online learning, so we got testing which confirmed it. I guess because my daughter's grades were fine and she wasn't throwing chairs, the teachers lumped her in with the "no problems" kids.

I do wonder if the frequent screen stimulation shrinking attention spans makes it much harder to distinguish between general distractability and true ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kid is now in 5th grade. They had lockdown spring of 1st grade, then 2nd grade kid went in person for 2 days per week, so over fall/ winter had 19 in person school day wearing a mask. 3rd grade was everyday in person, I think still wearing mask through fall.

Did it affect them? Yes, but it was more on the social interaction side and was most felt in 3rd grade when they all were in person daily. There may be lingering effects but they decrease as kids grow older. My 5th graders memory of the pandemic is also getting kind of hazy.

My kids were playing soccer and tennis during this time. 2020 was definitely lonely as we stuck to ourselves but in 2021, life was mostly back to normal. My kids played outside with friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see fewer effects in my 5th grader’s class than in my 8th grader’s class.

I've heard this from other parents with kids those ages. It sounds like math and social development were both heavily impacted.

I have a 5th grader, 8th grader and and older child. The 8th grader and class seem typical and normal. The 5th grade as a whole seems quite stunted and not at all where the grades were when my older children were in 5th. It seems to particularly impacted the boys. Overall they act a lot more immature and seem to need a lot more handholding both socially and academically

[Anonymous]

I would love to see elementary and middle schools eliminate or greatly reduce screen use in class, and ban phones. If parents flip out about banning phones for safety reasons, invest in those phone pouches that keep kids from using them during the day but would enable them to access phones in a true emergency. Seems like a good solution.

We are a low-screen family with a middle-elementary kid who doesn't have a tablet or a phone and won't for the foreseeable future. It is alarming to me how many of her classmates are already addicted to TikTok, YouTube, or instagram. Also, not to throw back to the 90s, but kids are also playing an enormous amount of video games. I'm not anti video games (I play them sometimes myself) but these kids do not need to be playing 3 hours of Minecraft a day (or worse, watching 3 hours of Minecraft YouTube videos, a phenomenon that should really raise questions for parents about what it is their kids are getting out of screen time).

I have struggled with screen dependency as an adult, so I really prioritize trying to keep my kid off screens as long as possible so that she at least develops some coping skills that don't involve screens. I have to be on a computer and my phone all day for work and it absolutely makes it hard for me to unplug when I'm not at work. But I'm in my 40s. I can't imagine doing that to a 10 or 11 year old. Let's give them a chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We caught leaning disability during covid. I had always asked teachers at every conference about possible ADHD and they said no. ADHD seemed so apparent when I observed online learning, so we got testing which confirmed it. I guess because my daughter's grades were fine and she wasn't throwing chairs, the teachers lumped her in with the "no problems" kids.

I do wonder if the frequent screen stimulation shrinking attention spans makes it much harder to distinguish between general distractability and true ADHD.

Yes, you describe the response from teachers perfectly. How old was your daughter who you did testing? My younger daughter is in K at a very academic private and has received very positive feedback from her teachers over the last two years but she is very distractible and despite being athletic gets injured easily as a result. It's terrifying as a parent. I've brought this up with her pediatrician who has dismissed my concerns while my daughter is jumping around her office and stumbling over chairs in the background. I have ADHD and my husband's family has a strong ADHD history so there is a genetic predisposition. I wasn't medicated until the end of middle school and I really should have been medicated earlier. Because DD is in such an academic setting I don't want to wait too long for testing. Also, did you get a neuropsych and involve the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We caught leaning disability during covid. I had always asked teachers at every conference about possible ADHD and they said no. ADHD seemed so apparent when I observed online learning, so we got testing which confirmed it. I guess because my daughter's grades were fine and she wasn't throwing chairs, the teachers lumped her in with the "no problems" kids.

I do wonder if the frequent screen stimulation shrinking attention spans makes it much harder to distinguish between general distractability and true ADHD.

Yes, you describe the response from teachers perfectly. How old was your daughter who you did testing? My younger daughter is in K at a very academic private and has received very positive feedback from her teachers over the last two years but she is very distractible and despite being athletic gets injured easily as a result. It's terrifying as a parent. I've brought this up with her pediatrician who has dismissed my concerns while my daughter is jumping around her office and stumbling over chairs in the background. I have ADHD and my husband's family has a strong ADHD history so there is a genetic predisposition. I wasn't medicated until the end of middle school and I really should have been medicated earlier. Because DD is in such an academic setting I don't want to wait too long for testing. Also, did you get a neuropsych and involve the school?

We got testing through Children's hospital when my daughter was 9, after being on the wait-list for over a year. The 2e diagnosis indicated that high intelligence helped mask some of the symptoms, but I still wonder how the teachers could have seemed so confident in telling me not to worry about ADHD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We caught leaning disability during covid. I had always asked teachers at every conference about possible ADHD and they said no. ADHD seemed so apparent when I observed online learning, so we got testing which confirmed it. I guess because my daughter's grades were fine and she wasn't throwing chairs, the teachers lumped her in with the "no problems" kids.

I do wonder if the frequent screen stimulation shrinking attention spans makes it much harder to distinguish between general distractability and true ADHD.

Yes, you describe the response from teachers perfectly. How old was your daughter who you did testing? My younger daughter is in K at a very academic private and has received very positive feedback from her teachers over the last two years but she is very distractible and despite being athletic gets injured easily as a result. It's terrifying as a parent. I've brought this up with her pediatrician who has dismissed my concerns while my daughter is jumping around her office and stumbling over chairs in the background. I have ADHD and my husband's family has a strong ADHD history so there is a genetic predisposition. I wasn't medicated until the end of middle school and I really should have been medicated earlier. Because DD is in such an academic setting I don't want to wait too long for testing. Also, did you get a neuropsych and involve the school?

We got testing through Children's hospital when my daughter was 9, after being on the wait-list for over a year. The 2e diagnosis indicated that high intelligence helped mask some of the symptoms, but I still wonder how the teachers could have seemed so confident in telling me not to worry about ADHD

PS to answer the last part of your question, yes it was a full neuropsych. The involvement of the school so far was to have the teachers fill out surveys as part of the assessment and then starting a 504 plan after we got the diagnosis. We did not do any testing through the school.