Is your middle school a mess regarding behavior post-covid?
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Anonymous
This has nothing to do with ratings and everything to do with emotional damage of middle schoolers by the sustained covid school lock downs. Irving has always been a wonderful place emotionally for kids. Except this year. Whether Irving's rating was in the basement or at the top, the one thing they had down perfectly was creating a space where the worst years of puberty were smooth, nurturing and supportive experience. Before this year, every parent who had a kid go through Irving would say this. Yes, they had the normal middle school issues like girl drama, but they dealt with it swiftly and effectively. One of my kids was on the geek side of social strata, so we had a glimpse of how Irving resolved bullying. From the perspective of the typical bully target circle, irving handled those issues well, swiftly and effectively. Perhaps their issues this year is that their well oiled systel was designed for kids who matured correctly through 5th and 6th grade and were prepared for the transition to maturity and independence that middle school provides, but instead they have a.bunch of kids who missed 5th, 6th and 7th grade, and are emotionally and intellectually stunted at an elementary kids judgememt and maturity, but with the hormones, bodies and impulsivity of young teenagers. Perhaps the issues are compounded by those ridiculous masks and aggressive mask bullying. Middle schoolers no longer see each other as individuals. The masks have made them faceless. The masks have dehumanized people into anonymous faceless nobodies. This has been compounded by social media, definitely over used during pandemic, which also makes others anonymous nobodies behind a screen. Before pandemic, other kids were faceless online but real in person. Now, for middle schoolers are faceless online and faceless in person. They and everyone around them are dehumanized for most of the day. And we wonder why they are acting the way they are at school? The leadership culture of fcps and our mask crazed community have created this unhealthy issue. Social media too. Remember, we are starting to get into the kids who have had unfettered access to smart phones and social media since early elementary. Kids with IG accounts and tik tok accounts since first or second grade. My oldest recently graduated. For her grade, most kids did not get a phone until 6th grade, and even then it was usually a fairly basic phone. It was a noted event in 6th grade as more kids got phones and started the spam texting. We could always tell when a kid got a new phone because that night, the phone would blow up with a string of silly texts. Most of the kids did not get social media until theh were 13. My kid got one at the beginning of 6th, and was one of the first in her class. Even then, it was just a flip phone, which most kids had as their starter phone. My current older high school kid was one of the latest to get a phone, still in 6th grade. His phone was a basic smart phone, but social media was locked down until 13, and then just aiG. I can say with confidence that most of his friends got smart phones by 4th grade and social media shortly after that. My youngest is at Irving in 8th. Her friends all had smart phones in 2nd and 3rd grade. Most of them had their own social media accounts by 8 or 9. Most of them had unfettered access and very few restrictions to their phones, beyond an internet cut off at bedtime. Even then, many still were able to take their phones to their rooms at night for "the alarm" They are online, on social media all day, all night, since around 8 or 9 years old. They aren't sleeping properly because they are on social media until past midnight, and they are seeing and doing so much age and developmemtally inappropriate stuff. During the 2 years of no school, they did not even get the 7 hour school break from their phones. You cannot tell me that this age group of kids being given phones and socialedia in early elemtary, then having it compounded by the 2 years of no school, followed by returning to school where everyone is masked, faceless and dehumanized nobodies, during the height of puperty, isn't the perfect storm of disaster and abnormal, anti social behavior. God bless our teachers for trying to find a solution and for trying to fix our kids. My bet is that is is not going to start to improve until the middle schoolers start to unmask, and break their addictions to social media |
Anonymous
| Y’all need to stop blaming schools and a pandemic for not doing your jobs as parents. |
Anonymous
| My son goes to Stone MS. He says only the most pretty girls will take their masks off *outside*. He says otherwise all the kids wear masks all day, except for lunch. I see kids from Stone at the Starbucks nearby and they are all hanging out, in masks. It is really sad. |
Anonymous
| I am shocked parents allow their kids to create instagram accounts like that. |
Anonymous
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08:36 I agree with this and think it’s the root cause of all the problems we’re seeing with MS-age kids:
“ Perhaps their issues this year is that their well oiled systel was designed for kids who matured correctly through 5th and 6th grade and were prepared for the transition to maturity and independence that middle school provides, but instead they have a.bunch of kids who missed 5th, 6th and 7th grade, and are emotionally and intellectually stunted at an elementary kids judgememt and maturity, but with the hormones, bodies and impulsivity of young teenagers.” A current 7th graders last year of normal school was 4th grade. Their 5th grade year was completely cut short, and 6th was mostly shut up at home. Now they’re 7th graders and we expect them to just fall back into normal routines like they always did, like their 5th and 6th grade years were totally fine. It’s a recipe for disaster. We kept them masked too long and that will be an issue going forward too when it comes to self esteem and conformity. My SIL teaches HS (mostly younger graders, 9th/10th for the most part), they went back hybrid in September 2020 and dropped the mask requirement at the beginning of this school year after a few weeks. Now hardly anyone wears them and it is back to I’d say 95% normal. We still have awhile to go here. The MS behavioral problems will only be helped by time and students growing up and maturing. |
Anonymous
Iids of any age are able to create instagram and tiktok accounts without parent knowledge or permission. Once the parent hands them a smartphone, all bets are off. And for the shaming other kids who unmask, likely the parents are where they got that attitude from. The kids I know who are intk shaming others over masks have parents who are really, really intk covid restrictions forever, especially visible ones like makse that demonstrate political allegiance. |
Anonymous
My son is pretty good looking. He is still the only person in our household still wearing a mask at school. I think it depends on what your friends and school is doing. |