Parents of 5th graders - let’s talk

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socially/behaviorally, I think the issues are a result of the screen generation of parenting. Some kids are totally and completely screen addicted at shockingly young ages. Parents can't run into Target for 15 minutes without handing the kid a phone. The amount of kids using their computers at inappropriate school times is high. Defiance/ignoring of teachers is also high.

I work in an ES across multiple grades.

It’s sad to see babies or toddlers in a stroller out and about and they are watching a TV program. This has become so common. Then you see the ones with no screen and they are engaged with their surroundings, smiling at people, looking around. I just don’t get it.

I agree. And can’t go to a restaurant without a screen. My kids are 13 and 16 and no one did this when they were little even though we had the ability with our phones (esp with 13 yo). But 5 years after they were toddlers it was everywhere.

These kids are messed up from it - and then Covid screen deluge basically put the nail in the coffin bc at least before that, screens were minimally used in grade school so that was a brake to it all. No more.

Yep, I'm the pp that works in an ES. The other place I see it is in 5th grade English. One of the things they focus on is "reading stamina" which is the ability to read for longer and longer periods of time, keeping focus and not needing breaks, etc. We start with 10 minutes and try to work up to 45 by the end of the year. It is SHOCKING how hard to even impossible this is for some kids. They literally can't/won't read a single page without staring off into space. And they get to choose the book! These are kids who know HOW to read, but literally can't focus long enough to do so. And these are NT kids that don't have IEPs or anything. It's really sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a third grader, and I think it affected their age group the most. He was in Preschool and then kindergarten during the lockdowns. I think the most long-term damage is kids who are currently 9 and 10 years old.

My friends who had kids in this age group kept their kids in preschool. Many preschools also have kindergarten. Their kids seem mostly just fine.

I think parents who had resources turned out ok while parents who struggled with multiple kids at home while trying to juggle work may have suffered the most.

I have heard middle school kids who never finished algebra and not adequate math learning were poorly prepared for high school. Others will say their kids suffered social development for kids who were 4-5.

I had a child in preschool and two in elementary. I don’t work so it was relatively easy to juggle elementary kids’ virtual learning. I ordered a lot of books and toys online. My kids played a lot of outside sports. Most people we know were out and about at least outdoors. It isn’t like we were all locked inside our homes for 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS is in 5th and for him I think his handwriting is the only thing that has suffered. He wouldn’t have otherwise been using a laptop to do work in 2nd grade when that skill was really developing. We supplemented from the summer after 1st through the middle of 3rd with small group tutoring, I think that made a huge difference and has paid off in his math and reading.

I think a lot of the issues, regardless of grade, is that parents and adults were greatly affected more than we realize and it’s trickled down to kids.

+1 to the bolded. So many other threads about road rage and adults behaving terribly since the start of the pandemic, as well as countless threads bashing teachers and saying public school is useless. Of course kids hear/see that at home and bring those attitudes to school.

[Anonymous]

While the virtual year had impacts, I wonder if COVID has had effects on these kids’ brains that we just don’t understand yet.

You’ve got the virtual year, possible COVID effects, and parents who gave their kids iPads to keep them occupied back when everyone was stuck at home and then just… kept doing it. How do you unpick the threads to figure out causes?

We all thought this year’s kindergarten class would be easier. They were two when the pandemic hit! They didn’t even have to miss preschool! And yet at least at our school, this kinder group has been higher needs than any group post COVID. Insane amounts of extreme behaviors.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Well educated parents with resources were able to navigate through Covid whether it was sending their kids to private schools that opened, forming study pods, getting online tutors, teaching kids themselves, etc.

I thought it was pretty easy to pivot and have them keep up with schoolwork. My kids told me they learned more during their 2-3 hours of school with me and online than during all day at school. I enrolled my kids in an online math site. The school had many resources online for various subjects and we took full advantage. We already had a lot of books and I bought more. We got kiwi crates, legos, puzzles, board games.

[Anonymous]

The 5th graders at our school are known as absolute monsters. Everyone knows it and can't wait to get rid of them. They've been that way ever since Covid, so I do think Covid really did a number on that particular cohort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 5th graders at our school are known as absolute monsters. Everyone knows it and can't wait to get rid of them. They've been that way ever since Covid, so I do think Covid really did a number on that particular cohort.

I feel like every year, by this point, the entire school is DONE with 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socially/behaviorally, I think the issues are a result of the screen generation of parenting. Some kids are totally and completely screen addicted at shockingly young ages. Parents can't run into Target for 15 minutes without handing the kid a phone. The amount of kids using their computers at inappropriate school times is high. Defiance/ignoring of teachers is also high.

I work in an ES across multiple grades.

It’s sad to see babies or toddlers in a stroller out and about and they are watching a TV program. This has become so common. Then you see the ones with no screen and they are engaged with their surroundings, smiling at people, looking around. I just don’t get it.

I agree. And can’t go to a restaurant without a screen. My kids are 13 and 16 and no one did this when they were little even though we had the ability with our phones (esp with 13 yo). But 5 years after they were toddlers it was everywhere.

These kids are messed up from it - and then Covid screen deluge basically put the nail in the coffin bc at least before that, screens were minimally used in grade school so that was a brake to it all. No more.

Little kids had phones and iPads before Covid. Big kids being glued to their phones is also not a new phenomenon. We have a no screens during meals rule. We have friends whose kids carry their iPads around everywhere. The parents plop the iPad at the table so the kid can concentrate to eat. I don’t think this has anything to do with Covid and everything to do with their parenting style.

[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.