Reply to Is your middle school a mess regarding behavior post-covid?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My oldest started at Irving the year COVID hit, so didn't quite have a full year there, but there were not the issues I have heard about happening this year. I don't know if it's the year and a half of virtual or something about the particular group of kids there now, but I worry for my youngest to start there.[/quote]

I have had 3 kids go through Irving, one there now.

With the older 2, I only recall 1 fight in 4 years.  It truly was a wonderful place.

Since shut downs, it has been lord of the flies.

Last spring was very positive, kids happy to be back and excited to see one another.  That was when the only kids back were the ones who really wanted to be there.  It was a wonderful spring.

Now that all the kids are back, this year has been insane.

I really do think that the 5/6/7 graders over covid had too much unsupervised time on their phones and no expectations from virtual school.

The 9th graders were a disaster too first semester at WSHS.  But they finally got it together 2nd semester and spring has gone smoothly.

We are reaping the consequences of distance learning.[/quote]

OP here - this is why I posted. I've heard this from so many "real life" friends with Irving experience. We'd heard only wonderful things about the school from kids and parents since we moved here in 2013. This is the first year I've heard so many negative things about behavior. It's hard to believe it's a coincidence that it just happened to occur after virtual school. Sad. I hope next year is better, but I'm not sure how they get the kids back on track. Knowing how well the school has been run in the past, I'm sure they are trying their best. [/quote]

This is truly a weird year for Irving.[/quote]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Parents need to stop assuming good rankings and past reputation of a school automatically equates to smooth sailing and academic excellence for their child. Without proper parenting and involvement, any school can turn into a dumpster fire experience.[/quote]

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

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