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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?

[b]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. [/b]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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

You are very wise.  I agree with you 100%.

We still have relaxed expectations in my public school district due to Covid.  Why?

I am a parent sitting on district committees and nobody can quickly summarize the degree to which we are still impacted by the pandemic learning loss.

The chromebooks are 100% now but the kids aren't learning more/better and the teachers are very inconsistent with the learning management/grade portal. And there is epidemic use of phones in class for non-schoolwork purposes.

As a parent, I've allowed too much screen usage.  But not sure what to do about it. My kids are doing reasonably well in school.  I just wished their free time was better spent.

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