Do you remember your summer holidays at school? They started out seemingly never-ending, and then the last few days just flew by! Going back to school after the holidays was always tough. I remember always being hit by massive doses of “Monday Blues” because there were just so many conflicting emotions to deal with. The excitement of re-igniting old friendships, the anxiety of meeting new classmates, the excitement of a new uniform and/or books, the anxiety of holiday homework left incomplete, the excitement of PE/games / your favourite subject, the anxiety of early morning wake-ups.
Now multiply all this by a factor of 10, and that’s how your child is bound to feel when schools re-open post-Covid.
After being homebound since March’20, whether with or without online classes, eventually, our youngsters will need to switch modes back to conventional in-person school. This will mean a break of at least 10 months, and in some cases, up to 12-14 months. As I write this, I’m assuming schools in India will open for the new academic year, i.e. April-May 2021; by that time, our little ones would have been used to the zoom-way of school for anywhere between 12 to 18 months! Not to forget the youngest lot, who haven’t even seen a physical school and just started online.
As I said, back-to-school blues multiplied manifold!
We got an ugly glimpse into how challenging this can be when we moved to France earlier this year. Our son has always been happy to go to school. He’s a friendly, outdoor child who is happiest when he’s jumping around and goofing off with kids his own age. He enjoys the company of other kids and makes connections quite easily. So, we were not quite prepared for what he went through when he had to attend physical school after a break of 7 months.
Even a clearly extroverted child by nature pre-covid can suddenly turn into a home-body who just wants to stay indoors and literally do nothing.
If you’re facing a similar reluctance from your child, read on to understand some specific reasons why it may be tougher for your child to get back to school in the post-covid world:
COVID Anxiety is Real
We have dealt with it as adults, and our children are dealing with it too. For them to step outdoors is a mental battle as well as a physical one. While kids may not express themselves too eloquently, it is obvious that they may have some scary thoughts in their minds. Will corona get me? Can I touch my hands to my face? What if I’m not able to wash my hands? What if my friend has corona? So on, and so forth.
Even physical symptoms like stomach aches, nausea or headaches can be signs of anxiety. This is how the child’s body is dealing with the mental fatigue that worrying about the unknown has brought on them. As Prof. Steven Siegel from Univ. Of South Carolina explains in this helpful article, “As parents, teachers & citizens, it is our responsibility to provide children with context, limit catastrophizing and emphasise responsibility & control.”
Indoors is the New Normal
At a young age, a routine is what gets kids through a lot of difficult tasks. A child may have earlier identified going to school as their “work” or something they must do. Just like mom & dad go to the office, the child goes to school. But now, mom & dad are being told to “work-from-home” but the kids are being sent to school. This doesn’t fit in with the world-view that they have been used to. For the past few months, we have emphasised to these young minds how an online school is important and how they need to concentrate on learning via video calls. So in their minds, they should be able to continue learning without having to step into the unfamiliar environment of the “scary” outdoors.
Imagine it this way, for a 5year old, 6 months translates to 10% of their life since birth, and 25% of their conscious lives (from 3yr onwards). For an adult who is 30 years old, 6 months translates to only 1.67% of their lives. How would you feel if all the things you have been used to for one-fourth of your conscious life suddenly get taken away and are replaced with something that you have no say in? You’re damn right, it’s frightening.
School may mean Misinformation
According to the UNICEF, there have been concerns that incidents of stigma and bullying may increase when children return to school, due to some misinformation around Covid-19. (Click here to read about what UNICEF suggests for Supporting Your Child’s Mental Health During Covid-19 School Return) So rather than allowing your child to be swayed by half-truths and misinformation, you need to reassure them about the safety measures that adults are taking to keep them safe. If you believe that it’s safe to send your child to school, then that is what you must convey to them too.
As we battled with our son’s tantrums and meltdowns every morning, we had to identify the “why”. It seemed illogical to us that he was resisting going to a place where he was having fun once he reached, and it certainly sounded much more fun than being stuck indoors all day. Bullying, discrimination and other exclusion had to be ruled out so we made sure to have detailed conversations with his teachers and him, and even watched out for other signs (like unexplained bruises or a change in behaviour). Once this was eliminated, it started to become clear that this was a psychological battle with his inner demons and acknowledging his back-to-school anxiety helped us all.
We then got around to equipping him with some practical tools and routines that allowed him to get through this and settle back in. I’ve put down some useful tips in the next post in this series; you can read these here.
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