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I have 2 in elementary and one in middle school. Our public schools will supposedly open physical classes with an online option as well. You need to pick and co

by winphone1974 6y ago

I have 2 in elementary and one in middle school. Our public schools will supposedly open physical classes with an online option as well. You need to pick and commit to one. I'm strongly in the physical camp for many reasons, most importantly the online school in the spring was garbage and a lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern-for healthy young kids with no underlying health issues maybe as important as COVID itself. That said I personally don't schools will stay open until even Christmas and don't know what our next step will be. We've investigated private school as the class sizes are much smaller and they have far more flexibility and motivation to make in person learning work. Context: western Canada with big public school classes and very few cases, the majority impacting very old and those with previous health concerns

GiorgioG 6y ago
> lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern (No offense intended) I keep hearing this and wonder what proof we have of this? I have two kids, one introvert, one extrovert and neither seem to have been impacted. Sure they'd like to hang out with friends, but they're basically the same personality/kids/temperament they had pre-pandemic.
- nxc18 6y ago
  Not a parent, but fwiw even the fully grown adults I've interacted with are starting to show serious deficits in social skills after months of relative isolation. I've historically been on the socially awkward side, so its kind of refreshing to be the comparatively graceful one. I don't know if there's evidence, but if this were to go on for years I could see kids missing milestones. Having gone to school with kids who were homeschooled without proper socialization for too long, I can comfortably say social skills need to be learned. It may not seem like much, but not knowing how to interact with peers comfortably is a serious problem, especially as you start to enter situations like interviewing for a job or trying to make friends in a new city.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    > Not a parent, but fwiw even the fully grown adults I've interacted with are starting to show serious deficits in social skills after months of relative isolation. I've historically been on the socially awkward side, so its kind of refreshing to be the comparatively graceful one. Huh? I've not experienced this at all with anyone I've seen during the pandemic - even with people who I've only talked online with. This includes people who have basically not seen anyone in person for months and aren't working. What are these "serious deficits in social skills" you're noticing in adults?
    - nxc18 6y ago
      At the few socially distanced gatherings I’ve been too, as well as when running into people in the streets, there’s been a lack of the usual nuance and care that I typically expect. That’s mainly expressed through less careful filtering, either of direct content or indirect content. E.g. evidence of marital strife that would normally be papered over more effectively might come out. Words are chosen less carefully causing unintended meaning to leak out. What might normally be a ‘we’ turns into ‘me’ and ‘her’. An example from this weekend, I ran into a colleague in town who is having a hard time - his roommate moved back East in May and the core parts of his social group are either immunocompromised or left the area shortly before his current absent roommate moved in. He was having trouble masking how anxious he was. There were untimely interjections. He mentioned wishing he could talk to people who didn’t work for our company - it’s a company town and no one our age/socioeconomic class (that’s an ugly thought but I won’t go down that rabbit hole) works anywhere else. I would expect him to be more nuanced in expressing the idea of hating small talk with people that work at our company, given we were actively making small talk and I work at said company. Maybe serious is a stretch, but I’m seeing the typical CS/engineer social deficits expressed in people who are in sales/management roles and in people who previously were more capable. It probably wouldn’t stand out in San Francisco or a tech school campus, but in my current circumstances it certainly does. This isn’t a judgment of anyone involved - everyone I’ve talked about I love to death. As a socially awkward person myself, I tend to love and appreciate other socially awkward people. They just might run into challenges when the stakes are higher.
- pgrote 6y ago
  We are in the same situation with kids of the same temperament. The extrovert has discovered self initiative play and done some creative things. The introvert discovered roblox and picsart and is now more social than ever before. It has sort of worked out for them. More to your question, how would you study something like that? Previously home schooled students who had limited social interactions?
  - actfrench 6y ago
    If one were to study that, I don't know if homeschoolers are the best group to look at. Also, it's tricky because there is a big difference between healthy socialization and unhealthy socialization. Are we talking about being completely alone or being in a huge group with no friends? I don't know that this would work so well because lack of socialization is one of the biggest myths about homeschooling. The homeschoolers I know hang out in the park for hours 2-3 times a week, do skill shares together, take classes and electives, travel the world. This pandemic has been harder , if not more so than other groups, because they can't use the world as their classroom in the way they've done before. Also, many children struggle mighily in school. Just because there are lots of people there doesn't mean kids don't feel incredibly isolated. A bad social experience (Eg being bullied and isolated in school. Bullying and systemic racism run rampant in our schools. Teachers are exhausted spending most of their time managing behavior rather than getting time to teach and facilitate healthy social-emotional learning in the classroom. I started a digital pod this fall and some of our kids didn't say a single word in class last fall. Now, in a group of 5-6 kids they are actively participating, sharing their hopes and dreams. Some communicate verbally, others prefer to observe.
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  > the same personality/kids/temperament they had pre-pandemic. I would not stop there when considering the topic. Socialization is a process, and its goal is growth, not stagnation. That being said, it's also gradual, making it difficult to measure over a few months.
flowerlad 6y ago
> lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern-for healthy young kids with no underlying health issues maybe as important as COVID itself Lack of socialization - for a few months - is as serious as a disease that's killing people by the hundreds of thousands? Even if the kids themselves are at lower risk, they can transmit the disease to parents as well as teachers, who are much more vulnerable.
- kbutler 6y ago
  It looks like child-child and child->adult transmission is very rare. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h... We don't know why yet.
  - flowerlad 6y ago
    Older Children Spread the Coronavirus Just as Much as Adults, Large Study Finds: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-childr...
    - mcv 6y ago
      Yeah, it's mostly elementary age children who don't seem to spread it. Teenagers seem to be just as bad as adults. In Netherland, recent infections come mostly from older teenagers and young twenty-somethings.
- mrburkins 6y ago
  Anecdote: my son is 3.5 and has effectively not been around other children since we left NYC in February. Prior to leaving he was beginning to have a friend group. A group of parents have tried to keep them in touch with FaceTimes etc but to this day he still asks when he can see his friends in real life. We’ve also noticed social regression - especially being afraid of people leaving, not sleeping regularly and random bouts of anger. I’ve heard from other parents who’ve experienced the same. So much happens at this age - learning how to deal with anger, learning how to deal with other kids and their feelings etc. I tend to be a more hands off parent than my wife but even I worry. I hope for the best but I worry.
jeffrallen 6y ago
Amen, brother! Physical presence here until the house of cards falls down, then... Shuffle?
actfrench 6y ago
This has been a painfully lonely time for many children. There's no good solution for this. But here are some ways, I've found families have navigated the social isolation piece -small online clubs -daily scheduled facetime with friends -focusing on developing/nurturing healthy relationships with siblings and parents (this goes along way in building healthy attachments later in life) -socially distanced hikes with friends wearing masks -make friends with one other family who is also socially distancing.

GiorgioG 6y ago

> lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern (No offense intended) I keep hearing this and wonder what proof we have of this? I have two kids, one introvert, one extrovert and neither seem to have been impacted. Sure they'd like to hang out with friends, but they're basically the same personality/kids/temperament they had pre-pandemic.

nxc18 6y ago
Not a parent, but fwiw even the fully grown adults I've interacted with are starting to show serious deficits in social skills after months of relative isolation. I've historically been on the socially awkward side, so its kind of refreshing to be the comparatively graceful one. I don't know if there's evidence, but if this were to go on for years I could see kids missing milestones. Having gone to school with kids who were homeschooled without proper socialization for too long, I can comfortably say social skills need to be learned. It may not seem like much, but not knowing how to interact with peers comfortably is a serious problem, especially as you start to enter situations like interviewing for a job or trying to make friends in a new city.
- bradlys 6y ago
  > Not a parent, but fwiw even the fully grown adults I've interacted with are starting to show serious deficits in social skills after months of relative isolation. I've historically been on the socially awkward side, so its kind of refreshing to be the comparatively graceful one. Huh? I've not experienced this at all with anyone I've seen during the pandemic - even with people who I've only talked online with. This includes people who have basically not seen anyone in person for months and aren't working. What are these "serious deficits in social skills" you're noticing in adults?
  - nxc18 6y ago
    At the few socially distanced gatherings I’ve been too, as well as when running into people in the streets, there’s been a lack of the usual nuance and care that I typically expect. That’s mainly expressed through less careful filtering, either of direct content or indirect content. E.g. evidence of marital strife that would normally be papered over more effectively might come out. Words are chosen less carefully causing unintended meaning to leak out. What might normally be a ‘we’ turns into ‘me’ and ‘her’. An example from this weekend, I ran into a colleague in town who is having a hard time - his roommate moved back East in May and the core parts of his social group are either immunocompromised or left the area shortly before his current absent roommate moved in. He was having trouble masking how anxious he was. There were untimely interjections. He mentioned wishing he could talk to people who didn’t work for our company - it’s a company town and no one our age/socioeconomic class (that’s an ugly thought but I won’t go down that rabbit hole) works anywhere else. I would expect him to be more nuanced in expressing the idea of hating small talk with people that work at our company, given we were actively making small talk and I work at said company. Maybe serious is a stretch, but I’m seeing the typical CS/engineer social deficits expressed in people who are in sales/management roles and in people who previously were more capable. It probably wouldn’t stand out in San Francisco or a tech school campus, but in my current circumstances it certainly does. This isn’t a judgment of anyone involved - everyone I’ve talked about I love to death. As a socially awkward person myself, I tend to love and appreciate other socially awkward people. They just might run into challenges when the stakes are higher.
pgrote 6y ago
We are in the same situation with kids of the same temperament. The extrovert has discovered self initiative play and done some creative things. The introvert discovered roblox and picsart and is now more social than ever before. It has sort of worked out for them. More to your question, how would you study something like that? Previously home schooled students who had limited social interactions?
- actfrench 6y ago
  If one were to study that, I don't know if homeschoolers are the best group to look at. Also, it's tricky because there is a big difference between healthy socialization and unhealthy socialization. Are we talking about being completely alone or being in a huge group with no friends? I don't know that this would work so well because lack of socialization is one of the biggest myths about homeschooling. The homeschoolers I know hang out in the park for hours 2-3 times a week, do skill shares together, take classes and electives, travel the world. This pandemic has been harder , if not more so than other groups, because they can't use the world as their classroom in the way they've done before. Also, many children struggle mighily in school. Just because there are lots of people there doesn't mean kids don't feel incredibly isolated. A bad social experience (Eg being bullied and isolated in school. Bullying and systemic racism run rampant in our schools. Teachers are exhausted spending most of their time managing behavior rather than getting time to teach and facilitate healthy social-emotional learning in the classroom. I started a digital pod this fall and some of our kids didn't say a single word in class last fall. Now, in a group of 5-6 kids they are actively participating, sharing their hopes and dreams. Some communicate verbally, others prefer to observe.
rhn_mk1 6y ago
> the same personality/kids/temperament they had pre-pandemic. I would not stop there when considering the topic. Socialization is a process, and its goal is growth, not stagnation. That being said, it's also gradual, making it difficult to measure over a few months.

flowerlad 6y ago

> lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern-for healthy young kids with no underlying health issues maybe as important as COVID itself Lack of socialization - for a few months - is as serious as a disease that's killing people by the hundreds of thousands? Even if the kids themselves are at lower risk, they can transmit the disease to parents as well as teachers, who are much more vulnerable.

kbutler 6y ago
It looks like child-child and child->adult transmission is very rare. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h... We don't know why yet.
- flowerlad 6y ago
  Older Children Spread the Coronavirus Just as Much as Adults, Large Study Finds: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-childr...
  - mcv 6y ago
    Yeah, it's mostly elementary age children who don't seem to spread it. Teenagers seem to be just as bad as adults. In Netherland, recent infections come mostly from older teenagers and young twenty-somethings.
mrburkins 6y ago
Anecdote: my son is 3.5 and has effectively not been around other children since we left NYC in February. Prior to leaving he was beginning to have a friend group. A group of parents have tried to keep them in touch with FaceTimes etc but to this day he still asks when he can see his friends in real life. We’ve also noticed social regression - especially being afraid of people leaving, not sleeping regularly and random bouts of anger. I’ve heard from other parents who’ve experienced the same. So much happens at this age - learning how to deal with anger, learning how to deal with other kids and their feelings etc. I tend to be a more hands off parent than my wife but even I worry. I hope for the best but I worry.

jeffrallen 6y ago

Amen, brother! Physical presence here until the house of cards falls down, then... Shuffle?

actfrench 6y ago

This has been a painfully lonely time for many children. There's no good solution for this. But here are some ways, I've found families have navigated the social isolation piece -small online clubs -daily scheduled facetime with friends -focusing on developing/nurturing healthy relationships with siblings and parents (this goes along way in building healthy attachments later in life) -socially distanced hikes with friends wearing masks -make friends with one other family who is also socially distancing.