In June, after the pandemic, some kindergartens and schools reopened for children in the first and sixth grades and in preparatory classes. However, parents have the right to keep their children at home if they feel it is too early to return to school.
The first quarter of COVID in British schools has created additional problems for everyone – children, teachers and parents. Children have become unaccustomed to face-to-face teaching and their usual daily routines, and have also become more anxious. Parents and teachers have to find a new way of dealing with them.
The Russian service of the BBC has collected several stories of British schoolchildren whose lives have been changed by the pandemic. Some names in this material have been changed at the request of parents.
In teachers’ internal summaries, a column called “Covid-19 impact” has appeared, which can be translated as “effect of Covid-19,” says Sarah Turner, a teacher at one of the primary schools in southeast London. “We were asked to write down everything that we could associate with the child’s condition in relation to the current situation, especially the spring lockdown. Why did their learning get worse or better? Why did they begin to have conflicts with other students? Why did they become less attentive – why?”
“This does not mean that the answer to all these questions will be – yes, COVID is to blame. However, it is necessary to analyze this in order to understand how objective the reasons for the changes in our students are. And based on the results of the first semester, I can confidently say that in some cases these changes are clearly visible,” says Turner.
In June, specialists in clinical psychology at Oxford University conducted a survey of ten thousand parents and found that during the lockdown, the condition of children aged 4-10 years deteriorated significantly in three key areas: emotional, behavioral, and educational (problems with attention and responsiveness). And in October, UNICEF released a report claiming that the experiences of many children will have very long-lasting effects, for some lasting a lifetime.
Psychologically, in most cases, the child dealt with the lockdown in the same way as the parents. Since the lockdown, Emma Evans has started setting four alarms in the morning, 15 minutes apart. She wakes herself at the first ring, but the other three are needed to gradually wake her oldest daughter, Eliza, for school without any sudden movements. The girl is in the fourth grade and is struggling to get her sleep schedule back after the quarantine.
“During the lockdown, she stayed in bed until 11 p.m., crying because she couldn’t get to sleep,” Emma says. “I knew right away that this wasn’t just a routine disorder. After consulting a specialist, we found out that she was afraid of the mornings because she had to sit at the computer and study online, and she didn’t know how to do it. Even though the school was doing its best to make the process easier.
According to child psychologist Svetlana Okhotnikova, even with the availability of educational materials and full support from adults, many children were simply not psychologically prepared for such changes.
Children find it easier to deal with confusing situations if they follow a set of rules. “Anxiety means the inability to learn because it is difficult to study when you are scared inside. For many children, this could cause them to fall behind in their studies,” says Svetlana. “During the lockdown, many parents approached me about their children’s fears of possible infection and the death of loved ones. The children sensed the general mood and understanding that this is a deadly virus that can kill. And many began to worry.
On the advice of an English specialist, Emma Evans has introduced a reward system in the house for every effort that gets Eliza to sleep at least 10 minutes earlier than the previous time. “We are making slow progress. Our goal is to switch to three alarms in the morning by the winter semester,” says Emma.
Eight-year-old Kyle goes to the bathroom at the last moment before meeting his parents at the end of the school day and sits there for a long time.
According to the psychologist, there is no going back to the old life. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. эпизоды – Episodes The end of the story: Promotional Podcasts. “Now, because of COVID, parents do not enter the school building. We dismiss children by class and release them to parents, nannies, or other people we know well. Kyle is often picked up by a neighbor, less often by his mother, and never by his father. He doesn’t want to go home. I cannot go into the details of this situation because it is being handled by others. I can only say that Kyle is better off at school than at home,” said Jess P., a teacher at one of the primary schools in East London.
Svetlana Okhotnikova sees the coronavirus as a magnifying glass under which problems that originally existed in the family have become much more visible. “A dysfunctional background affects all areas. First of all, children from such families suffer in their studies. If there is violence at home, or if the parents are extremely anxious because of unemployment, or if they are extremely tired because of demanding physical work, their children are already at risk,” says a psychologist.
“Children with developmental disabilities have also suffered greatly. Routine is very important for them. They found themselves locked up, their daily routine changed, and they experienced a serious setback,” Okhotnikova continues.
Alexandra has five children, three of whom are schoolchildren – 5, 8 and 15 years old. The unusual situation affected them differently: five-year-old Sofia got used to being at home and reluctantly returned to school, while the middle child, Gabriel, on the other hand, became almost uncontrollable in isolation, according to his mother, but this changed as soon as everyone returned to school in June.
For many children, going back to school is a salvation from their home environment. But the most serious psychological trauma was suffered by the eldest Athena. The girl studies at one of the best ballet schools in Britain outside London. It is a boarding school, and during the lockdown all students were sent home. Moreover, unlike general schools, which reopened a month and a half before the summer holidays, many specialized institutions decided not to do so, and Athena did not return to full-time classes until September.
“Of course, they also had online classes, and at first she was very enthusiastic about them, but I could see that each time there were fewer of them. Ballet is all about atmosphere: at the barre, in the rehearsal room. You don’t have that at home, not to mention the conditions, like the flooring,” Alexandra explains.
When Athena said one day that she wanted to quit ballet, her mother panicked and asked her to come back to the conversation in a few hours. “I had to control myself not to say too much. It is very difficult to get into this school, it is expensive, but above all, it is everything she has dreamed of since she started talking. She wanted to give up everything in her life,” Alexandra recalls.
Everything turned out fine, and Athena returned to school in September, but according to her parents, the situation was more stressful for the whole family than the lockdown itself.
“The younger the child, the more mobile his psyche is – it is both more flexible and less stable at the same time, while in older children the psyche becomes more rigid – that is, it is already more stable, but less mobile,” explains psychologist Svetlana Okhotnikova the relationship between the age of children and their reactions to a certain situation. According to UNICEF for 2019, there are more than 2.2 billion children in the world – about 28% of the world’s population.
The organization’s October report states that children will be the main victims of the pandemic in the long term. The authors of the report emphasize that the crisis will affect all children, of all ages and in all countries, but it will be most severe for children from poor backgrounds. Specialists agree that the social aspect plays an important role, because a child’s psychological state depends first and foremost on how the adults around him deal with stress.
“I have no comparative data on European countries, but based on my own observations, I could compare Russia and Britain. In Russia, in my opinion, society is more anxious and prone to conspiracy theories, so I can assume that Russian children may be more affected: they absorb all these radical ideas from their parents, that everything is bad and terrible, against the backdrop of a not very stable socio-economic situation,” says psychologist Svetlana Okhotnikova.
The younger the children, the more flexible their psyche, but also the less stable. Psychologists predict that sooner or later many adults around the world will have to deal with PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This will happen because even when the current phase ends, there is still no return to the old life.
“All of this is going to affect the children. So the main message we should give to our children is that we are adults and we will be fine. And you, child, just relax and trust us as much as you can. And adults need to work on their own fears and anxieties first,” says Svetlana.