Many years ago, when I was working at Freedom Institute, an outpatient addictions clinic, I met a young man of 19 who had been suspended from college due to excessive alcohol consumption. When I met with his mother, she broke down in tears, wondering why her college aged son was making decisions like a young teen instead of like a young adult. I explained to her that when he began drinking alcohol as a young teen, he stunted his brain’s growth and had never developed the skills needed to think and act like a young adult. As he got sober, he would have to learn those skills and would eventually be able to master them.
Over the last two years, the developing brains of our children have been stunted as an effect of coronavirus. It has nothing to do with actually having the virus and it’s not a medical fact. It is also not a comment on IQ or natural ability. This statement is based on the sheer volume of missed school, camp and social interactions while in lockdown as well as going in and out of quarantine. Let’s be honest—from March through June of 2020, students didn’t learn as much as they would normally have learned and teachers, while trying their hardest, taught at a different level than usual. This was no one’s fault. Everyone was experimenting with Zoom, dealing with entire families being at home all of the time, and just trying to understand the world around us.
During the 2020-2021 school year, we were lucky to be back in person but whole grades were in and out of quarantine multiple times. I knew one student who was in quarantine based on exposure six separate times in one semester, never actually getting the virus himself. That’s 12 weeks of isolating from his peers. Teachers were trying to teach hybrid classes—with some students in person and others at home. Anxiety levels spiked constantly and everyone was in survival mode. Due to all of this, milestones were not properly met and skills that are normally developed in classrooms, camps and various social settings were not learned.
When teachers teach, they are not only teaching their subject matter, whether limudei kodesh or limudei chol (general studies). Through classroom activities, homework assignments, extracurricular opportunities, special programming and relationships with their students, all rebbeim/teachers, guidance counselors, student activities directors and administrators have the opportunity to teach responsibility, interpersonal skills, relationship building skills and trust in others. It is natural to see changes in our children as they grow into well-adjusted, healthy children, adolescents and young adults. Without regular classes and teachable moments, many of our students missed learning these natural lessons.
I saw an incredibly startling chart just a few months ago. It listed current school grades from kindergarten to 12th grade, and pointed to the actual grade that students in the grade completed fully. So for example, the last grade that current 12th graders fully finished was ninth grade, current eighth graders last completed a full, undisrupted grade in fifth grade, and first graders haven’t had a full, pre-corona school experience since nursery.
Think about those implications—all of the skills that students usually learn in the missed grades were not learned. The plethora of study habits and friendship building skills that are built in 10th and 11th grade were not experienced by our current 12th graders because the last grade they fully finished was ninth. Ninth grade! Students who are graduating from eighth grade haven’t had a full middle school grade until this year. All of the important life lessons taught in middle school were lost to them. Even our youngest students have been affected—little first graders, who are expected to know how to sit in class, how to do homework and how to act like an elementary student, only fully finished nursery school. They were never given the tools to transition to a classroom grade.
These observations are the problems that we are currently facing as we seek to raise and educate children who have lost out on two years of social maturation and skill building. As my children and students have heard me say many times: Let’s not focus on the problem, let’s focus on the solution. Now that we have identified this alarming problem, how can parents, educators and students focus on the solution?
The first step is accepting that this is where we are, and starting from this point. Shifting our expectations of where our children are will allow us to truly understand how they are acting and why they are acting this way. We must take a step back and evaluate what skills each individual child has mastered and not take anything for granted. Looking at our older children or at ourselves and comparing growth milestones is never a good idea, but it is now even more harmful because of this divide. While our children do show personal growth stemming from their experiences over the last two years, many have not been able to hit the usual milestones met by children that age.
Next, administrators and educators should be planning sessions and classes, to actively teach teamwork, respecting boundaries and responsibility to our youth, while parents should be looking for natural opportunities to reinforce these at home. While separated from their peers and through multiple quarantines, our children did not experience life in a way that naturally developed these skills and values. Adults should be brainstorming to see what natural life lessons were missed and how they can be replaced at this time. Group projects instead of individual ones will build teamwork; special programming can be planned with activities on respecting boundaries; and parents can reinforce and help their children learn responsibility through asking about their completed school work and giving them household responsibilities in which they can excel.
Lastly, it is of vital importance to have patience with our children when we see they are lacking in a previously expected area of growth. Getting upset or frustrated with them for not knowing how to behave is never the constructive answer. Doing so can be even more harmful when we consider that they never learned the proper behavior, and are not acting out in a malicious or intentional way. Having an open dialogue with a child in school or at home, naming the problem and giving concrete steps to behave differently are some of the most productive ways to teach them healthy behavior for the future.When this talk is held in the proper setting and with the appropriate tone, it will set them up for success as they will integrate the new behaviors into their everyday lives.
By focusing on building these skills in our children and teens, we will be pushing their corona grade forward and moving them back to the maturity of their actual grade. It will take time, but with a consistent eye towards moving the needle, children will reacclimate and corona grades will be a thing of the past.
Tamar Sheffey, LCSW, is the director of guidance at Yeshiva University High School for Boys. She maintains a private practice in Teaneck, specializing in adolescents, young adults and parents of adolescents.
