If I’m going to be 100% honest, I kind of feel it too. It’s that moment of irritation you get when you go into a store and wonder why no one is wearing a mask – only to realize that you aren’t either and masks aren’t required anymore. It’s the nagging feeling of having forgotten something when you leave your house with your disposable gloves, hand-sanitizer, Lysol wipes, masks, etc. It’s the way you looked around the first time you went into a restaurant after so long, feeling, perhaps, like you were breaking the rules in an unspeakable way. It’s the way you pull back from a hand-shake (or – gasp! – a hug) conditioned now for six feet of social distancing when social distancing never existed before.
My young clients use a whole new vocabulary that a generation ago never learned. Pandemic. Coronavirus. COVID-19. Telehealth. Virtual learning. Hybrid models. Social distancing. Sanitization. Increase in numbers. Flatten the curve. Death rate. Vaccination. Health and sick. Pre and post. They have a sense of before and after that hasn’t been seen in a generation since 9-11, when the world changed forever (I remember – that was my generation).
As grown-ups we sometimes forget what it was like to be kids. We feel like we are sheltering our kids from the worst of it – not realizing what they hear when the news is on in the background, or bedroom doors are closed at night, or in the classroom from classmates who have seen loved ones die. Maybe it’s easier to believe that they don’t see because then we don’t have to deal with it. But those images that haunt us – they haunt them too, though maybe in a different way.
So many of the kids that I work with felt the anxiety – the uncertainty of when (if ever) school would go back to being in-person, the worry about the elderly or immune-compromised friends/family, the out-of-control feeling when everyone around you is scared and you’re powerless to do anything to stop it (and maybe don’t even really understand it, except that you feel it). Where we, as adults, could talk about it so many kids couldn’t – whether it was because they didn’t have the words or didn’t have anyone to listen. (Let’s not even mention the political, social, and environmental unrest that 2020-2021 brought with it)
And now, a year and a half later, we tell them it’s okay to go back to normal. We tell them that it’s okay to go back to summer camp and eat out at a restaurant and play with friends and that when school starts at the end of summer they will be back in a classroom. We tell them that it is now okay to go on trips and sit on airplanes and take off those masks that they have learned to not complain about. And we expect this to all make sense when it doesn’t necessarily make sense to us. But since they didn’t exactly deal with their feelings to begin with, we again bury our heads in the sand and imagine that they don’t have any feelings now.
We couldn’t be more wrong.
Some of my clients are excited. Some are taking each day as it comes. Some are skeptical. Some are terrified. All of these emotions are justified and the waves that they come in – excited one moment, scared the next – are okay. I’m trying to teach my clients this. Many don’t understand why they are anxious about the very things that they have wanted for so long – social connection, play dates, school in person, camp, vacations, sports… But it is because they now have that before and after. They know a world that is changed and it is a world that is far more complicated than it was before and far more unpredictable. The majority of kids don’t like unpredictable.
So what do we do for them? We expose them slowly. We explain feelings that they don’t understand. We talk about the things that they remember from before and we talk about the things that they will remember about after. We acknowledge the confusion, perhaps share that we feel it too.
For the kids that I see, I’m telling them to start with small outings. To pick things that they really have been dying to do and to start there. Start with a small group of friends before they jump back into a huge one. Go places with safe people, who will understand if they get overwhelmed. Life as normal, is hugely sensorial. Noises, colors, movement, smells – after a year of very quiet lives all these things can feel like an assault on the body. It’s ok to take a time out. It’s okay to go back home and re-charge in the ways that they have been doing. For a kid that is having a harder time bouncing back socially, it’s important to let them know that they don’t have to “keep pace” with the extroverted kid down the street who wants nothing more than to play all day, every day and seems to have no anxiety whatsoever. In time, everyone will find their own rhythm again.
We talk about the things that were overwhelming. We talk about ways to decrease stress in public. We talk about the way that habits form and how we eventually acclimate to whatever the moment calls for. Many can remember a time when masks were completely foreign. They are willing to believe that, just like they adjusted to masks over time, they will adjust to this (whatever this is).
Every week I ask them to do one or two or three things that they used to do before and haven’t started doing again. This isn’t to put them in danger (there still is the coronavirus, after all) but it is to start getting them back into the swing of being out in public, being around other people, talking in person, stepping away from a screen. Some hate it and some love it. For the ones that hate it, we just keep trying, because I know that it’s the baby steps that will take them back to functioning as we try to adjust to life after.
I think about it like the first time that I went through airport security after 9-11. The idea of taking your shoes off and being checked from head to toe was confusing. It felt like an invasion of privacy, like an accusation of some kind. But we all did it. And now, when we step up to the checkpoint, no one even hesitates to throw their shoes and jackets into a bin. We got back into the air. Even though it was scary to fly again, the majority of us did it. Just like the majority of our kids will go back to school. But it sure took some time before it was comfortable again. It sure took some time for that anxiety to go away – and for some it never quite did (and that’s ok too).
As we go into a new school year, it’s going to be important for all of us – clinicians, parents, teachers, administrators to recognize that there is going to be an adjustment period. Some kids will do great. Some will struggle. Some will struggle invisibly or later on. For some of my clients, learning virtually was the best thing that ever happened to them – they were able to work at times that they felt most motivated and most alert and their grades showed improvement. For other clients, the inability to sit still at a computer and the inability to find self-motivation or keep online assignments organized resulted in tanking grades. Only children spent the year around adults. Children with siblings spent it with other children around. Family dynamics changed – sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Parents might be handling kids and their schoolwork differently now (either more hands-on or more hands-off); they may have a period of adjustment as well. Group work will be new again – perhaps needing increased support for cooperation and teamwork. Communication using facial cues again will help some kids and overwhelm others. The structure of an 8am-3pm school day will be great for some kids and will exhaust others. Parents will be back at work and not necessarily available in the same ways that they have been. Some children will still be adjusting to major life changes that COVID brought about (the loss of a loved one, a change in parents’ jobs, moves to a new town and a new school and new friends).
We need to know this as we go into the new school year. There are going to be things that our kids are re-learning and it’s not just math and history. Patience is going to be key. And creativity. A little creativity to meet kids where they are at might just make all the difference.
***Please note: the scope of this article does not include those children who have a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the pandemic. For PTSD, specialized treatment is available and often needed. The focus of this article is generalized anxiety rather than a medical diagnosis. If you think you or your child need help with PTSD symptoms, don’t hesitate to reach out for help.***
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