School disruption across US highlights hidden costs, fragility of safety net for our neediest kids
When our children need the school system the most, the coronavirus pandemic is shutting it down.
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The United States has two enormous de facto mental health systems.
One is our prisons, where over two-thirds of inmates have a mental health disorder.
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The second huge system is our schools, which ideally work to prevent incarceration and other bad outcomes. And now, when our children need this system the most, the coronavirus pandemic is shutting it down.
When our kids return to a patchwork of online and in-person school in the fall, under threat of unpredictable shutdowns and reopenings as the coronavirus crisis continues, there will be real strain on their social, emotional and mental health.
These impacts will be acute — frustration, acting out, angst and isolation. But this strain will also have long term repercussions, affecting who our children are as they grow up and the society they inhabit.
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It is vital that we take steps to recognize what school offers in the normal course of development and provide it to children who will be deprived as this crisis continues.
My experience as a child and adolescent psychiatrist for almost 40 years has shown me that school is the center of life for kids. It is where they “go to work.”
Children’s mental health problems were costing us a fortune before the coronavirus — around $250 billion a year. The mental and behavioral health outcomes for the 55 million students in the U.S. whose schools were disrupted due to the coronavirus will dwarf this number.
School provides socialization and helps young people separate from parents and develop their own personalities.
School teaches the joy of being good at something — and how to cope with disappointment, and consequences, when you fall short.
School is where caring adults are most able to spot the signs that a young person needs help.
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When I see a child struggling with a mental health disorder like anxiety or depression that keeps him from engaging at school — or even attending at all — I know that my primary job is to get him back to school.
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The past few months have shown us that while online school is better than nothing, it is no substitute.
A more apt comparison is to look at what happens when kids are alienated from school, can’t participate, or drop out. This is the so-called “school to prison pipeline.”
High school dropouts are 63 times more likely to be jailed than four-year college graduates. A whopping 68 percent of state prison inmates have not completed high school. People without a high-school education live 9.2 fewer years than those who graduate from high school.
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This is not to say that every child whose education is disrupted by coronavirus will drop out, although I am afraid this will be a risk in under-resourced communities.
The disruption of the school support system may also lead to drug and alcohol abuse, risky behavior and familial conflict. Young people grieving family members who have died in the pandemic don’t have the same access to counselors, school-based support, or an impromptu word with a trusted teacher.
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The coronavirus, coupled with the lack of in-person school supports is already leading to a spike in mental health problems and worsening symptoms for those with serious disorders like treatment-resistant depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
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Children’s mental health problems were costing us a fortune before the coronavirus — around $250 billion a year. The mental and behavioral health outcomes for the 55 million students in the U.S. whose schools were disrupted due to the coronavirus will dwarf this number.
As a country, we expect schools to do everything and then take them for granted. In the middle of a nationwide experiment in intermittent attendance, we will be fools if we don’t recognize what the virus is denying our children and take all steps to replace it.
Right now, it is equally important that we support emotional and social development of children as well as academic development.
What can we do?
One promising idea that the Child Mind Institute has championed is providing online mental health and behavioral training for teachers to bolster that “army” of trained adults who can help identify and provide prevention for children with mental health needs.
We can incentivize continuing education by offering pay increases pegged to CTLE (Continuing Teacher and Leader Education) credits.
Resilient, mentally healthy kids can bounce back from an academic delay. But academic achievement won’t correct the trajectory of a young life heading in the wrong direction because of trauma, anxiety, isolation and deprivation.
The answer is to do everything we can to keep children plugged in to school and to give school personnel the tools they need to help children thrive emotionally and behaviorally, not just academically.
Dr. Koplewicz is one of the nation’s leading child and adolescent psychiatrists and the founding president and medical director of the Child Mind Institute, the only independent nonprofit dedicated to child and adolescent mental health.