Purim 2020 was the end of the beforetimes. Purim 2022 may be the beginning of the aftertimes. But before we throw our masks (metaphorically) into the air, I think it is important to start peeling some layers. We need to take stock of the last two years. We need to proactively rebuild community. And we need to begin naming what skills we have lost, what skills we have gained, and what skills need remediation. I’ll be honest - I really didn’t want to write about COVID this month, even as I was thinking all this. But then Mrs. Tsap, one of our magical first grade teachers, sent this note home to her class:
“I know how uncomfortable it feels to know that your kids have been majorly affected by something completely out of your control. I promise by the end of this post I am going to offer some solutions. But before that happens we do need to meet the reality of what the kids are going through in order to start the steps of making changes. As someone who spends every day on the ground with these kids, it bears repeating: the kids are dysregulated.”
It bears repeating: the kids are dysregulated.
Mrs. Tsap continued with posting the specific skills that she sees first graders lacking. I am going to expand the list to offer skills we see lagging across the school, in all age groups from 2 years old through 8th grade:
- More bathroom accidents
- More kids falling out of their chairs or rolling on the floor after a few minutes of sitting upright.
- Asking a question and walking away before they hear the answer
- Trouble engaging in play (especially make-believe)
- Yearning for physical touch
- Rejecting physical touch
- Difficulty labeling emotions or why they are upset
- Difficulty reading facial expressions
- Having major reactions to minor situations
- Emotionally shutting down or running away
- Leaving class without telling anyone
- Absolute thinking ("I will never be your friend again” or “I will always be bad at math")
- Grabbing, pushing, kicking, and hitting
- More requests for fidget tools
- Distorted eating habits
- Blurting out every thought that pops into their mind
- Social anxiety
- Excessive tattle-tailing
- Difficulty problem solving
- No calming techniques
- Giving up right away when something seems too difficult
- Inability to see others’ perspectives
- Trouble with making friends and/or keeping friends
- Destruction of school property
This list is not exhaustive (I am sure you can add more), nor does every bullet point apply to every child. But the myriad ways in which children actually missed out on learning and growing these skills is coming to the surface now. They were at home, they were in small groups or pods, their worlds became small, our world became fragmented. Now they are back together with other children and grown ups, and it turns out: that’s hard.
As adults, we’re operating with a two-year deficit when it comes to socialization. I have written before about my observations on people’s quickness to be unkind, to snap at others, or to have difficulty managing conflict. We see it in our community, and we see it in the stories on the news. But like riding a bike, we didn’t lose these skills altogether. With practice, our social muscle has been kicking back in. Yes we need to be thoughtful and intentional about how we want to rebuild our relationships, but the basic social building blocks are there.
Here’s a story to illustrate this idea: In October, we began to really feel the impact of the pandemic in our school. Children were having trouble, teachers were feeling like they were playing Whack-a-mole, and our whole system was feeling strained. Everyone was feeling the weight of the world on their own shoulders. And so we started offering lunch twice a week to our staff. Partly because we are Jews, and when we don’t know what to do, we feed each other. And partly because we wanted to create a space for gathering. We wanted the teacher of the 4 year olds to run into the 6th grade teacher, we wanted the Hebrew teacher to connect with the music teacher, and we wanted to bring our community together. These lunches have been so impactful on staff culture (and ultimately on the Pressman student experience) that we expanded them to three times a week and have built them into next year’s school budget.
But these lunches only worked because as adults, we already knew how to be in relationship. Yes, we were rusty, and yes, we need to be more intentional than ever about creating space for community to happen. But ultimately, the muscle memory is there. Our kids, on the other hand, don’t have that same well to draw from. The four-year olds who went home in March of 2020 are in first grade, the 9-year olds are in middle school. Years of critical development were compromised and complicated, exacerbated because they were growing up in a world with adults who were in survival mode, trying to make sense of events. Of course the kids are dysregulated! How could they not be?!
But lest you think it’s all doom and gloom, there’s good news. Brains are famously malleable. And so, if a child did not learn a skill in first grade, it does not mean they will never learn this skill. Children can catch up on what they missed, so long as we, as the adults in their lives, are here to help them practice. And even better, if we are working in partnership so children hear the same messages at home and school, it will help to build these skills even more quickly. As Donald Hebb taught in 1949, “neurons that fire together, wire together” - meaning that pathways to the brain are formed and reinforced through repetition.
Again, Mrs. Tsap offered three strategies (with video footage!) for how we can help children to regulate so they can grow so many of the skills listed above:
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The Scientist: This strategy asks the adult to observe the child's actions and feelings, and report them out loud. Imagine that you are a scientist doing a study on behavior, and repeat back at them what you are seeing.
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The Model: This technique is all about doing what you WISH your kids would do when under stress. Model the behavior you want to see more of.
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The Babysitter: Sometimes our kids are melting down, and engaging our child will actually escalate the situation. In this model, we are simply present – sometimes just being in the room helps our child feel less lonely in their own feelings.
You may see yourself in some of these videos (and perhaps even on both the “don’t do” portion as well as the “do this” part). I certainly do. But I think it is important that, as parents and as educators, we recognize the power we have to raise the kinds of human beings we want to see in the world. While the kids are dysregulated, I have confidence that with intentionality and partnership, our children will be prepared for the world to come.
