Imagine telling a child they wouldn’t be able to attend school. You might expect to be met with tears, tantrums and confusion. They would understandably be upset at the prospect of losing their structures and support networks for an unforeseen length of time.
This is what children have faced since schools and early learning settings first closed their doors last March: opening and closing over and over again like some sort of revolving door. Separated from their friends, family and all sources of social contact outside of a computer screen, young people have suffered some of the worst effects of lockdown.
People are creatures of habit: we need routine and we rely on the presence of others to lift us up and share our burdens during times of hardship. For so many children, school is a safe place where they can learn and grow with the support of their teachers and peers. When that safety net was taken away, it was only natural they would flounder.
Despite the best efforts of schools to provide online learning during subsequent school closures, this could not possibly replace face-to-face learning. Children can only handle so much screen time, that’s why the Government has previously run campaigns encouraging them to switch off and explore the outdoors. But for the past year we have told children to stay indoors and minimise their contact with others – despite the fact that they have an incredibly low risk of being seriously infected by coronavirus – in favour of staring into a computer trying to learn for hours on end.
Kids can’t focus, can’t concentrate and are anxious all the time. They don’t want to go outside anymore, they don’t want to see their friends and they don’t want to participate in their normal hobbies or activities. They are losing that innocent curiosity that so many remember with fondness: children can’t enjoy their formative years through the pane of a closed window.
I am only 18, yet I already feel like I’ve lived for 75 years. I can’t recall the last time I played sports with my friends or danced at a crowded house party or sat in a classroom learning about partial fractions. In many ways, I still feel like the scared teenager I was when we first entered lockdown last March because I wasn’t afforded the opportunity to mature this year.
Indeed, many primary school aged children have spent a larger portion of their education in lockdown than they have in normality: their worldview is being shaped in isolation while the adults around them worry about where their next meal is coming from or whether they can afford next month’s mortgage payment.
If children are surrounded by anxiety and uncertainty, they will almost certainly absorb it. The House of Lords reported that a rapid review of international studies showed an increase in depressive and anxious symptoms in children as a result of Covid-19. Social isolation, anxiety about illness, uncertainty about the future and strained familial relationships should not be plaguing the minds of young people, yet they have become so synonymous with life at the moment that they simply cannot be avoided.
The Government has recently announced the full reopening of schools from 8 March, hopefully bringing an end to the constant mass school closures we have become accustomed to. But when we eventually emerge at the other end of this crisis, we will be faced with a generation of children with mental health needs far surpassing current NHS capacity. When the time comes to ‘Build Back Better’, this must include a systematic overhaul of children and adolescent mental health services. Children can’t simply bounce back from the pandemic, no matter how resilient they have been so far. They need support and we must ensure they are not left behind when life returns to ‘normal’.
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