“Kids are resilient.” That’s what we keep being told. That’s what adults who have no qualms about destroying the childhoods of millions of American kids tell themselves — and us — so that they can sleep at night.
Parents around the country knew that the kids weren’t all right, and they’re not going to be all right. And now, the data rolling in close to two years into this pandemic reflect that reality.
The surgeon general has released a rare public advisory about an “emerging youth mental- health crisis.” In a 53-page report, we learned that symptoms of depression and anxiety have doubled during the pandemic, with 25 percent of youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20 percent experiencing anxiety.
Think about how the average American child has lived over the course of the pandemic. Socialization was halted for a year and has only continued behind plexiglass, masks and distance. Remember the excitement of snow days? Those are gone. Now, when a day of school is canceled, kids are left to wonder and worry if and when they’ll go back; will it be in a day’s time or in several months?
The surgeon general also warned that conditions like ADHD are on the rise. After kids have been cooped up inside doing “distance learning,” of course they can’t sit still when they’ve finally been allowed back inside a classroom.
Among teenage girls, suicide attempts are up a shocking 51 percent (and among boys, 4 percent). We know the effects of social media and the Internet on the mental health of developing girls; and then we forced them to keep all of their socializing online for over a year. Is it any wonder they are attempting (and in tragic circumstances, succeeding) in ending their own lives?
Jay Smith, the father of Spencer Smith, a teenage boy who died earlier this month of suicide, explained his son ’splight, as reported by NBC News: He said Spencer had spent all summer working out and getting in shape so he could play on the school’s football team as a lineman. When the sport was changed to flag football because of the pandemic, Spencer “gave up on it,” his father said. “It wasn’t the same type of practice because they had to social distance. He didn’t like that part of it,” Smith explained.
Spencer eventually stopped working out, and his grades began to suffer as he grappled with remote learning.
At one point, the teenager was attending in-person school one day a week but asked his parents if he could stay home because he found it too difficult not being able to interact with his peers.
Smith said his son left a note behind detailing his struggles with being isolated, writing that he felt like he was “locked in this house.”
When you were a kid, what do you remember about school lunches? I remember wishing for the mythical food fight. I remember talking with friends, trading pudding cups for cookies, whispering to friends asking if I could copy their homework before our afternoon classes.
What does it look like now? Kids are finally back in school but eating outside, sitting on buckets and the ground across the country.
If they are allowed inside, they are often instructed to eat socially distanced and in silence, sometimes with dividers separating them, sometimes instructed to face the wall.
No part of their 2019 childhood has remained totally intact. They had the rug ripped out from under them in March 2020. School lunches are just a window into how much we’ve damaged kids’ childhoods.
There is no end in sight, no off-ramp on the horizon. We were told two weeks to stop the spread, and that’s what we told our kids, too. We’re about to enter our second year of pandemic restrictions.
Jay Smith, the father in Maine, told reporters, “This pandemic can’t last forever, and if they’re feeling alone and depressed, they need to reach out for help. Things will get better.”
You can’t blame kids for not believing that well-intentioned message. Our society has treated them as disease vectors, and stolen irreplaceable years from their childhoods. Why should they believe the pandemic will end and that things will get better? We can show kids no evidence to that effect.
The only remarkable thing about the surgeon general’s report is that more kids aren’t suffering from mental-health strain. If we don’t prioritize a rapid return to normalcy for America’s kids, the number of kids in crisis is only going to swell further.
