Dr Colman Noctor: How will the teacher manage my child's request for 15 snacks a day?
The return to school has been both vigilant and relaxed, students have reported. Picture: iStock
The task of putting together a primary school child’s lunch on a Sunday night, was always something I dreaded, due to the complexity of trying to comply with the ‘school lunch algorithms’. Eliminating items because they contain nuts, are classified as a ‘treat’, or too messy used to stress me out. However, last Sunday, while preparing the lunches for two of my children who returned to school this week, there was no such stress. I found myself humming and chuckling to myself as I imagined how the 2nd class teacher was now going to have to manage my daughter’s 15 requests for snacks a day, which have become the norm over the last few months.
When I had finished packing their school bags and putting the uniforms out, I sat down and went onto Twitter. My happy demeanour changed when I realised that not everyone was sharing my positive outlook on the week ahead. There were tweets by parents who were claiming that schools were super spreaders and therefore re-opening will have disastrous consequences on infection rates. I also read nine tweets from teachers who were fearful of being subjected to a room full of 30 unmasked children, in an unventilated room, and also predicting that a rise in infection numbers was imminent.
As is common on social media, there were a number of challenges to both these perspectives in the comments, with some heated exchanges involving parents who accused teachers of being ‘melodramatic’, and counter-accusations by teachers that parents were just looking for ‘other people to babysit’ their children.
Was my optimism coming from a place of naivete or, even worse, laziness? Was I happy just because I wanted to get rid of my children for a few hours a day? After a period of reflection, I have decided that my happiness had nothing to do with a perceived reduced home-school workload, (incidentally, I have a 4th class child who is still at home all week and continues to need homeschool support). Rather, my joy was that two of my children were going to get the social contact and emotional connectivity they so desperately needed.
That said, I fully appreciate that the personal stakes are higher for others. If I had somebody in my home with an underlying condition, then perhaps the cost-benefit analysis would be different for me.
This analysis will vary from family to family and person to person. My circumstances for the last number of months, in my personal and professional roles, were a constant reminder of the psychological impact of lockdowns on children. I witnessed my clients, and my own children, become more disconnected, fatalistic and indifferent as the weeks went on.
That is why a return to the social connection and belonging of the school environment, was my priority. There may be others who have different concerns about the physical safety of their children and family and therefore their cost-benefit analysis result will work out differently from mine.
Maybe the key to surviving is mutual respect. We need to acknowledge that differences will exist, and difference of opinion will occur, and often the truth is somewhere in the middle.
If I am looking at a number from one angle, I will see a '6', and if you are looking at it from another angle, you will see a '9'. The reality is that both of us are right, we are just coming at the issue from a different angle. Instead of the problem being the reality or the facts, it is often our opinions of the facts that create difference.
With the benefit of a week’s hindsight, I can now reflect on how the school return has impacted my children and those who come to me for therapy. Of the children I know, who started back on Monday, despite some initial apprehension, all have reported that they are feeling brighter, more engaged, more optimistic and hopeful as the week has progressed.
They also report that although the environment feels more vigilant than before, there is a feeling that the majority of teachers are pleased to be back in the classroom too, which as one 6th year student told me, ‘Makes it more relaxed’.
These early anecdotal signs after week one suggest that the reopening of schools has had a positive cost-benefit analysis in relation to the emotional wellbeing of young people.
If we see an exponential increase in infection numbers in the coming weeks, then I am open to conceding that reopening was the wrong call. However, I feel that we had a responsibility to try a phased reopening - I supported this move as it's what I was hearing from young people who do not have a platform to be heard.
If your child is re-starting school the most important role we can play is one of ‘containment’. There is no psychological benefit to an atmosphere of trepidation. Despite our own worries and anxieties, we need our children to know that whatever happens, ‘we've got this’.
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