WASHINGTON – Virtual school cultivates isolation in children and stress in parents, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The findings confirm previous investigation into the detrimental emotional and physical consequences of keeping children out of school.
“Virtual education can pose more risks than personal instructions related to the mental and emotional health of children and parents,” the researchers said, adding that school systems and municipal governments must provide ‘support’ to address the emerging problem.
The new coronavirus relief bill, signed by President Biden last week, contains nearly $ 130 billion for schools; some of the funds will be used by many districts to address the effects of the mental health of the pandemic.
Some public health doctors and experts have said that the emotional and cognitive consequences of school closures far outweigh the dangers of transfer within schools, which the CDC has previously found, not as long as wearing face masks and other common sense does not occur. measures taken. As schools in parts of the country were closed, the alarms got louder and louder. “The consequences of social isolation and disruption of the school for children have been devastating,” Hansa Bhargava, the pediatrician, wrote last month as many public school districts approached a year of total or partial distance education.
The new study suggests that isolation and inactivity are the main culprits in the crisis. The findings were published by the CDC on Thursday and are based on a survey among parents whose children attended personal education, followed all their lessons via a computer or were participants in a so-called hybrid model that combines both distance education and personal education. . It found that children were more isolated for both virtual and hybrid models and spent less time with other children. They also simply moved less. (The new study included children between the ages of 5 and 12.)
“These differences in physical activity are important,” the researchers wrote. They also noted that students of color are more likely to do distance education at about twice the rate of white students, meaning they are more likely to suffer from the psychological effects of homeschooling than their white counterparts.
These findings may be particularly relevant to parents of adolescents who need to exercise to maintain their mental health. High school students in some parts of the country can learn from home until spring, mainly due to concerns that the apparent inability of children to contract or transmit the coronavirus fades over time. Some districts were more willing to return elementary school students to the classroom before tackling the more complex epidemiological and educational challenge of high school.
Parents whose children attended remote school would tell the CDC twice as much that their children move less (62.9 percent of respondents) than parents whose children were back in the classroom five days a week (30.3 percent) . While 58 percent of non-virtual parents said their children spent less time outside, only 27.4 of full-time personal parents said the same. (The experiences of parents with students in a hybrid environment tended to fall between the two poles.)
Parents whose children attended virtual or distance learning were more likely to report deteriorating mental and emotional health (24.9 percent for remote parents, 15.9 for personal parents). However, parents did not report significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression among children attending virtual schools in whole or in part. However, this may only reflect the lack of diagnostic expertise in parents responding to the survey.
The survey included 1,299 parents, of which 92 percent had children in public school. Forty-six percent of respondents had children in a virtual school and 31 people had children who went to school personally, while another 23 percent had children in a hybrid environment. The survey was conducted throughout October and November, when a greater proportion of students were distance learning than today.
About 20 percent of U.S. students still study exclusively online, according to data site Burbio.
The new study also described how the pandemic has increased parental responsibility and stress, with many parents – especially mothers – now having to juggle work and school. Indeed, the parents of students in remote education arrangements were more likely to say they were worried about losing their jobs (26.6 percent to 15.2 percent) or about the ever-changing puzzle that is childcare (13.5 percent). up to 6.8 percent) think out as were parents with personal children.
And although only 38 percent of parents with students in the classroom said they experienced a large or moderate emotional distress, the share jumped to 54 percent for parents with children learning at home.
“Parents of children who received virtual instructions more frequently reported their own emotional distress,” the researchers wrote, describing an issue of illness. care challenges and conflict between work and childcare. ”
It can take years before researchers fully understand the effect of the pandemic on the social structure. Some believe that children are resilient enough to resist for months what has been called, with a little mockery, ‘Zoom school’. Whether parents have such resilience is unclear, especially not when the personal and professional stress of the pandemic is combined with the stress of distance education.
Biden has promised to open most schools during his first 100 days in office. Stubborn districts on the West Coast and in the Northeast are moving in that direction, but not fast enough for some parents, who have loudly called for reopening schools in certain regions of the country.
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