I “attended” an educational conference this weekend — virtually, of course, due to the pandemic. I was online all day on Saturday and Sunday. By the end of each day, I was totally exhausted. The teaching was excellent, but constantly paying attention to a screen was difficult, as was completing all of the online assignments that were required. And I have to admit, finding the assignments on the website, downloading them, and then uploading the completed documents into another file was a real challenge to my organization skills. The whole process left me tired and drained.
The whole experience really made me think: If I, a physician and mom, was drained by the online sessions and experienced challenges finding, completing, and uploading work, where does that leave our kids? Many of them have been keeping this type of pace with online school for 2 months now!
There is no doubt that online school has been not only stressful on parents, but on kids too. Attending to school on a laptop or computer all day is hard. Paying attention and having the organization takes executive functioning skills that many kids don’t develop until their late teens. Add to that the lack of structure — no “get ready for school” routine, no organized mealtimes, and no afterschool help — and it becomes a bigger problem. Some families don’t have the luxury of a laptop for every child, or even extra food to compensate for the school lunches that have been missed. Hungry kids can’t focus, so that is an additional challenge.