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As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

reuters.com

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Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#171
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still bring it home to parents, grandparents, and the general community. It’s silly to dismiss the indirect effects as if they don’t exist.

There is little or no evidence that children frequently transmit the virus to adults. And even if there was, it wouldn't be ethical to collectively punish all children just to marginally reduce the risk to a minority of vulnerable people.

So in your eyes, it's more ethical to infect children with a disease that could kill their parents/grandparents than it is to keep them home?

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What proof would you believe without empirically letting the death rate get into the double digits to begin with?

At this point we have enough data. The CDC gives an approximate IFR of 0.7% in the US. That would translate to low 7 digits. Also, it's very heavily weighted to the 70+ population. Strictly speaking from a kid's perspective, it would mostly be the experience of losing a grandparent early. It would be sad (as death almost always is) but probably not life-changing.

> At this point we have enough data. The CDC gives an approximate IFR of 0.7% in the US. That would translate to low 7 digits. Also, it's very heavily weighted to the 70+ population.

..with lockdowns in effect enough to keep hospitalization rates below capacity.

> Strictly speaking from a kid's perspective, it would mostly be the experience of losing a grandparent early. It would be sad (as death almost always is) but probably not life-changing.

And teachers, and looking at how the breakdown of Italian hospitals meant a huge spike in deaths in the 40+ crowd that would have been just fine if they instead had capacity, a ton of dead parents, aunts and uncles to deal with too.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#173

I am neither in the U.S. nor a student, not even an extrovert - and I still feel the effects of our local lockdown on my mental stability. So does my wife, who is usually more resilient than I am. This will have a lot of subtle consequences down the line.

Speaking for myself: the biggest consequence for me, in terms of mental health, has been the total erosion of my belief that most people were basically good, and decent, and cared about the welfare of others. It was a choice I made years ago; I wanted to be the sort of person that believed those things, even when there was occasional evidence to the contrary. But 2020 brought a trifecta of social stress that laid bar…

Are things really that different than they were before though? I still chat with my neighbors, doctors etc etc... everyone is just as friendly as before. I think it’s just our main connection to the outside world has been doomscrolling... I don’t think the people in this world are that different. They are good, caring, loving... despite what some would have us believe.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#174
How much of this is caused by remote learning? Kids tend to spend long periods out of school with no ill effects during holidays. They even do a lot of homework without a severe mental health crisis (we presume). The difference could be that they have control over their time. The remote learning experience seems to be needlessly regimented. My own children have repurposed tools for remote learning to keep in touch with their friends: they probably socialize more now than they did pre-pandemic.

He would scream and cry multiple times per hour on Zoom,” she said. “It was all really scary and not in keeping with his personality.

The fact that children are being tethered to Zoom for hours in regimented routines is really disturbing. Adults can push back, kids don’t have the authority to do so. Our boss tried a group “good morning” routine as a sly way to do a roll-call when we went remote-first, but a limited number of people took the bait, and she quickly learned to trust us.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#175
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vs traumatized from death of relatives, death from overloaded hospitals, food shortages because death of working family members. And why are kids grow up without seeing facial expressions? They are not isolated but spend more time with their parents, what's wrong with the world if this leads to mental health problems. Year after year it was told parents need to spend more time with their children to built up their co…

Please tell me where are all these deaths in Sweden, Belarus, Brazil, Florida... https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-... So you're telling me that in places like Brazil more people are being traumatized by deaths in overloaded hospitals compared to Westerners (who are less traumatized) thanks to a year of isolation? uhmm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcAYObnlehE&t=2623s https://www.youtube.c…

Ask yourself, what's the bigger trauma for you. Your partner dies of COVID-19, you can't see your parents for a year.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#176

I am neither in the U.S. nor a student, not even an extrovert - and I still feel the effects of our local lockdown on my mental stability. So does my wife, who is usually more resilient than I am. This will have a lot of subtle consequences down the line.

Speaking for myself: the biggest consequence for me, in terms of mental health, has been the total erosion of my belief that most people were basically good, and decent, and cared about the welfare of others. It was a choice I made years ago; I wanted to be the sort of person that believed those things, even when there was occasional evidence to the contrary. But 2020 brought a trifecta of social stress that laid bar…

Why won’t you be able to see these people the same way again? Your comment seems like you are prejudging people without providing a reason to do so.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID does worse in warmer climates; it would be useful to see data adjusted for factors such as ventilation, climate, baseline prevalence, viral variants, etc. No one AFAIK has attempted to do any of this work. All I've seen are unsubstantiated claims for each side's agenda. We need to know what hard conditions guarantee an R0 small enough to prevent disease transmission in schools. There has been zero leadership he…

California COVID death rate: 0.146% Florida COVID death rate: 0.155% These numbers are statistically tied. Yet, FL's economy is open, kids are in school, Disney World entertaining tourists. CA's business are closed & kids are depressed and falling behind. (Bad) leadership matters.

Interesting claims. How do you know FL economy and kids depression is doing so much better than CA?

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#178
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too. Kudos for expressing an unpopular opinion. I'll express another one: I think the whole thing about "ZOMG! Suicide rates through the roof!!!elevelty!1!" is blown out of proportion, largely thanks to pseudo-news web sites trying to grab clicks on the internet. The school district where I live put out a press release lamenting an 18%…

It's also worth pointing out that at sample sizes like that (2), you don't have a sample. You have an anomaly at best.

You have a scale for comparing absolute rates, which is the gist of what the parent is talking about, I think.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#179

Disclaimer: I am not a parent. Recalling back to my student days, I and my friends would be ecstatic about not going to school for whatever reason. Granted, the most extended no-school period would be the 3 months of summer break. I don't recall any kid ever actually wanting to go to school. Maybe I'm thinking of this all wrong, but I feel it kind of hard to believe kids aren't liking not having to go to school. Did…

I've got two kids in middle/high school, in a 100%-closed-from-beginning school district (still closed).

The worst part of the experience has been the monotony of sitting at their desks all day experiencing communication solely via Teams/Zoom meetings. Combined with the monotony of most extra-curricular activities shut down, and a lot of friends lost to sheltering parents, it's increased the number of spontaneous breakdowns in our house...they're doing okay; they're mostly just disappointed. A big chunk of their childhood has been taken away from them, unnecessarily in some of our opinions.

What will suffer hugely into the future, though, is participation in sports, music, and other common activities. With a lot of them, like playing an instrument, once you break the chain, people usually don't go back. If we had maybe 40% of kids that age before that had no hobbies or interests to fill their time with before, we're going to have more like 70% now. What will they fill their time with?

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#180
post #21

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

“think of the children” has always been a lie, though. Or at best a surface level truth. When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. In many ways the pandemic response was in line with the norm: rich kids do just fine, poorer kids are mostly ignored.

I dont know, US seems to me to ve obsessed with early childhood education. The expectations on when the kid should read and what not seem to be pushes to very low ages.
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