Over the past year we have been on an arduous journey, enduring a global pandemic and facing previously unimagined challenges with unpredictable outcomes. Parents have had to weigh murky options for their children, and persevere in the face of worries about mitigating unknown levels of risk. We’ve worried about learning loss, loneliness, excessive screen time, and how the time spent apart from our in-person communities will affect our children’s social development. We’ve comforted ourselves with the knowledge that children are almost miraculously resilient, but we’ve also had to wait and see how things would actually work out.
At PKS, we have anticipated and prepared for a range of responses to a return to in-person learning. For the most part, our on-campus students are relieved to be back in their native habitat and joyful in their play. We anticipated difficulties with separation anxiety and adjusting back to having a group plan beyond our own families, but these concerns have so far been insignificant in the school setting. Our students seem to have grasped the imperative nature of frustrating rules like not talking while eating and only using their assigned bathroom with relative equanimity.
Socially, however, we see the impact that this stay-at-home year has had. Students have missed out on daily practice with flexible thinking and communication skills during play and we are seeing effects such as increased rigidity during group play, particularly with our younger students. This is a big ask for little kids; for the past year their sense of safety has depended on careful adherence to seemingly arbitrary rules and they have had little control over how they engage with others. Now that most of us are back on campus, we are suddenly asking them to stay rigid with some things (Wash hands! Wear a mask!), but loosen up with others (Include everyone in the game! Find a way to play together!). It's going to take some time to get in the groove.
To help your child adapt, we recommend exploring some of the following strategies together at home.
At dinner, or during your regular family hang out time, ask your child to share a rose and thorn about navigating group dynamics. You could name the fact that COVID precautions have required us to isolate for much of the past year, and that things still aren’t back to normal. What has been positive about being back in a group at school and what has been hard? Create space for your child to reflect on their experiences and process them with you. Ask your child specifically about how recess is going and see if you can talk through areas where they could use some support.
During family play time, make sure that you are providing opportunities for your child to not get their first choice or to have to figure out how to incorporate your wishes into the game. If they ask to play a particular game with you, negotiate with them to find a mutually satisfying alternative. Describe what you are doing as you do it. “I’m kind of tired of playing Uno, can we find a game that we haven’t played lately to start with? I want to play with you, but I want to find another way for us to play together.”
Read stories about friendship skills together or point them out when they show up in a movie or tv show. It’s often easier to talk about a topic as it relates to a character instead of oneself!
Connect with your homeroom teacher, division head, or our school counselor if you have specific questions or concerns about your child’s social development. We will talk about this in our upcoming parent-teacher conferences, but we can also carve out dedicated time to support your child if you have concerns.
One unexpected silver lining to the smaller cohort sizes has been that it has compelled our students to engage in whole group games during recess in order to achieve the critical mass required for optimal fun. Our students are adapting to our current challenges with grace and joy, and, as one fourth grader put it after ninja rolling off the playground slide, “We’re just so happy to be back IRL, we’ll play just about anything as long we’re together.”