By: Dr. Phyllis Bivins-Hudson
Each year a passel of Kindergarteners are hustled into schools across America with expediency, excitement, and anticipation. They are the new groups of 4–6-year-olds making their inaugural appearance in our coveted institutions of learning.
Make no mistake, kindergarten is not for the “faint-hearted.”
It’s more than “just playtime”.
Kindergarten is critical to the formative periods for learning and development in the life of a child entering a structured school setting for the first time. This is where they make lifelong friends. Where they develop critical social skills. Where they learn that exploring is natural and that it is a place where they get to choose tools that will enhance their every move in the academic arena.
They, among our youngest children in the country, have lived the majority of their lives during a global experience that shook not just our nation but the entire world.
As an educator for more than 40 years, many studies bear me out when I say there is a direct correlation between the test scores of children who are enrolled and successful in kindergarten and those who are not.
Educators have had many children entering first grade post-pandemic without the benefit of kindergarten and have watched these children struggle. They often never catch up and frequently become those, sadly included, on the list of dropouts.
Therefore, I think it is safe to say kindergarten should be as compulsory as vaccines.
However, with all the disadvantages of not attending what should be requisite, we have yet another huge dilemma!
The advent and aftershocks of COVID-19 and all it has dumped into our lives.
While many children have begun their Kindergarten experience since COVID-19, there is a different group about to join the ranks of their predecessors.
This group was born at the beginning of COVID-19 in 2019 and is entering school for the first time in August and September of 2024 across the US.
According to the CDC, “the first laboratory-confirmed case of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the U.S [was] from samples taken on January 18 in Washington State” resulting in the activation of “its Emergency Operations Center to respond to the emerging outbreak”.
This meant that any child born during that time would come to be known as Lockdown Babies or Pandemic Babies.
Several other words have found themselves in The Cambridge Dictionary as a result of the virus.
They include Lockstalgia, which means looking back fondly on the first national lockdown. And Quaranteen, a teenager during the outbreak. And babies born during that time according to the same dictionary, are called Coronnials.
So let’s take a look at some of what our 2024 Kindergarten Coronnials will face when entering school for the first time this month or next.
The first questions that came to my mind when I learned that children born during COVID-19 would be enrolled in schools across America and sitting in classrooms meeting their new teachers and new friends in August and September of 2024, were “What about childhood development in these little ones?" "what about childcare programs, will they be available to them?" And "how will families manage to get back to work as these little ones head off to school with the aftereffects of COVID-19?"
While most of our children were not directly exposed to the disease, they have no doubt been affected in ways associated with the disease.
As a result, many babies spent their early lives at home, with limited to no opportunities for socialization or engaging with others around critical relationship skills.
While many of these young ones are already showing signs of having experienced academic “learning losses,” the impact on their overall social development may be more severe than currently understood.
For instance, many of these children are months behind in their development, not because they were exposed to the disease, but because of the isolation that co-existed with the disease.
Even when no direct exposure has been noted, other concerns have arisen.
I have spoken to parents who have noted that their children’s speech has been delayed, which in turn means a delay in communication skills.
At the age-appropriate time, many of these children could say fewer full words than children of the same age born before the pandemic according to a study from Health News.
According to PBS News Weekend, Wisconsin, “Since the COVID pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of young children who have been slow to develop language skills, with pediatric speech delays more than doubled for children aged 12 and younger.”
These children also suffer from conditions such as weight gain, too much screen time, listlessness, interrupted sleep patterns, a lack of adequate physical activity, a lack of social skills, and an increase in mental health issues.
But there are more concerns as well.
There is already evidence from parents that their little ones are showing signs of a lack of readiness.
They are slower to learn the alphabet, colors, word associations, etc.
And parents I spoke with who have other children, recognized that every child is different, however, some of the behaviors observed in their COVID-19 children entering kindergarten for the first time are quite different from what they expected.
While the excitement about kindergarten has always been a time looked forward to, some of these children appear to be meeting the thought of school with some trepidations, fears, and anxiety also not expected.
The parents of these children spoke of parental concerns as well. One parent talked about her emotional well-being, intimating that she too has fears that have increased her level of irritability, affected her sleep pattern, and made her anxious.
When asked why, she admitted that she was afraid the disease would come back or that there would be children among the students who may come to school with the disease and spread it.
Accordingly, she admitted that this among other concerns has made her feel certain her child is not as prepared to become a kindergartner as she would have liked.
These are all real concerns coming from real parents and should be considered when we all begin to think about our little ones entering school for the first time.
No one is suggesting getting in panic mode, however, we should all be diligent about the possibilities as well as look for ways to help our children meet academic success at all costs.
According to medical research (J Pediatric (Rio J). 2021 Jul-Aug; 97(4): 369-377. Published online 2020 Sep 23. Doi: 10.1016/j.jped.2020.08.008 The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child growth and development: a systematic review), these babies who experienced pandemic-related chronic stress and trauma without the support of family members who typically provide nurturing relationships, are also at risk for facing an increased chance of developing even more serious problems such as concerns about their emotions, cognitive development, and behavior.
Further investigation shows that many of these young ones have also experienced delays in motor skills. And according to a Columbia University report, children “born in the pandemic scored lower in gross motor, fine motor, and social-emotional development than babies born before the pandemic”.
When this is the case, these same children are coming to school with more challenging behaviors, which include, but are not limited to, anger, withdrawal, anxiety, and aggression.
Many of us have been keeping up with the news and have learned that children already enrolled in schools post-COVID-19 have demonstrated a decline in math scores across all grade levels in the US.
So there is no wonder why parents enrolling their little ones for the first time in 2024 are concerned.
The entire COVID-19 experience not only affected the knowledge and skills of our children who were already in school, but it especially hit our kindergarteners hard because they would not receive the necessary instruction in school readiness, which has always been a necessary component for a successful start of their journey.
Not being able to learn or grasp a concept can be daunting and traumatizing. And with this collective trauma, we don’t want to add anything else to the equation, especially since all indications tell us that students across all grade levels have shown a decrease in development, and an increase in issues around neurocognition, and behavior disorders.
We are all talking about the mental health challenges that many people are experiencing now.
Our young ones are not exceptions to these bouts of stress, anxiety, and isolation.
Therefore, before we send them off to school for the first time, we need to look closely at our babies and make sure to the best of our abilities that they are ok.
If they aren’t, we need to seek support for them as soon as possible.
Don’t leave it to the school system to identify and address these issues.
If there are as many children affected as we think, then school personnel will become overwhelmed with so many of these pervasive issues.
There is more at stake here than we might think.
Although these newcomers are just now gracing the classrooms, they will be faced with other concerns such as program closures which used to be in place to support after-school learning.
Or the reduction in enrollment of first-time students, which believe it or not, is becoming a common problem across America where kindergartners are concerned.
Parents are opting to keep their little ones at home, hence the challenges of these children missing out on developing social skills or interactions with other children or even how to engage with teachers who are deliverers of knowledge.
These are all real concerns that we must take into account and try to ensure our incoming kindergarteners will experience as little of this as possible.
We must remember that these babies have been quarantined and along with quarantine comes isolation. Of note is that research suggests that these same young children can also experience increased depression.
But all is not lost.
There is much promise for these little ones.
Early intervention is always among the best practices.
When teachers recognize these gaps, they can prepare their learning environments to address some of the lack of many skills and set children up to gain and strengthen their interactions with others.
Suppose your child was a part of the COVID-19 pandemic (or not) and has delayed speech, diagnosed by a physician. In that case, the law is on your side because federal and state law mandates that each district provide the services needed for your child even if the district says there is no funding available.
Classroom teachers can be a big help as well. They can be sure to monitor these children and offer on-site solutions. For instance, a teacher in one district uses what’s called the LENA device, which creates a chart to show the number of times a student and teacher talk to each other.
Another source of help is having the child read more and then have the child share what has been read.
Some teachers are also practicing morning mental health check-ins.
And after-school programs to support learning are as old as school systems, and they are still part of a viable solution to aid some of our children.
Teachers can also make sure to slow the pace of learning by thoroughly covering a smaller set of skills rather than covering a broader range of skills.
Parents can focus more on praising these little ones for their efforts to encourage them to keep trying new and challenging tasks. They can turn home routines into teachable moments. Further, parents can take an interest in their child’s interests and work to make these interests even more rigorous and rich.
At the end of the day, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders should provide instructional strategies and other learning opportunities that offer students advocacy around the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual support needed to learn properly and successfully.
Good luck if you have a child or other loved one entering kindergarten for the first time. Just make sure to stay on top of your child’s progress or lack of progress to meet your child where he/she is.
I hope you will join me on Instagram on September 26 when my new season begins. We will be having fun with relationships and couples. We will also have an in-house relationship expert on hand who will be helping us navigate the season.
Until next time, keep flying on your own wings.
Dr. PGBHudson