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From talking to staff in schools that are now open, one thing that I haven't seen brought up is the mental health of the pupils being brought back into schools. Now all of this is anecdotal obviously but I think going forward this might be a real problem
In the one school I was talking to staff from, one thing that is becoming incredibly common is students having to leave class due to having panic or anxiety attacks. One staff member was telling me yesterday that one particular pupil only ate his lunch 2 out of the 7 days because
The other 5 they had a panic attack going to lunch. The pupil had already been moved to a class where all his friends from primary school already were to see if that made him more comfortable with no change to the behaviour. When asked by staff what was causing these attacks the
Child became incoherent. So again while there is no definitive proof that these are caused by the pandemic, the fact that its happening so frequently this year suggests its at least a factor
The reason I'm guessing why this is happening is because while children themselves are (for the most part) not likely to get badly ill from Covid-19, they're more likely to be a carrier. And they are all aware of this. I get this feeling from the way the conversation about
Reopening schools occurred that the "wellbeing of the children" was brought up in a way that children had no idea about any of this and this lockdown was ruining their social life and education for a reason they couldn't understand
But a lot of children, especially 2ndary school children, are very aware of what's going on. They know that they are likely to be carriers. And they know if they catch it at school, they're gonna possibly bring it home to a household with a vulnerable person and blame themselves
For the death or injury of it. Also probably compounding it all is the young anti maskers, who from either parent prepping or from online anti-mask propaganda, are constantly trying to find loopholes and refusing to wear masks
A cleaner was telling me how a 1st year (11yo) was refusing to wear a mask in the corridor when talking to other children or the cleaner. The cleaner herself was in a vulnerable category, so asked had informed the child it was mandatory to wear a mask in the corridors to which
The child replied "Mandatory doesn't mean legal" in the sort of bizarre legal "logic you would find from a sovereign citizen. The child was suspended after continuing to refuse to wear a mask. The cleaner thought that a answer like that had to come from parent prepping but I
think because at that age all children basically have a Facebook page or access to the Internet that it could have well come from the brilliant legal minds in an anti-mask or qanon type Facebook group or forum. But for children with maybe vulnerable people in their lives
(and since its NI we're talking about, that's probably most of them) having class mates try peer pressure you and refuse to take precautions definitely couldn't help a child's mental health.
so tldr: I think bringing children back to school is causing a severe mental health crisis among children that'll only get worse as more outbreaks begin to happen, and every politician, political party or organisation pushing or implementing school reopening is responsible for it
