By: Howard M. Riell

The emotional damage that is being caused by the coronavirus crisis is very real – and something that educators and mental health professionals will have to grapple with when school in New York City eventually resumes.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told the media last week that a “focus on mental health and support for everyone who’s been through this crisis will be crucial to our plan to reopen in September.”

“But advocates say the city’s current approach to dealing with the most severe mental health challenges is drastically lacking,” reported the New York Daily News. “Despite an influx of new social workers, city students were escorted to hospitals for mental health crises more than 3,000 times last school year — trips that advocates argue are unnecessary and traumatic.”

“We have to do things differently,” Dawn Yuster, the director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children, one of dozens of organizations that sent a letter Friday to the city Education Department sounding the alarm on mental health services, told the paper. “The public health crisis is hopefully going to shine a light on the fact that we cannot continue to treat students the way we have in our schools.”

According to the city’s Department of Education, mental health “impacts not only our students but our families, schools, and communities” even in the best of times. “One in five children struggle, or at some point in their life will struggle, with their mental health. Half of all mental-health and substance-use conditions start before age 14. Approximately one in five students who could benefit from additional mental-health supports does not get them.”

For reasons every parent understands, kids are especially sensitive to the sorts of drastic changes imposed by the pandemic. “Nobody knows when or if life will return to normal after the coronavirus pandemic,” noted usatoday.com. “But as the weeks of stay-at-home orders and school closures continue nationwide, parents are questioning whether isolation measures and physical distancing are doing lasting damage to their kids’ emotional development.

Questions remain unanswered. “Will this generation grow up fearful of touching or standing too close? Will they know how to make friends or interact in group gatherings? And how will it affect their academics and job prospects?” reported usatoday.com. “Psychologists and economists are still gathering data, but here’s the consensus for the short term: Most of the kids will be all right.”

The CDC is advising parents to watch for behavior changes in their kids. “Not all children and teens respond to stress in the same way.” Some common changes to watch for include:

– Excessive crying or irritation in younger children

– Returning to behaviors they have outgrown (for example, toileting accidents or bedwetting)

– Excessive worry or sadness

– Unhealthy eating or sleeping habits

– Irritability and “acting out” behaviors in teens

– Poor school performance or avoiding school

– Difficulty with attention and concentration

– Avoidance of activities enjoyed in the past

– Unexplained headaches or body pain

– Use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs