School looks a little bit different this year, and it is hard. A lot of parents have made the choice to keep their children home and have them do virtual learning. They have weighed the benefits and the risks and have decided it is just not worth the chance that their child could contract COVID-19. However, that does not mean that the benefits of in-person schooling are simply not there anymore. Virtual learning may keep them healthy physically, but their mental health also needs to be taken care of and virtual learning may be causing harm.
A mother in Georgia sent a picture of her young son into a TV station and it is heartbreaking. Her son is just in kindergarten and he is trying to adapt to it virtually, and he is having a hard time. He was so incredibly frustrated that he was in tears.
The mom said that she took the picture because she wanted people to see what it is really like when it comes to virtual learning. She said her son came over and they had a good hug and then she joined him with some tears. According to WFMYNEWS, the boy was in a virtual session of his class when he started crying and that he did put his head down.
The boy’s mother said that the first day of virtual learning has been “chaos,” as she also has another child doing virtual learning as well as a 7-month-old baby. This is the reality for moms who have chosen to keep their children home. They are just not able to give them the one-on-one interaction that they need. She said that it has been difficult for her children to keep up, as there are many different apps, codes and platforms that they have to bounce around from.
Her husband also says that children who are in virtual learning are missing out, and that children need to be back in class. He says that a lot of what they are learning is just getting lost because they do not have that person in front of them teaching them. A teacher also weighed in on the situation, and she says that she is getting calls from parents in tears because they are not a teacher and they don’t know what to do.