The school and the children’s social spaces have been very limited due to the measures to contain the contagions. How to accompany them in the management of the gradual restart?
The recent communications from the Azzolina Education Minister have removed any doubt: For this school year Italian children will no longer have the opportunity to return to the desks who saw them grow and experiment with new experiences together with their classmates. Distance teaching has now become a daily rite, between difficulties that vary in case in case. Unfortunately, even from this point of view, Equity is more an ideal than a reality.
The difficulties are not lacking
Several families do not have a sufficient number of electronic devices to allow children and teenagers to take lessons and parents to work at a distance. When the devices are there, it is the connection that shows all its limits: i Gigabyte Which could be good before the state of emergency are no longer enough and the offers of the telephone companies have not always shown themselves adequate to the increase in the needs.
The much desired “digital solidarity” made it possible to partially manage the situation, but did not allow to completely cover the increasing demand. The most economically most disadvantaged families were back in itwhich have grown in number, as a consequence of the crisis connected to the current health emergency. An agreement between MIUR and companies has allowed educational institutions to offer tablets and sim cards to children without suitable tools, to allow them to access teaching at a distance: a considerable help, certainly, even if the availability and circumstances have not allowed to reach everyone.
The main problem is that distance teaching school risks amplifying social inequalities which were already far from being eliminated in traditional teaching in presence. The tools to implement it in the most effective way are, unfortunately, distributed in an equitable way and, sad paradox, scarce precisely where they would be more useful, that is, in the schools of the neighborhoods inhabited by several families in difficulty.
Problematic situations also involve children with disabilities or special educational needs. The stress of isolation can add, in some cases, to that of the distance from the reference figures, such as the support teacher, assistants and school staff. In general, younger children, those of the kindergarten and the early years of primary school, often find themselves uncomfortable with the new school mode, which they cannot manage independently and for which they would need parents, who, however, are not always available to support and support teachers’ work.
The methods of the return
It is for a series of reasons like these that many children and their families look forward to the return to school. As we said, however, you will have to wait a little longer. An exception could be made for the structures that host nursery schools and kindergartens, for which they are the study of solutions to open in the summer monthswith activities intended for small groups of children up to six years of age, mostly in open spaces. Other solutions were also designed for the month of May, thanks to agreements with local authorities and compatibly with the availability of spaces and the impossibility of safety measures.
In any case, it is not a restart of the usual educational and school activities. For these, in all degrees of education, he will have to wait for September, with the announced hypothesis of the frequency in mixed mode, which should help in maintaining social distancing: While half of the class would follow in presence, the other half would do it at a distance, and the groups would alternate over the weeks. This hypothesis, however, for the management problems it entails, seemed unrealistic to some families and school operators. Another scenario provides for the return in presence for small groups, in different time slots or in new spaces specially identified to make lessons. In this case, many new hires of teachers would be needed.
Forgotten children
In general, it seems that attention to the needs of children, in the Italian emergency management, has shown many weak points. The needs of the little ones have often been neglected and relegated to the backgroundwhile in other countries there have been press conferences not only on children, but even for The children themselves, in order to help them understand and process the fears of a period full of tension.
How to support and accompany them
In light of all this, what can adult do to accompany children at this stage full of uncertainties? And how to help them when it will be possible to return to the daily spaces of socialization, including the school? We asked Daniela Lucangeli, ordinary of education and development psychology at the University of Padua and author of numerous scientific and popular publications.
«I would say, first of all, that The underestimation of the emotional impact of this period on minors was a serious mistake», He told us. «In many cases, in the face of children showing an apparent serenity, we wanted to interpret this attitude as an absence of consequences following such a sudden upheaval of their daily experience. Indeed, in many cases, children have been painted as “heroic”, for their courage in facing a potentially very anxious situation. Let’s ask ourselves, however, on a case -by -case basis, how much of this serenity is real or apparent, that is, if it hides difficulties in the expression of one’s discomfort “, adds the psychologist.
Precisely from this point of view, parents and educators have a fundamental task: “It is important to help children not to manage this phase in emotional silence and find ways to give voice to their discomfort», Underlines Lucangeli. Talk to them, of course; But other expressive ways such as movement and artistic and creative activities may also be important. “From the designs of the children, as I have been reported by many pediatricians, one can guess what the level of their understanding and processing of the problem has been,” adds the expert.
The consequences of silence
«One of the consequences of the impaired silence and the climate of generic reassurance, which avoids giving shape to fears and inconveniences, is the fact that the child increases the tendency to symbolic-friend’s thought. In some designs of the children we see the Coronavirus taking the appearance of a monster, of a fairy tale, in short, of something frightening but imaginary and unknown. These representations are the light of a poor understanding of the problem, of a series of questions that adults have not been able to answer and which, instead, is right and possible to face, why The fears are amplified precisely in the dimension of the unsaid and hidden».
How to do it, then? “It seems important to me – says Daniela Lucangeli – that adults concentrate their attention on the small signals that children send and that confront them with themwithout answering their questions with evasive and generic reassurances. Children, as well as adults, carry the weight of this situation on their shoulders, in particular in some areas that have been tragically scourged by the pandemic, which has affected the minors also in their fundamental affections. Being silent may seem a way to keep them away from the consequences of the problem, but, in reality, it is a way to worsen them “, underlines the psychologist.
Narcissism that does not help
Be careful, however, to the “built” forms of processing, often more useful to the narcissism of adults than to the management of emotions by the minor. «In these days I have often happened to me – observes Lucangeli – to see the children in which the children, filmed by their parents, sang or play on social networks, having rapid consent and attracting rapid consent and attracting follower. I don’t think this superficial and narcissistic management can really be useful for dealing with a discomfort that has deep emotional roots. I also have the impression that we continue to communicate and spread a message that suffocates the fears instead of giving them a voice “, adds the expert, which underlines:” I would, rather, pay attention to non -verbal messages, for example to the excess of concern that adults can communicate to children during the first walks in the open air, granted by phase 2, so that in the anxiety to protect them they do not send them to them “.
Expand the concept of health
But how much would it be appropriate to wait for a return to school and social activities? How to fully protect children’s health? «I think it is first of all important – recalls Lucangeli – to widen the concept of health and remember all its components. In protecting the health of our children, let’s remember that it includes at least three dimensions: physical health, certainly, but also the psychic and social one. While the indispensability of attention to physical well -being is remarked, we must not forget about the emotional one, nor cancel the importance of the social network, which is fundamental for the development of the skills that will accompany the individual for a lifetime. The life of society is a necessity and not a “whim”, an expression very inappropriate when it comes to individuals and above all of children. Scientific and psychological research has emphasized the importance of the first thousand days of life, in which fundamental neuronal connections are being built and the essential features of the personality develop. Deprive children in these first days of the possibility of interacting with peers and others in general can certainly have negative effects and must be avoided. Looking for a balance in the protection of the three aspects of health, by the institutions, will be, at a certain point, a necessity and I hope that the public debate in Italy does not continue to evade the matter “.
