This article is the second in a series of enterprise stories about individuals or groups of people in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community who have been acutely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. To read more articles like this one, visit the series’ introductory page or click the “Spotlight” tab above.
“Throw the princess off the tower!” Rebecca Dyck instructed her elementary choir, as she imitated the pitch of someone falling.
This vocal warmup is one of many that Dyck, Director of Children and Family Ministries at University United Methodist Church, uses to engage her young singers at Jubilee Choir. The exercise targets students’ ability to glide upwards or downwards between two notes with their voice, otherwise known as glissando.
Due to restrictions on gathering, Dyck started off rehearsals in September on Zoom. But since February, the class has resumed regular meetings on the church campus.
Through the choir, she aims to provide her students with a sense of community and an opportunity to interact with their peers.
Dyck, whose background is in elementary education, predicts that soft skills like communication, teamwork and problem-solving will need to be honed in younger children in the coming years.
“[The pandemic] has been a full year of basically being able to control social interactions. Returning to the regular routine may be a lot to some children,” Dyck said. “And although they’re practical and they are concrete thinkers, they aren’t always very articulate, so they don’t self-analyze or tell you exactly what’s going on.”
One common issue of concern among experts like the Durham-based Exchange Family Center and the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington, D.C. is how many children have missed a year of development—whether social, academic or emotional—due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, these concerns center around social competency.
While most kids may profess to dislike normal, in-person school, experts say interactions between peers and teachers are an integral part of social development. These encounters are hard to replicate through a screen. Kids are naturally adaptive, but too much change can cause behavioral and mental health issues that may stick with them for years going forward.
Dyck said that children need to be supported and reassured that the events of the pandemic are not defining moments in their lives.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the number of mental health visits from children ages 5-11 increased approximately 24% by the end of 2020.
“There’s an increased level of need for routine therapy and conversations, whether that’s formal with a therapist who’s paid for or extended support that the kids have with family,” Dyck said.
March 22 marked the first day that Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools reopened classrooms to in-person instruction on a hybrid schedule. Through this model, parents have the option to put their kids in school or keep them home. Since then, many elementary school students have been able to return to a routine in which they can participate in school functions five days a week.
The move to hybrid instruction was a promising step toward providing children with the supervision, socialization and instruction that can aid in their becoming healthy young adults. However, experts say it is important to be vigilant in identifying children who seem negatively affected by the rapid changes being made.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, disruptions in routines and family hardships increase the likelihood of children developing emotional or behavioral problems—regardless of whether they’re attending classes in-person or virtually.
For elementary school student Ivan Maze, the social distancing brought on by the pandemic has been a challenging adaptation.
“I can’t interact with my friends like I normally would,” Maze said. “We can’t play that closely or touch each other anymore.”
Still, Maze has been able to find out a routine that makes the days more bearable: finish school work, eat Nutella sandwiches, play video games, go outdoors, repeat.
Jenny Maze, Ivan’s mother, mentioned how efficiently her son has been able to manage his own schedule and take responsibility for his school work.
“While these things were forced on us sooner than expected, I look at the bigger picture,” Jenny Maze said. “Ivan is gaining skills that are going to be super useful going forward, as well as when they’re adults.”
Not having live, in-person input from teachers, though, has left Ivan Maze, among many other children, without access to standard academic improvement.
“That’s just the nature of how things have to be this year and, you know, everybody’s on the same playing field,” Jenny Maze said.
Ivan, though, said that the closeness he shares with his family has helped with being home all the time.
“It’s really fun being around my family,” he said. “We have always been very close.”
