The Kids are NOT Alright...

Wake up. Turn on the laptop. Log into school/work. Find your class/meeting. Check into your online meeting space. Find your work. Download it. Upload it. Blow off steam. Eat. sleep, Start over.

This is NOT normal. This is not developmentally appropriate. This is how we learn in the midst of a crisis - a global pandemic that we are not always handling with ease. It is full of uncertainty and many students, parents, and employees are finding that this is requiring FAR more executive function that our pre-COVID typical day. We endeavor nonetheless. The clients I work with are resilient and dogged, even when they are dog-tired.

We, humans, are social creatures. We live in tribes for a reason. While there are a few that were killing it for the first 3-4 weeks of stay-at-home orders, even those natives are growing restless. No one is truly shining by any stretch of the imagination. Even the superheroes are weary. Nevertheless, they persist. Scarlett O’Hara would be proud.. Some are simply coping better than others. We are all in this season together, even though our stormy weather may look different from our individual vantage points.

One of my ADHD clients gleefully announced in week 3 that their boss was feeling out of sorts with no clear direction of where their work and return to the office stood. “Welcome to my everyday! Crisis management? That is how I live day by day. I’m great in a crisis!” Lack of structure? Not so much! By week 4-5 they were D-O-N-E and flat out exhausted from all of the cognitive energy and self-regulation required to manage 3-5 hours a day on Zoom and priorities that seemed to shift almost daily.

Parents are worried. Will this backslide in learning impact their child’s future plans? How can we bring some order to the chaos? How will we be able to work from home AND manage our children’s therapy, schoolwork, homework, AP exam schedules? What about their extra-curricular activities? What about graduation? No one is sleeping or perhaps everyone is sleeping all day long. Tantrums have increased for ALL age groups, including mom & dad. On top of this, some of us are also managing older generations on top of our own nuclear families.

Some students are lonely, confused, and increasingly anxious or depressed. School has either become streamlined or completely disparate depending on how schools are rolling out online curriculum and expectations. Expecting any student under the age of 25 to manage 5-8 separate online classrooms with more than 1 touch-point for each class is a stretch when executive function is already a challenge. My students who typically feel anxious in the “showing up” of in-person learning are finding this system to be far more relaxing when they create a system to gather all of the places they need to show up - class, homework downloads, homework uploads, testing systems, office hours, labs, etc. For those that had a system built on physical cues, this who “come as you are” with less accountability and no structure is an abyss of too many choices and too little measurable progress.

The short of it is that there is no perfect answer for everyone. There is only a perfect choice for each moment for every individual. This is a huge experiment in the art of differentiation, tolerance, self-regulation, and socio-economic barriers or advantages.

ADHD brains run on play, interest, novelty, competition, and urgency. They both fight against and still crave structure. They do not thrive on chronic stress beyond their developmental threshold. We each have a tipping point, unique to our individual psyche. This pandemic is no longer fun, novel, or interesting. Competition is harder to measure with each Groundhog Day. For many, the urgency has reached that tipping point beyond productivity. Cognitive fatigue may have set in, making every new decision that much more exhausting.

I am spending more time in this second chapter of “sheltering in place” focused on basic biology. Eating. Sleeping. Moving. Fresh Air. Human Connection. Without these, we are all out of balance. In order to optimize learning, we must first pay attention to where we are in this journey and where we need to be. We must address self-care, and I am not talking about pedicures and bubble baths.

Educators, employers, and grownups - we are all in this together. This is a time for grace and compassion. We are all learning together. Our students, children, spouses, and elders all need help processing this current status of isolation and upside-down feelings of uncertainty. All of the “maybes” can erode the structures we build for the long haul. Some of us are better for the day-by-day compassion received. We will all grow from this. The timetables just might not all be in sync.

It is OK to admit that we are not alright. What we can do is gain perspective on the things we can control and verbalize our worries, hopes and needs going forward.