NORTH CAROLINA, USA — Parents, teachers, and therapists say they've seen a shift in behavior since transitioning from remote learning to in-person learning.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world wide closure of schools back in 2020 and 2021 created social, emotional and behavioral changes in children K-12.
"What COVID did was not really anything new. It just kind of burst the cracks in our system that we already had. It burst it wide open," Psychotherapist and Co-owner of The S.E.L. Group, Dr. Nannette Funderburk said.
It's something one Winston-Salem Forsyth County School parent, Amanda Yokeley said she saw coming. She believes there should have been more of a transition period for students going back to school.
"They would have trouble getting back into school, getting back into the routine, meeting their friends again, and knowing how to socialize. We already have a problem with that and they were away from it for a year and a half," Yokeley said.
Funderburk said isolation played a major, negative role, "when you're marinated in tech, that decreases human interaction."
Yokeley agrees. She said time away from school really meant time away from connecting with peers and building positive relationships, "you know school, a lot of times, you meet the best people, you meet the best influences, you have people that will change your life just by talking to them and during the pandemic and remote learning, they saw none of them."
Funderburk said the only way up, is by re-teaching these students how to act in a classroom setting. She said more specifically, it's about teaching empathy.
"Some people may have gotten out of practice with doing the things that you normally would have done when you connect with other people so I think this is just a byproduct of that," Funderburk said.