Today is February 29 – Leap Year Day. Since this is a once-every-four-years event, it is natural to look back to four years earlier, and think “what was I doing last Leap Year Day?”
But what we were doing is lost in the significance of what we were about to do. Because two weeks later, our worlds just shut down here in the United States. COVID-19 had come to our shores.
So while I can’t tell you how I spent February 29, 2020, I can tell you that on March 13, 2020, I taught in a classroom for the very last time. We celebrated Pi Day-my colleague and I opting out of serving pie, out of “an abundance of caution.” We left school, with the thought that we’d be back in a few weeks.
Crazy how wrong that was.
But why am I talking about this? Why dwell on what has been the worst collective event that many of us will ever experience? Why not just put it in the past, and move forward into the sunshine?
Because it did happen, even if we want to pretend it didn’t. And the impacts are still being felt among all children today. Even more so for ADHD kids.
We all know there was substantial learning loss during the pandemic. Online education was something for which teachers weren’t prepared, to which students had difficulty relating (and frequent technological issues), and for which parents had no time-it’s pretty tough to do your job from home, while monitoring whether your kid is actually paying attention to the teacher on the screen. Additionally, many students were tasked with caring for younger siblings while their parents worked in the next room-so getting online wasn’t always possible. It is estimated that academically, students lost the equivalent of 35% of a school year during the pandemic.
However, the learning loss is just a part of this. Let’s talk about the loss in interactions, and the resulting social skills impacted. Not to mention the subsequent mental health challenges children and teens faced. And let’s not forget-people were sick. Very sick. People were dying. Many of our young people were dealing with the loss of loved ones, and the fear that others might be next.
Familiar routines were upended-and that’s an understatement. Day care centers were closed, grandparents isolated, playdates not allowed. According to The Economist, “The pandemic’s indirect effects on small children could last a lifetime.”¹ Think about it-if a child is 9 now, this hit when they were 5, which is just when kids are learning to be people without their parents telling them how. If a child is 18, they were 14 then, exactly at that middle school point where kids are trying out independence with the safety net of their parents in the background.
The impact on maturity is seen by teachers daily-and while not unexpected, it is certainly alarming.
And how did ADHD kids fare? In a meta-analysis of 18 studies performed across the globe published by the Journal of Attention Disorders, “Emerging research suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately and adversely affected children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).”² This included decreases in motivation and focus, and increases in social isolation and emotional dysregulation.
One study published in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing suggests that ADHD kids were less likely to participate in crafts projects and other non-screen activities at home (including homework) than their non-ADHD peers. According to the study, ADHD kids played video games 22.5% more than their neurotypical buddies, and participated in socializing via technology 40.7% less than their peers.³
So what does this mean for today? It means that all kids were impacted by the lack of socialization that took place during the pandemic. And all kids are behind, both academically and socially.
And it also means that the effect on ADHD kids was greater. And ADHD kids are already 25% behind in terms of their emotional development. So this puts them in an even more disadvantageous position.
We need to get our heads out of the sand. We need to understand that our ADHD children could be even more than the 2-3 years behind their peers that we already know about. We need to stop thinking about pushing children with ADHD to get to that neurotypical bar, and instead, meet them where they are at.
We need to support our kids. Because we love them. And if that means accepting that our 17 year old may in fact have the maturity of a 13 year old, and we need to be there for them a bit longer, then that’s what we need to do.
We don’t have to live in the past. But we do have to acknowledge its impact on the present. And the future.
¹”The pandemic’s indirect effects on small children could last a lifetime,” The Economist, December 15, 2022.
²Rogers, M., and MacLean, J., “ADHD Symptoms Increased During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Attention Disorders, Vol. 27, Iss. 8, March 6, 2023.
³Kara, O.K., et al, “The long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children with ADHD in terms of participation,support,and barriers at home.” Journal of Pediatric Nursing, March, 2023.