Q&A: Schooling, Caregiving, and Emotional Support During COVID

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Little girl with face mask gets temp checked.
“COVID-19 exacerbates many already existing challenges and concerns facing students,” says the Neag School’s Sandra Chafouleas. (Getty Images)

Editor’s Note: The following piece was originally published in UConn Today.

In-person, hybrid, remote, and/or home-school – the options for K-12 schooling during the pandemic are complicated, each with their own pros and cons. UConn Today asked psychologist Sandra Chafouleas, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Neag Endowed Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, and co-director of the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health, about the importance of social and emotional health for children and their caregivers, particularly this year.

What are you hearing about how the return to school is going thus far?

Here in the Northeast, we have only been at this for a relatively short time. So, just like any regular school year when you’re starting out, there are things that don’t go as planned and adjustments that need to be made. It’s an even bigger challenge this year, even with all of the advance planning that has occurred.

As we continue to work out those kinks, we should take a deep breath and try to add a little extra patience as everyone is grappling with what school means this year. I saw a post just the other day that was a list of 2020-21 school supplies. Instead of the typical list of notebooks and pencils, there were keywords such as humor, understanding, and flexibility – I think that just about sums up this year.

“This year is all about acknowledging that a decision you are making today is likely not final. Uncertainty is the hardest part about all of this, and so it is expected that we feel angst and struggle with positive coping.”

What advice do you have for parents and families who are struggling with what schooling option is best for their children at this time?

I wouldn’t say that anybody should give you “best” advice, because there are questions that families need to ask themselves to decide what’s best for their situation. I’ve read some really angry comments on social media pushing a singular perspective, and I think that’s just a bit nearsighted. I think, again, we all have to take a really deep breath and say, “OK, what are the options that we have in answering what is right for us today, and what do we anticipate will work for this month and this year?”

I guess the advice that I do have is to actively work on strengthening flexibility so it can be easier to handle re-evaluating options. This year is all about acknowledging that a decision you are making today is likely not final. Uncertainty is the hardest part about all of this, and so it is expected that we feel angst and struggle with positive coping. But if we acknowledge those feelings are likely to happen, it means we can work hard to increase our dose of prevention strategies. Prevention is about more purposefully putting in place strategies that help us regulate our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

A lot of your research focuses on the social and emotional health of school-age children – something school administrators recognize is important but have not always had the resources to address in school. Is this more of a focus now, and what can parents do to help support their child’s social and emotional health in this new learning situation?

We are just finishing a survey of Connecticut superintendents and school principals where we asked questions about priorities prior to COVID, how those priorities have shifted, and even what’s keeping them up at night now. Social and emotional wellness has by far outranked other concerns. It’s really been brought to the forefront of conversations, and I suppose the good part about that is that we’re also seeing organizations and agencies rise to the challenge in providing great resources for school and family caregivers.

Lots of evidence-informed strategies have been curated and made widely accessible that anyone can use in strengthening social and emotional health. Particularly right now, families are absolutely a critical foundation to connecting about social and emotional health. As one example of a prevention strategy, consider purposefully building time for morning check-in and evening checkout into the daily routine. Doing so provides space for kids to talk about what they are thinking and feeling, which happens by caregivers asking questions and being reaffirming and nonjudgmental. It also helps caregivers identify when additional supports might be needed, organizes talking points when connecting back to school about supports, and provides opportunity to reflect on how we as the adults are modeling thoughts, feelings, and behaviors for our kids.

Sandra Chafouleas hold book in classroom.
“Peer connection is critically important, particularly as children head into the middle school years and beyond,” says Chafouleas. “Families and schools need to work together in ensuring there is a check-in space around social connections.” (UConn file photo)

We hear quite often that children miss their friends right now. How important are those peer supports, and what can we do to help school-age children who are missing those social opportunities?

Peer connection is critically important, particularly as children head into the middle school years and beyond. So it is particularly concerning to me when I think about those students who may be more vulnerable – those that maybe didn’t already have strong social networks or have transitioned to new schools. So this is a good example of how families and schools need to work together in ensuring there is a check-in space around social connections.

I’ve seen some schools do innovative things to make sure, first and foremost, that every student has a trusted adult connection. It can be more challenging in a virtual environment, but teachers have come up with creative ways to build connections that help monitor what’s going on. To build those peer connections, schools can make sure that every child is part of a smaller social network, such as getting engaged in at least one club or activity. Every child must be connected in some way that is meaningful to them.

You’ve written about another pandemic our children are grappling with: the pandemic of teen suicide. Why do you call teen suicide a pandemic, and what can we do to help solve it?

When you look at the numbers of children thinking about, attempting, or completing suicide in a year, it can seem abstract. So in that particular article, I tried to give meaning to those numbers – for example, if you picture a typical classroom of 25 high school students, consider that approximately five could be thinking about suicide.

And then when you look at trends in those data over the past decade, it gets even scarier, given movement upward across subpopulations of students. To me, that’s what defines a pandemic. We know what we need to do to solve the problem, but we haven’t fully risen to that challenge.

A lot of suicide prevention work focuses on teaching the general public why mental health is important, how to recognize symptoms, and how to access help. This is good stuff, but we also need collective efforts to prevent getting to the point where those suicidal thoughts occur. Prevention involves creating a physically and emotionally safe space to grow and thrive, building connections to others, and learning about emotions along with getting feedback and practice on regulating emotions.

“To build peer connections, schools can make sure that every child is part of a smaller social network, such as getting engaged in at least one club or activity. Every child must be connected in some way that is meaningful to them.”

It’s not just children who are struggling right now – it’s also their caregivers, and caregivers of students with disabilities are bearing an even greater burden. What have you found in your research involving caregivers during COVID?

A couple of years ago, I had started working on this line of research with postdoc (and former graduate student) Emily Iovino ’15 (ED), ’16 MA, ’20 Ph.D. We were interested in understanding the needs of family caregivers of children with developmental disabilities. These caregivers have additional expectations around supporting their children, and our concern was the gap in attention to supporting their personal well-being. In school, we have all of these services and programs that we expect families to continue delivering at home, but we haven’t really asked if they are able to do it. Looking at the literature in adult caregiving, we see clear challenges in self-care, isolation, and negative physical and emotional health outcomes. Emily and I have been exploring simple options to support caregivers of students with developmental disabilities in promoting their own self-care.

And then COVID hit. Knowing what we already knew about family caregivers, we thought it was important to understand what was happening as direct school supports were reduced. We did an initial survey in April along with interviews and, six months later, are completing a follow-up survey. As we had hypothesized, the greatest stress right now for everyone is around education.

It’s definitely the top thing that’s coming up in the minds of all caregivers. But caregivers of children with developmental disabilities have even more challenges now; the burden of providing education and all of those related services has really fallen squarely on them. The caregivers of children with developmental disabilities that we interviewed overwhelmingly told us they need direct help in providing services for their children, but they personally need respite. It’s not surprising that the gaps are widening even further with regard to their personal self-care.

I very much think about how we can best support family caregivers right now, and particularly caregivers of students with disabilities. Everybody is struggling in different ways. Although we can expect those struggles, and that there are good and bad moments, we need to be OK with asking for help. I hope each of us can find a space to help a caregiver in need, as that is how we will ultimately do our best in fostering physical and emotional safety for our kids.

UConn Women’s Student Leadership Program Receives $1.2M Grant

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The BOLD program cultivates courageous leadership and career success in young women during college and after they complete their studies. (Contributed photo)

Editor’s Note: Neag School Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sally Reis was instrumental in the development of the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network at UConn. The director of UConn’s BOLD program is educational leadership doctoral student Liza Boritz. The following story originally appeared on UConn Today.

A leadership program for undergraduate women at UConn has proven so successful the funder has donated $1.2 million to extend it for at least three years.

The grant provides scholarships and a transformative experience to several juniors through the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network. The BOLD program cultivates courageous leadership and career success in young women during college and after they complete their studies.

“We look for scholars with leadership potential who have interesting stories to tell and have a passion for an issue of social good,” says Liza Boritz, director of the BOLD program at UConn. “The students get the scholarship award, but also get funding to develop and implement an individualized, service leadership project during the summer between their junior and senior years.”

“It is critical for universities to provide training and opportunities for leadership development for intelligent young women to explore their choices and pursue their dreams.”

— Sally Reis, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor

The grant is from Helen Gurley Brown’s Pussycat Foundation. Brown, the legendary editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, believed that every young woman should have the opportunity to pursue an education and career, and achieve her life’s ambitions.

Two females smiling, one Asian American and one Caucasian.
Undergraduate student Xinyu Lin with BOLD program director Liza Boritz. (Contributed photo)

Xinyu Lin, an engineering major, was one of the first to go through the program and is now doing a BOLD post graduate fellowship. Lin researched and produced a photo story exhibit that documented the experiences of leaders from underrepresented backgrounds in the environmentalism movement.

“The BOLD program has undoubtedly been one of the best parts of my UConn experience,” Lin says. “I’m so glad that I took the chance and applied because it’s given me some of the best mentors, friends, and opportunities I could’ve asked for. BOLD enabled me to pursue a project and topic that wasn’t covered in my coursework, and ultimately inspired me to explore a different career path.”

Cristal Arguello, a junior majoring in urban and community studies, said she was thrilled to be selected for a BOLD scholarship this year.

“It takes away a lot of the financial burden I came into college with. It just takes it away,” she says. “It releases a lot of stress.”

She plans to pursue a project — and perhaps a career — focused on the inhumane treatment of undocumented women and children held at the U.S. border.

One of BOLD’s leaders, Sally Reis, says BOLD plays a key role in helping to develop women as leaders at UConn.

“At a crucial time in our history in which talented women continue to struggle with decisions about how to lead and how to blend family well-being with work responsibilities, it is critical for universities to provide training and opportunities for leadership development for intelligent young women to explore their choices and pursue their dreams,” says Reis, who is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology.

UConn is one of six colleges and universities across the country in the BOLD network, says Susan Baldridge, lead consultant for the foundation in charge of BOLD.

“It’s been a transformative experience not just for the scholars but also for the faculty and staff,” says Jennifer Lease Butts, director of the Honors Program. “The longer we can keep BOLD as an active program on campus, the greater influence it’s going to have on our community and, ultimately, the world. Leadership for the social good is an increasingly important component of our collective success as individuals and the success of UConn as an institution.”

Talking to Kids About the Dysfunctional Presidential Debate

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(Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)

Editor’s Note: The following originally appeared on Psychology Today, where Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sandra Chafouleas launched a new blog this past summer. 

“I think that was worse than our seventh-grade mock debate.” That’s what our 14-year-old said after Tuesday night’s presidential debate, which had been assigned by the high school politics teacher to watch and analyze. I murmured agreement as I wasn’t quite sure what else to say at the moment — but woke up the next morning wondering how that ninth-grade teacher was going to handle a class discussion about the debate. Clearly, there was more to talk about beyond the specific campaign issues.  

News headlines seem to suggest consensus about how bad the debate was, some deeming it the worst in presidential history and an embarrassment to society. The theme of many stories covering the event can be summed up in a single word: dysfunction. Dysfunctional debates are characterized by not listening, jumping in and cutting others off, grandstanding, boasting, using sarcastic or biting tones, and not acknowledging others.

Putting the political issues aside, the debate brought to light critical lessons about civility — a key piece to social and emotional well-being.

In contrast, healthy debates are characterized by a focus on the issue over the person, seeking other points of view, questioning over lecturing, clearing up points of confusion, and following the set ground rules or norms. Now it was becoming clear to me why I had that nagging feeling about how to proceed in talking about the debate with our kids. Putting the political issues aside, the debate brought to light critical lessons about civility — a key piece to social and emotional well-being.

Civility is about courtesy in our speech and behavior. The purpose of civics education is to teach students about how democratic processes work and how to productively take part in them. According to a 2018 report by the Brookings Institute, civics education outlines a set of practices intended to support students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to engage in American democracy. Recommended classroom practices include studying such topics as government and current events, but also simulating democratic processes as well as social-emotional learning.

Yes, social and emotional learning is tied to civics. Social-emotional learning is the process through which individuals “understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions,” per the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). This learning is pretty important throughout life – it’s tied not only to students’ success in school, but also lifetime outcomes such as graduation rates, emotional distress, and economic mobility.

Civics education that includes debate provides a powerful opportunity to learn about, practice, and receive feedback on social and emotional skills. The challenge is to ensure healthy debate skills – the opposite of what our kids watched this week.

To move forward with our kids, we first need to address the mess that happened this week. We must talk about what happened during this debate of dysfunction, using it as a prime non-example (what not to do) of healthy debate. We also need to push for more civics education in school, teaching our kids the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that they will need to be healthy debaters as adults. Actively embedding social and emotional learning within existing structures for teaching debate is important for all students.

Families (as well as teachers) might consider a couple of possible approaches:

  • Find examples of prior debates, and engage your kids in comparing and contrasting the behaviors in healthy — versus dysfunctional — debate.
  • Construct a “do-over” for the dysfunctional debate: Take a piece of the debate and rewrite it in a way to show elements of what would exemplify a healthy debate.
  • Role-play short mock debates using nonpolarizing “issues” (For example: Should we eat ice cream for breakfast?). Act out dysfunctional as well as healthy arguments and responses, then stop to process how it felt to be part of each experience. These “debating” activities help students develop self-expression, perspective-taking, and critical listening. (For older students, TED has even curated a list of talks that support a healthy debate, many of which are directly connected to topics in social and emotional learning.)
  • When a controversial, offensive, or non-inclusive statement is made — whether during the presidential debate, or at home or in the classroom — use a “mark the moment” strategy to pause and paraphrase.

Each of these activities provides us with a teaching opportunity to take a messy debate and recreate it in ways that embed critical social and emotional learning lessons for kids.

For me, this debate was not as much about the campaign issues as it was about behaviors that do not support the positive social and emotional learning that carries us forward into successful adult life at home, work, and social contexts. We cannot let this debate of dysfunction be the model for the next generation.