Teachers could face an increase in bad behaviour in class due to kids’ pandemic stress, study warns

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Stressed pupils ‘are more likely to bully and fight’: Teachers could face an increase in bad behaviour in class after effect of pandemic on children’s mental health, study warns

  • Researchers at three universities found bad behaviour soared when children went back to school after the previous lockdown
  • A rise in tantrums and clinginess was blamed on pandemic stress felt by children
  • Experts say caring for pupils’ mental health will be as important as catching up with their learning 

By Josh White Education Reporter For The Daily Mail

Published: | Updated:

Teachers may face unprecedented bad behaviour, bullying and fighting due to the damaging effect of school closures on children’s mental health, a study warned yesterday.

Poor concentration and restlessness could also cause problems as pupils readjust after a year of disruption.

Experts claim it will be as important for teachers to help pupils ‘catch up’ with their mental health as the emphasis on filling in the gaps in learning. 

Separate research also revealed that many girls, who are thought to have had more pandemic-related stress than boys, have developed Tourette’s syndrome, which causes sufferers to make involuntary sounds and tics. 

Teachers may face unprecedented bad behaviour, bullying and fighting due to the damaging effect of school closures on children’s mental health, a study warned yesterday. Poor concentration and restlessness could also cause problems as pupils readjust after a year of disruption [Stock image]

In the first study, researchers at three universities found bad behaviour soared when children went back to school after the previous lockdown, with a rise in tantrums and clinginess being blamed on pandemic stress.

According to researchers at the universities of Essex, Surrey and Birmingham, the effects of missing six weeks of school could equate to a 73 per cent increase in challenging behaviour.

Their report says that although overall well-being rose when schools reopened in September, the subsequent closure will make any negative effects on children’s mental health and behaviour ‘likely to continue after the Easter holidays and into next term, if not beyond’.

Dr Birgitta Rabe, of the University of Essex, said: ‘Going back to school in itself does not appear to be sufficient for children to ‘bounce back’. 

‘Support for mental health and well-being is likely to be required for some time.’

The research found the gulf in well-being between pupils who missed more time at school than others was ‘stubbornly wide’.

Girls may be prone because of social isolation, whereas more boys stayed in touch with their friends by gaming online [Stock image]

Girls may be prone because of social isolation, whereas more boys stayed in touch with their friends by gaming online [Stock image]

Psychiatrists also say that Covid, as well as the influence of social media, may be behind an ‘explosion of tics’ that has led to referrals nearly doubling at two London clinics.

An article in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood said: ‘The new surge of referrals consists of adolescent girls with sudden onset of motor and phonic tics of a complex and bizarre nature.’

It said that if this continued it would ‘amount to 150 to 200 cases per year and effectively double the referral rate’.

Suzanne Dobson, of the charity Tourettes Action, said it was ‘getting more calls… than we’ve ever had before’.

Girls may be prone because of social isolation, whereas more boys stayed in touch with their friends by gaming online.

Will youngsters be jabbed in summer?

A huge drive to immunise millions of children against coronavirus could begin before the autumn term, a government vaccines adviser has revealed.

The move might be deemed essential to keep schools open.

Jabs could be administered in schools and may be offered first to pupils aged between 11 and 18 though vaccinating all children over six years old has not been discounted, said Professor Adam Finn, who serves on the Government’s Joint Vaccination and Immunisation Committee.

‘I would say that we will be immunising some children, at least, by the end of the year,’ he said. ‘It might prove necessary to create the resilience for a stable education system because if there is ongoing transmission in the general population while everyone else from 18 up has been offered the vaccine, it might prove that what’s driving that is the transmission that goes on in schools.

‘And, of course, it is to the benefit of children directly to keep schools going.’

A decision on giving the jabs to children will probably be made this summer on completion of tests of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on younger people.

In the US, children aged 12 to 18 have already been immunised in trials using the Pfizer vaccine.