To School or Not to School: Making Decisions in the Time of COVID-19

Should my kids go back to school?!

Ah yes, the big looming school question. This issue has come up constantly on our social media feeds and in panicked text from friends. Heck, we’ve been trying to grapple with this one ourselves for months. There are so many questions, no clear answers, and a lot of anxiety for parents, teachers, and kids.

Thankfully there are several concepts, resources, and studies in the world of psychology that can help us navigate these tough decisions. We discussed these in our first Pandemic Parenting Exchange webinar—To School or Not to School: Making Decisions in the Time of COVID-19. Watch the recording and reflect on the questions below.

TL;DW (too long; didn’t watch) Here are the big takeaways and links to several resources mentioned:

There are a few concepts from psychology that can help us better understand the additional mental hurdles our brains are dealing with during the time of COVID-19: decision fatigue, cognitive load, and risk-benefit decision making. Plus, webinars and resources are all well and good, but having a ton of information is only as helpful as you can do something with it, we closed out our webinar with tips you can use today.

Thank you to our sponsor:

Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue is the deterioration of our ability to make good decisions or weariness after a long period of decision making.

Learn more about decision fatigue:

• Decision Fatigue: Neurosequential Network Stress and Trauma Series (Dr. Bruce Perry) (20 min video)

• 5 Brain-Informed Tips for Pandemic Decision Making (Dr. Jennifer A. King) (5 min read)

• Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? (John Tierney) (25 min read)

Cognitive Load

Our working memory has a limited capacity—this is our cognitive load. We can only hold and operate on so many pieces of information at a time. 

Learn more about cognitive load as it relates to parenting and living through the pandemic:

• Mom: The Designated Worrier (by Judith Shulevitz) (10 min read)

• 5 Minutes in a Mom’s Head (by Bunmi Laditan) (4 min read)

• No Wonder Isolation’s So Tiring. All Those Extra, Tiny Decisions are Tazing Our Brains (by Prof. Ben Newell) (4 min read)

• Why Mothers are Bearing Such a Huge Mental Load During Coronavirus Pandemic (by Laura T. Coffey and Rachel Paula Abrahamson) (5 min read)

Risk-Benefit Decision Making

Risk-benefit decision making is analyzing a decision to be made by carefully weighing both the risks and benefits of each option. This often involves accepting that a certain amount of risk in life is necessary to gain certain benefits. 

Steps for risk-benefit decision making:

1. Clarify the actual decision you are making. (I.e. “this is what we’ll do for the next two weeks” or “this is what we’ll do about busing”).

2. What are the actual risks for each option? 

3. What are the benefits of each option?

4. Make the decision. (Remember, it’s changeable; very few decisions are permanent).

Here are a few expert resources to help you access the risks of COVID-19 as it relates to schooling and parenting:

• COVID-19 Explained including Emily Oster & Maven’s New Child Care Decision Tool

• We Asked 20 Medical Experts Whether They’re Sending Their Own Kids Back to School. Here’s What They Had to Say (by Christina Farr) (10 min read)

• How to Think Through Choices About Grandparents, Day Care, Summer Camp and More (by Prof. Emily Oster) (14 min read)

• Life is Now a Game of Risk. Here’s How Your Brain is Processing It (Dana G. Smith) (26 min read)

• SRA August 'Ask The Expert' Webinar: What Adolescents Need from Education Right Now (1 hr video)

7 Tips You Can Try Now: 

1. Don’t make major decisions when you are feeling dysregulated (when you’re unable to control or regulate your emotional response).

2. Try to limit the number of decisions you have to make each day to alleviate decision fatigue.

3. “It works until it doesn’t.” Remember that very few decisions are permanent or unchangeable.

4. Consider the risks and benefits of each option for each of your children. Don’t view them as a collective unit, as they each have different strengths and needs. Even if you can’t make totally separate decisions for each child, at least you can better understand how each individual child could be impacted by your decision.

5. Consider how you and your child have changed over the last six months. Ask yourself questions like, “What does THIS version of my child need right now? What can THIS version of myself as a parent provide right now? Is THIS version of my child’s school the right fit for THIS version of my child right now?”

6. Go easy on yourself and consider your decision fatigue and cognitive load. You are not alone!

7. Remember the incredibly insightful words from Frozen 2 (that are constantly on repeat in our homes...) “Do the next right thing.”

Reflection Questions

1. Which of the 7 tips above will likely be most helpful for you today? 

2. To help prevent decision fatigue, what steps can you take to minimize the number of decisions you make on a daily basis?

3. How can you reduce (or share) the cognitive load/mental load burden that you are carrying to allow you to better focus on the big decisions?

4. What information are you currently missing that would help you make the “back to school” decision? How might you be able to get that information?

5. What are the biggest roadblocks you face with respect to making the “back to school” decision (e.g., time to discuss the risks/benefits with a partner/spouse, concern about what family/friends will think)? How can you address these roadblocks in your life?

6. Think about the current version of your child(ren) and the current version of yourself as a parent. How do these versions compare to March 2020?  How might that comparison influence your “back to school” decision?

7. What are the benefits and drawbacks to all potential schooling options for your child(ren). If you have more than one child, try to do this assessment for each child individually. 

8. What is the next right thing? (Channel Elsa and Anna!)

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Key Moments From This Webinar

Why is decision making so hard during the pandemic?

The Mental Load of Motherhood

How to Make Decisions During COVID-19

How do we make hard decisions with risk involved?

Questions to Ask Yourself When Making Tough Parenting Decisions

Decisions Matter To Our Kids

How do our emotions as parents affect our children?

How to Advocate for Your Child While Remote-Learning

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Meet Our Moderator

Ruth Speidel, Ph.D.

Ruth received her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Notre Dame, and will soon be starting a postdoc with Dr. Tina Malti at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her work focuses on early family processes, including emotion socialization behaviors during parent-child interactions and their implications for child emotion and self-regulation, particularly within adverse family environments and in the context of early trauma. In addition, she is interested in how research can be applied to inform interventions aimed at ameliorating negative developmental trajectories in children and families who experience adversity.

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Pandemic Parenting is a collaboration between two psychologists, scholars, and moms committed to sharing their expertise and research in ways that are immediately accessible and useful to families. Learn more about Dr. Amanda Zelechoski and Dr. Lindsay Malloy.