[yay_cloud2]

This has been my son's experience as well (Grade 4). We are on week 6 of home-school, and by far the thing that energizes him, lifts his mood, and gets him through his work is any interactions at all with his fellow students.

Most of his classmates are too young to have strong bonds outside of the structure of school, so (I think) school needs to accept the power of these bonds and facilitate social interaction between kids. De-prioritize the output, and prioritize the process of learning things together.

[WillPostForFood]

Most of his classmates are too young to have strong bonds outside of the structure of school

It is unfortunate, and a poor reflection on modern culture that 4th grade is too young to form strong bonds outside of school. Kids are missing the after school unstructured free/play time. Decades later, I'm sill best friends with kids I went to school with in 4th grade.

[Wowfunhappy]

It's not exactly like the kids could all go out and play together right now.

[irishcoffee]

My kids do.

[sjg007]

I mean you are taking a risk here. But even then some of us don't have the option here.

[vl]

No, of course it’s much better to traumatize kids by unreasonable many-month isolation. This will make them well-adjusted adults for sure.

[irishcoffee]

I don’t go anywhere and my kids don’t leave the street. “Sorry kids you can’t go outside for the next 3 months. I’ll keep the windows clean for you so you can look.” Tantamount to child torture.

[anoncareer0212]

Not sure what you mean, I think y'all might be talking past eachother: poster is saying they can't exactly go play outside with the neighbors right now, which is obviously true, if kids in the neighborhood are running around together, we'd just be building really efficient viral transmission chains

[vl]

Ah, covid-shaming on HN. Then they go to Costco in unfitted, unfiltering masks and bring home bunch of packages, pretending they avoided “social contact”.

[irrational]

It's not that simple. We live in a suburban neighborhood. When I was a kid we had tons of kids in the neighborhood I grew up in to play with. Now? My family is the only one in the neighborhood with kids. Their classmates live quite aways away across busy streets. I'd have to drive them to their classmates houses. People just don't have kids like they used to.

[chongli]

This jumped out at me as well. When I was that age I spent my summers riding my bike and roaming the city with my friends. The thought that kids today are entirely dependent on the structure of school for socialization is incredibly depressing. What have we done to society?

[lotsofpulp]

Moved into far flung suburbs separated by 4+ lane roads with large vehicles traveling 50mph+ in order to sequester the kids in the “nicest” neighborhoods so they only have well to do kids in their school.

[pfranz]

The parent is one data point. Perhaps the one kid leans on school for social connections at this point in their life? Some kids are loaners (but still need social connections) others are very social.

Another commenter pointed out that there were only a few school-aged kids in their neighborhood. I noticed when I graduated high school there weren't many younger school-aged kids in my neighborhood even though I grew up with a good number of people nearby. When my sister moved into a newly built neighborhood when they had kids other young families moved in, too. I think neighborhoods tend to cluster with families, it cycles and may not always catch on every generation and some kids get stuck.

Those situations sound incredibly depressing, but I don't think it necessarily reflects all of society.

[BryanBigs]

Well, sports.

In my area, kids on the B team in FIFTH GRADE play over 55 basketball games a season.

That's more than any college.

It's the same lunacy for hockey, baseball, etc.

They get social interaction from the team, sure. But it's no longer a seasonal thing. It's year round and cancels out a lot of play time in the hood.

[JCharante]

Yeah I'm confused by this. My oldest friend is my friend from 3rd grade who I only play video games with. We weren't ever in the same classroom and I only went over to his house twice. I haven't seen him in years but at most we've only gone a few months without doing something over the past decade+.

Maybe that's because as a child I had unsupervised access to a networked playstation and a computer. I would have loved to stay at home all day.

As an adult I hate it. When my city opened back up I took up cycling as my only mode of transport because I've taken the feeling of physical exertion for granted.

[watwut]

Adults dont keep such relationships either.

[koolba]

No just split the two things entirely. Have an hour of free form video chat to make fun of each other and laugh. The education there is from interacting.

It’s no different than removing sports as a separate subject. You don’t learn math or English running down a track field and you don’t learn how to swimming reading 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.

[eitally]

My kid's class has a parent-organized "Zoom recess" three times a week for just this. There's always a volunteer parent moderating/hosting, but it's an oppy for kids to be themselves socially.