My Son’s School Has Closed Again. Stop This.

It was 9 a.m. on a Wednesday when I received a call from my 6-year-old’s school nurse. He’d come to her office and put himself to bed. The nurse reported no temperature and that he was “alert, times three.” His teacher said that he’d seemed discombobulated and not his usual self earlier in the morning. When my son — who isn’t normally a sleepy kid and stopped napping far sooner than I’d have liked — called me after waking, he said, “I was just exhausted.”

It’s not hard to see why. He’s been out of the classroom for the better part of eight months because of Hong Kong’s mandated closures due to Covid-19. Much of what learning he’s had has been through Zoom, punctuated by returns to school that end each time the city deems its infection rate is too high. Children need their routines, and the constant disruption has been highly stressful. Humans usually meet stress with pumping hearts and a fight-or-flight response. Many respond with another coping mechanism: simply falling asleep.