COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

Mr. Sparkle said
I understand, but there is already a crap ton of evidence that our covid school policy has done some major damage and the spike in mental health problems among kids is also pretty well established. That is my wide lens view - derailing a year-plus of school at every level and masking young kids (going on 2+ years in some places) is going to have long term impacts across the larger population. Kids are resilient but they aren't immune to these impacts (which may not even present themselves until you start cognitive testing, etc)

My narrow-lens view (my own kids) is taking that knowledge and trying to make up for it as best I can but I'm fortunately in a position where I have some resources to throw at the problem.

So was the school policy the root cause of the mental health issues or did it simply reveal the issue sooner rather than later?

For me its the latter. Those issues were there just hiding in plain sight while the world turned. Now, they are evident and can be addressed accordingly.

I dont think that several weeks ( or months in some cases ) of virtual school had an impact like you say unless those children were already predisposed to having some issues. For whatever reason.