AUSTIN (Austin American-Statesman) — It took time for students to adjust to online learning. It’ll also take them time to adapt to learning in classrooms, according to an expert on education counseling who is advising parents to be on the lookout for signs of anxiety and depression in their kids.
Classrooms provide a safe space for students to be themselves and be surrounded by others their age, said Rebecca Farrell, the youth and family program coordinator for the Central Texas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The organization is the largest grassroots mental health group in the nation, and the Central Texas chapter has done several programs in Bastrop County.
“The school classroom environment allows for basic physical contact,” Farrell said. “It allows peers to be able to communicate in their own language and understand each other through eye contact and touching. And it also allows them to not focus so much in their head.”
