What Happens When Kids Don’t See Their Peers for Months

Had the spring of 2020 gone as planned, a day in the life of an average child would have meant actual classrooms, baseball games, middle-school plays, and birthday parties where kids ate too much cake instead of waving from the back seat as a parent drove them past their friend’s house, honking the horn. There would have been jokes and whispers in hallways, cafeterias, gyms, and school buses. As he finished his junior year of high school, my 17-year-old son, Alex, didn’t just miss engineering projects; he missed walking to school with Charlie, grabbing lunch with Johnny or Callan, perfecting his jump shot with Evan and Elliott. He should have been going to movies on Friday nights and flirting at parties on Saturday nights.

Time with other children is a crucial piece of growing up. Relationships with peers are how kids learn about cooperation, trust, and loyalty, as well as how to not just receive support from their parents, but also give it to others. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the measures that parents, schools, and governments have put in place to limit its spread, millions of children across the