LOS ANGELES – Gael Aitor starts his senior year at Loara High School in Anaheim on Wednesday, much like he finished out last year – with distance learning.

“It was not easy for me,” said Aitor, who had a hard time concentrating on his classes at home. But one of the biggest difficulties, he said, has been the loss of social contact.

“Our generation is the most connected, but we feel the loneliest,” said Aitor, co-host and co-creator of the podcast Teenager Therapy. “The most common message we get is that people feel lonely. When summer hit is when we started to feel the ripple effects of staying at home all the time, and for some people, it’s definitely creating a rabbit hole of loneliness.”

A study of 5th through 12th graders’ mental health from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California in late April found students most frequently used the words “lonely” and “anxious” to describe their mental state. Before the pandemic, the majority of students felt they were mentally well, or able to cope with the normal stresses of life and work productively, the study said. But after the pandemic began, less than 40 percent felt that way.

Anxiety, mental health experts say, often manifests as excessive worry, irritability, tension, and sleep disturbances – all of which can affect students’ ability to learn.

“We’re concerned about our students coming back in this environment,” said Joel Cisneros, director of school mental health for Los Angeles Unified School District, which will begin distance learning for the fall semester starting August 18.

In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered most K-12 schools in the state to start the coming school year online, a move that will affect close to 6 million students, 600,000 of whom are served by LAUSD.

Cisneros said his department is in “constant conversation” with teachers about what to look for when it comes to students’ mental health and what to do if they sense anything is off. It’s also holding virtual workshops for parents, many of whom are struggling to support their children’s at-home learning while also working from home full-time. 

(Getty Images)

LAUSD is continuing to operate the mental health hotline (213-241-3840) and email (mentalhealth@lausd.net) it launched on April 1, two weeks after the district first shut down in-person classes. Available to students, parents, and teachers, and staffed by psychiatric social workers, counselors, and nurses, the hotline has so far received more than 2,500 calls.

“We felt that was the best way to maintain a pulse on our community and our students,” said Tony Aguilar, LAUSD’s chief of special education, access, and equity. 

About half of the hotline calls have been referred for mental health consultations, Aguilar said. The other half are from people needing help with rent assistance, healthcare access, or food banks.

“Those create tremendous stress on families,” Aguilar said. “That’s what we’re seeing right now: families just reaching the breaking point with their coping mechanisms for the barrage of needs they’re now facing.”

Helping parents is critical to maintaining their children’s mental health, especially now, with the National Center for Health Statistics reporting that mental health for all age groups is declining. Thirty-seven percent of adults aged 18 and over now have symptoms of anxiety disorder, compared with 8 percent a year ago, according to the weekly Household Pulse Survey the NCHS started conducting in April to determine the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The highest percentage of anxiety symptoms is among the youngest group: 50 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are experiencing anxiety.

“Families may experience events such as job loss, COVID-19 illness, and loss of contact with loved ones. We know that job loss, trauma, and illness result in an increase in mental health issues for parents and therefore impact children,” said Dr. Erin Berman, a licensed clinical psychologist and researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health.

She said social support helps maintain resilience for kids of all ages, but with physical distancing required to slow the spread of the virus, it can be difficult. Routines that focus on heath basics, including good sleep hygiene, healthy eating, and daily contact in some form with a peer or mentor are important, she added.

Elementary kids in particular need routine and predictability, she said. “Many times, school is the scaffold for this routine, and that loss can lead to a sense of unpredictability… that can lead to an increase in anxiety systems. Luckily, this is an easy fix. Whatever learning situation the children find themselves in, a routine can be established.”

Adolescents are a bit more tricky because “friendships provide a basis for support and coping. Many times, schools have teachers, counselors, or coaches that provide emotional support for middle and high school students, but physical distance has provided a disruption in this support and interaction, and this loss may lead to an increase in both anxiety and depressive systems.”

Regardless of a student’s age, Berman recommends that parents and schools think of creative ways to maintain supportive social relationships between students and friends, and also make more of an effort themselves to reach out and check in with students by asking how they feel.

For his part, Aitor is counseling his Teenager Therapy listeners to put in the effort to socialize.

“We’re all waiting for someone else to message us,” he said. “We’re not reaching out because we have a pettiness: If you’re not reaching out, why should I? The first thing is to message a friend, and get the conversation started.”