Latest news with #KidsToday
Vox
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
Should I teach my kids to use AI?
is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of four novels, including the forthcoming Bog Queen, which you can preorder here This week, for the respective editions of their newsletters, Kids Today and User Friendly, senior correspondents Anna North and Adam Clark Estes have a chat about something that's occupying both of them as journalists and as parents of young kids: How AI will shape the lives of the next generation? Anna North: Hi Adam! Excited to chat about AI and kids! In addition to reporting on kids for work, I also have a 7-year-old (who is home sick today and watching Amphibia right now, so might interrupt), and a 2-year-old (who is not currently home sick, yay!). Adam Clark Estes: Hey Anna! My kid is not yet 2, but as they say, the days are long, but the years are short. I feel like I'll be meeting her AI friends in no time. Anna: Ha! So speaking of which, should we kick this off by talking a little bit about our hopes and fears for our kids growing up in the age of AI? I do feel like there's a lot to be hopeful about: I'm excited that my kids will grow up in a time when we can use AI to develop new drugs and decode elephant language (although maybe some of those AI tools are more properly called machine learning?). My biggest fear is that my kids won't see the point of learning certain skills, like writing and math, because AI can do those tasks for them. I certainly worry about AI taking jobs, too, but that's a ways away for my kids. Adam: I'm actually not that worried about my kid having AI friends. She probably will! I just hope that she doesn't spend too much time with them or too much time with AI-powered technology in general. I hope we enter this new AI era together and learn how these tools can make our lives better, richer, and more interesting. It reminds me of how the internet came of age around the same time I did, but my parents seemed too afraid to figure it out at the time. I hope I can be brave. Anna: My dad was actually an internet early adopter, and so we did enter that era together, which was sweet. We used to go to Doctor Who chatrooms — I remember once listing 'our' age as '43 and 12.' That was nice for me because 1) I learned to use a computer and 2) I learned to be curious and not fearful around new technologies. Except I am a little fearful around AI! Maybe I have to channel that spirit of curiosity a little more when I'm with my kids. A friend of mine was telling me her district is rolling out AI tools potentially in kindergarten, so it starts young. Adam: And I keep seeing ads for AI-equipped stuffed animals. AI is still such a buzzword, but I do think we're starting to see how it really will take over technology as we know it. I always say that it's just the next iteration of the software that's already in everything. So, of course, it's going to be in classrooms — not just for cheating purposes, either. Anna: Cheating using AI is less of an issue for little kids because they're not doing much of their work on computers yet. The AI tools I've seen proposed for K-6 are like this AI-powered reading coach, which seems less vulnerable to cheating than, say, ChatGPT. I've definitely heard people say that AI could potentially offer more personalized tutoring one day, which could be positive since individual instruction is really beneficial, but public school classes are often too large to offer much of it. That idea doesn't freak me out too much, although, of course, there are questions around how reliable and accurate AI tools are. My older kid is in first grade, and at his school, there's a lot of talk about the role of AI in math. The argument I've heard is very similar to what we were taught about calculators, honestly: that these tools will be able to do a lot of simple operations for us, so kids should be able to think intuitively about numbers. I don't really think we'll return to oral exams, but we will have to reconsider what education looks like in a world that runs on AI. Adam: I'm also curious about how AI simply changes how schools work. Like, if AI makes it too easy to cheat when essay-writing, what will teachers assign instead? And what will they grade? I don't really think we'll return to oral exams, but we will have to reconsider what education looks like in a world that runs on AI. Anna: I do think there's a shift to more in-class tests and assignments, which can cause its own stress. I also wonder if there's just going to be a shift toward developing a different set of skills, if writing just becomes less important. We already see kids and young people consuming less text — I wouldn't be shocked if there was more emphasis in the coming years on oral presentation or audio and visual production skills. That bums me out as a writer, but maybe it's what Plato would've wanted? I do try to remember that people have always been skeptical of new technology (even written language), and some of the anxieties we're experiencing now are thousands of years old. I wouldn't be shocked if there was more emphasis in the coming years on oral presentation or audio and visual production skills. Adam: And some look like instant replays of anxieties from just a decade or two ago. Every time a new technology or medium comes along, there's a collective freakout that it's destroying the youth. This is just as true for social media as it was for TV, video games, comic books, and even radio. I think this will be true of AI in social settings, too. It's already possible to have an AI friend through apps like Replika or Kindroid. I wasn't kidding about the AI stuffed animals, either. There's one called Grok that's designed — by Grimes of all people — for ages 3 and up. Kids can ask it questions, and the AI will tell them things, like a futuristic Teddy Ruxpin, except Teddy Ruxpin had a cassette tape in his belly that parents could listen to and know what the stuffed bear would say. I have no idea what AI will be telling our kids! I've seen people call this the end of the imaginary friend. I actually think it's just the beginning of something new. What that is, I can't imagine. At least not yet. Anna: It's funny to me because Teddy Ruxpin was famously creepy! The social/play aspect of AI is super-interesting. I'm not worried about AI killing imaginary friends — kids will make friends with a can of tomato paste, and I don't think you can destroy their social creativity that easily. My biggest concern around AI friends right now is safety — there are already lawsuits alleging that chatbots nudged kids toward violence or self-harm. Do you know what guardrails there are in place? Adam: My general feeling about guardrails is that, no matter how many there are, technology finds a way to leap over them. YouTube, for instance, has long struggled with how to make sure parents can steer their children to safe, age-appropriate content, but kids inevitably find themselves sucked down a rabbit hole of uncanny algorithmically generated videos. Throwing an infinite supply of AI-generated content into the mix won't help, so I think parents will have to be vigilant about triple-checking what their kids are watching or playing with. There was a Pew study earlier this year that said about a quarter of all teens had tried ChatGPT for schoolwork. That number had doubled in a year. So if you assume that guardrails aren't there or won't work and that kids are going to try some kind of AI tool eventually, where does that leave parents? To be honest, I think we should all do what your dad did with you: Hang out in the proverbial chatrooms together. Talk to the chatbots together. Play with the AI toys together. Learn about this new technology along with your kids and help them learn when to put them away. I think we should all do what your dad did with you: Hang out in the proverbial chatrooms together. Talk to the chatbots together. Play with the AI toys together. Anna: I'm sure my dad will appreciate this endorsement of his parenting! You're not alone, though. Andrew Przybylski, an Oxford professor I think we've talked about who studies phones and kids, talks about introducing his children to smartphones the way you would teach a kid to ride a bike: It's a tool. It has hazards but also uses. It can be fun, and it's a basic part of life. Maybe the same is true of AI? This conversation is sort of making me think I need to use AI more with my kids, which is not where I expected to end up. Adam: It's important to point out that we're mostly talking about generative AI here, and chatbots. There are also image and video generators. These all have obvious applications for kids in schools, for cheating and learning. But we haven't even gotten into what the next generation of AI will impact our kids' lives — things like AI agents that can use computers themselves or the much feared artificial general intelligence that can theoretically do anything. That future is a lot harder for me to comprehend right now.
Vox
15-05-2025
- General
- Vox
'Dry texting,' explained
is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of four novels, including the forthcoming Bog Queen, which you can preorder here This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox's newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. A few days ago, a group of teenagers taught me the term 'dry texting.' It's anything that indicates 'a change in the vibe of the conversation,' Tanisha, 18, told me. Someone who usually texts in all caps could revert to lowercase. They could text back only short replies, or comments that don't invite a response — a 'conversation ender,' as Joanne, 18, put it. Dry texting is the most common way kids at her school find out someone is mad at them, Akshaya, also 18, told me. I was talking with the three teens — co-hosts of the podcast Behind the Screens — about something that came up on a recent episode that intrigued me. They argued that phones, texting, and social media could make it easier for teenagers to avoid conflict with each other, by providing them with numerous passive-aggressive methods of showing disapproval. The teens' comments stuck out to me because adults typically think of phones as igniting confrontation between young people, not the other way around. One Ohio school district, for example, banned phones in schools over concerns that students were using social media to orchestrate fights. But as much as texting and social media can amplify disputes among teens, they can also transform these disputes into something quieter, more confusing, and sometimes harder to deal with. 'Tech creates these subtle fault lines in communication,' Emily Weinstein, executive director of Harvard's Center for Digital Thriving, told me. Behaviors like leaving someone on read, half-swiping on Snapchat, or turning off location sharing are 'ambiguous signals,' Weinstein said. They could be innocent, or they could mean the sender is actually mad, an uncertainty that has teens 'worrying, wondering, second- or even third-guessing what is meant.' These ambiguities aren't unique to teens — who among us has not sent or received the dreaded 'ok' text? But today's tweens and teens have also grown up enmeshed with devices in a way their elders didn't. Their formative years have been marked by lockdowns and school closures, periods when, as podcast co-host Joanne put it, 'the only type of interactions we could have had were behind a screen.' What happens when a machine for sending ambiguous signals becomes an integral part of your social life? Why ambiguous texting hurts For answers, I turned to Scholastic's Kid Reporters, a group of 10–14-year-olds who cover 'news for kids, by kids.' The young journalists went to work in their respective schools, and came back with much the same observation the Behind the Screens co-hosts shared with me: phones definitely make it easier to ignore someone you don't want to talk to. 'Sometimes it's just easier to leave someone on read or not respond right away instead of talking face to face,' one 13-year-old told Scholastic reporter Aiden. 'I've definitely avoided talking to someone in person and just showed I was mad by muting them for a bit. It's kinda petty but it's also how a lot of people deal with stuff now.' 'In real life you can't ghost somebody,' Scholastic reporter Xander Dorsey told me in an email. 'In texting you could say 'oh, I'll be right back.' It's much more awkward to walk off in real life.' Teens can also express their displeasure with someone by taking them off their close friends list on Instagram, or — a more extreme step — unfollowing them entirely, Akshaya said. Online communication 'makes it a lot easier to be passive-aggressive,' she explained. But being on the receiving end of such passive aggression, whether it's a 'dry' text or message hanging there on the screen without a response, kids and experts agree: 'It will trigger this anxious thinking spiral where they see that they've been left on read, and you start to wonder, are they mad at me?' Weinstein told me. 'Do they hate me? Do they think I'm an idiot? Did I say the wrong thing?' When the meaning does become clear, ambiguous signals can be even more painful than a more direct confrontation, teens say. 'I got removed from a group chat and found out they were talking about me behind my back,' the same 13-year-old told Aiden. 'I felt confused and like I wasn't even worth a real explanation.' 'It hurt even more that they didn't just come talk to me,' she added. Phones are shaping how kids navigate conflict Passive-aggressive phone behavior is far from unique to kids. But because they're at a developmental stage in which they're extremely sensitive to what their peers are thinking and feeling about them, 'they're more likely to be scrutinizing these ambiguous signals,' Weinstein said. Adolescence is also a time when conflict resolution skills are still developing, Weinstein said. We all need those skills because 'life is full of conflict,' said Darja Djordjevic, a psychiatrist who works with Stanford Brainstorm, a lab focused on mental health and digital well-being. Dealing with people who disagree with us is a crucial part of growing up. Some fear that phones could disrupt that process. 'We learn how to argue and fight productively in person,' Djordjevic said. Sending ambiguous signals over text or social media could represent 'a lost opportunity for confronting things' in real life. There's a lot of concern among adults about how phones affect social skills more generally, and while I don't always share that concern, I think it's reasonable to ask whether new forms of communication will change how teens handle (or don't handle) confrontation as they mature. The older teens I spoke with allayed these concerns somewhat. Akshaya told me that when she and her friends were younger, 'we would start removing each other from our followings if there was a big falling-out, or getting dry and stuff to avoid talking to each other.' Now that they're about to graduate from high school, though, 'I don't see it as much.' Kids also pointed out that phones can sometimes actually help them resolve a conflict. Texting 'gives me time to think before responding and helps me express my thoughts more clearly,' one 12-year-old told Aiden. 'Sometimes it's less intimidating to start a difficult conversation through messages, and that can help us work out the problem later.' Teens will also often show a draft text to multiple friends before hitting send, Tanisha told me. That way, 'you're more confident that that text isn't going to be something bad or anything like that, because you have other people's approval.' (With workshopping texts, however, there is a risk that 'your voice kind of gets lost,' she noted.) And avoiding confrontation isn't always the worst thing. If, for example, a kid lives in a community or goes to a school where physical fights are common, 'the stakes of certain kinds of online conflict are very different than a teen who's in a context where all that might happen is someone's gonna be mad at them,' Weinstein said. For some teens, ambiguous signals could actually be a way to stay safe. Still, just as teenagers might need tools for responding to big, loud problems like bullying, they need help dealing with the subtle fault lines their phones create as well. It starts with listening to young people about the role tech plays in their lives, Weinstein said. Some app features that may seem benign to adults (Instagram close friends or location sharing come to mind) can feel very different for teens, Weinstein explained. 'So often, adults miss or misunderstand aspects of what teens are experiencing behind their screens.' The kids I talked to also had advice for their peers dealing with dry texting and other ambiguous phone behaviors, much of it strikingly low-tech. Scholastic reporter Evy, 12, recommends hashing things out in person whenever possible. 'Having a real conversation with them and laughing with them — that makes it so much better,' she said. What I'm reading PowerSchool, a company that makes software parents and teachers use to track students' grades, was hacked last year. Now several schools have received extortion notes threatening to release private student data. The FDA is moving to pull prescription fluoride drops and tablets off the market. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has repeatedly criticized the mineral, but experts say many of his claims are misleading, and dentists are worried that getting rid of fluoride will increase kids' risk of tooth decay. Amid the culture wars surrounding America's schools, politicians are no longer talking about children's actual learning, writes Dana Goldstein at the New York Times. Both my children have been demanding repeat readings of Chloe and Maude, a picture book about what to do when a) your drawings don't look realistic, b) your friend tries to reinvent herself and you're not sure you like it, or c) you're trying to fall asleep but that one crack on the ceiling looks like a mouth. From my inbox A reader recently reached out to tell me she received an email from Google notifying her that the company's Gemini AI apps would soon be available for kids, allowing them to 'create stories, songs, and poetry,' and 'get homework help.' The reader found the Google email 'off-putting and disturbing,' she said, 'as if they are saying it's inevitable that kids will be relying heavily on AI in the future, so here's a guide on how to get them started young.' Next week, I'll be talking with Vox senior tech correspondent — and User Friendly newsletter author — Adam Clark Estes about the role of AI in kids' lives. If you, like the reader above, have thoughts about how the kids you know use (or don't use) AI — or questions for me and Adam as we chat — let me know at
Vox
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Vox
The Trump-approved policy that's actually good for kids
This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox's newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. The pronatalists have entered the White House. Last week, news broke that the Trump administration was considering a variety of policies to get Americans to have more kids, inspired by figures like Elon Musk (who has 14 known kids) and activists Simone and Malcolm Collins (who have four but want as many as 10). Those suggestions, which included a $5,000 baby bonus and a 'National Medal of Motherhood' uncomfortably reminiscent of Nazi Germany, triggered immediate backlash. Many wondered how any of them would actually help parents, at a time when $5,000 only covers a few months of child care in some places. Today, however, I want to look at pronatalist policies through a slightly different lens: whether they benefit kids. People who want to boost birth rates generally talk about the importance of children to society as a whole: We need more kids, they often say, to pay into Social Security and take care of us when we're old. But what about the kids themselves? Are pronatalist policies, and pronatalism in general, in their best interest? In some cases, these questions can be easily answered with data. In others, they're more about values. Is a world with more kids inherently better for kids? Is championing childbirth the best way to show kids that they're valued? The answers to these questions are complex, but the experts I spoke to were clear about one thing: If the United States aims to be a pro-child country, we have a long way to go. The idea that really helps kids Of all the pronatalist policies reportedly under consideration, one is straightforwardly good for kids, experts told me. That would be the one where the government gives parents money. Five thousand dollars may not pay for day care — and it may not substantially boost birth rates — but it could be enough to allow a parent to stay home for a few more weeks with a new baby, said Karen Guzzo, a family demographer and director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. That extra leave would benefit baby and parents alike, research suggests. The money could also help defray the costs of a birth (often expensive even with insurance) and of necessities like car seats and strollers (which could be about to go up in price). If it helps keep families solvent during a time of financial upheaval, a baby bonus could benefit children in the long run, since financial stability is good for kids' health and learning. 'I'm all for giving families money,' Guzzo said. In fact, a similar policy already had impressive results. During the Biden administration, the American Rescue Plan expanded the child tax credit from a maximum of $2,000 to between $3,000 and $3,600 per child per year, and made it fully available to poor families. As a result, child poverty dropped to the lowest level on record, and the number of kids going hungry appeared to decrease as well. However, the expanded child tax credit lapsed at the end of 2021, and child poverty immediately spiked again. Republicans are reportedly interested in bringing the expanded credit back, but the path for any legislation remains unclear. For now, 'it is frustrating to hear that we are thinking of giving one-time bonuses when we already had a plan that worked' to reduce child poverty, 'and we got rid of that,' Guzzo said. Is it better to be one of many? Other policies reportedly under consideration, like giving a medal to moms with more than six children or reserving a certain percentage of Fulbright scholarships for married people or parents, are unlikely to do much of anything for kids or birth rates, according to Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland who studies demographic trends. But more broadly, it's worth thinking about whether the pronatalist project in general — producing more births — is good for children. Some observers argue that certain countries with low birth rates have become actively anti-child. In South Korea, for example, hundreds of restaurants, museums, and other public spaces bar children from entering. These 'no-kids zones' make life difficult for parents, who have begun to campaign against them, but they arguably limit kids' opportunities to enjoy and learn about the world as well. 'We don't fund school systems, we don't fund child care, we do not fund leave programs. We are so not pro-family in the United States.' — Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at UNC at Chapel Hill If pronatalism led to more children and therefore more tolerance of children in public space, or even to child-friendly urban design, it could benefit kids. For example, child-centric neighborhoods where kids were able to 'flow out their doors' and form 'their own little society' would be both fun for kids and beneficial for them as adults by potentially making them more self-sufficient and able to advocate for themselves, Trent MacNamara, a history professor at Texas A&M University who has written about fertility rates, told me. Some experts worry about the decline of autonomy and free play among children today, and for MacNamara, it's possible to imagine that having more children around could bring some of that freedom back. 'Maybe if you do build a more child-centered society, it's easier for parents to think of kids as running their own show,' he said. There are also intangibles to think about — the joys (and trials) of growing up with a lot of siblings, or a lot of cousins, or as part of a big generation. Having a lot of kids around helps both adults and other children get in touch with 'their wilder side' and 'let go a little bit,' MacNamara said. However, because pronatalism often goes hand in hand with patriarchal values, it's not necessarily great for the roughly half of children who happen to be girls, Cohen noted. It's also not completely clear that a world with more births is always a better one for kids. Around the world, 'the decline of fertility has been a key part of rising living standards' for kids and adults alike, Cohen said. Fewer kids can mean more resources per kid — for example, falling birth rates in the US are one reason that state and local governments have been able to expand publicly supported preschool. Birth rates falling below a certain point could be bad for kids — if, for example, their schools close. But when it comes to policy, the most pro-child ideas aren't necessarily the ones advocates typically bring up to increase birth rates. Kids need food, housing, health care, and education, and they need 'the confidence that those things will be there for them in the future, and that their families will be there for them in the future,' Cohen said. Policies that would bring stability to parents and kids include robust paid leave, access to health care before and after birth, and subsidized high-quality child care, Guzzo told me. Some pronatalists have pushed for such supports, but right now, they feel out of reach in many parts of the country. 'We don't fund school systems, we don't fund child care, we do not fund leave programs,' Guzzo said. 'We are so not pro-family in the United States.' What I'm reading Three children who are US citizens were sent to Honduras last week along with their mothers, who were deported. One is a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer who was removed from the country without his medication, advocates say. Cuts to the federal government have had a profound effect on programs serving kids, affecting everything from education to safe drinking water. ' Chicken jockey ' is a thing now, I guess. My little kid and I have been reading Nothing's Wrong! a picture book about an anxious rabbit and the bear friend who makes him feel better. My kid refers to this only as 'the cool book,' for reasons that remain unclear. From my inbox Last week, my story about mental health days for kids reached Sean, a reader who is a high school student in California, when he was, in fact, taking a mental health day. 'There is a freedom in knowing that when I take on things outside of school to boost my college resume, I can also alleviate some of the pressure that school puts on me,' he wrote. 'Yesterday, the thought of going to school made me feel zombified and my usual motivation had melted away, but by the time Monday rolls around, I expect to feel at least somewhat motivated to go.'
Vox
24-04-2025
- Health
- Vox
Should kids get mental health days?
is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of three novels, including the New York Times bestseller Outlawed. This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox's newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. It's a stressful time to be a kid. Young people are watching environmental disasters, school shootings, and economic and political uncertainty, all with a level of media (or at least social media) coverage that would have been unimaginable for previous generations. Against this backdrop, they're also expected to have their lives figured out by an early age, and rack up a laundry list of achievements to cite in an increasingly lengthy and comparison-filled college application process. 'You almost have to start working on your college career in middle school,' Jennifer Rothman, director of youth and young adult initiatives at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told me. Related The new burnout generation Given all this, it's perhaps no surprise that kids need a break. Mental health days — a day off to deal with depression or anxiety, or simply to tend to mental well-being, gained currency among adults during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic — and they've taken off among young people as well, with at least 12 states passing laws allowing excused absences for mental health reasons. But as chronic absenteeism remains a problem around the country, some school officials are worried that giving kids mental health days could encourage an attitude that school attendance is optional. 'There's a lot of misconceptions about how important it is to be in school — if I didn't come to school at all in the pandemic, why do I urgently have to keep coming to school now?' Kent Pekel, superintendent of Rochester Public Schools in Minnesota, said during a webinar last year, according to EdWeek. While concerns about mental health are far from gone, they're also being joined by fears of learning loss and the acknowledgement that missing even a few days of school can be detrimental to kids' education. There's also a widespread worry that students are reaching college, the job market, and the ballot box without basic skills like reading. Some experts also caution that taking a day off for the wrong reasons could actually make matters worse. 'When you get yourself in the trap or downward slide of school avoidance, that's really hard, and it happens really quick,' Sarah Cain Spannagel, a clinical psychologist in Cleveland who works with children and families, told me. How can kids, families, and educators navigate all this? How do we support kids through a time that's often scary even for adults, while also making sure they get an education? I posed these questions to experts this week, and the answers I got suggested that while a day off won't cure a kid's depression or anxiety (sadly, that doesn't work for grown-ups, either), time for reset and recovery can help protect kids from getting to a crisis point in the first place. A day off could even show families and schools what's missing from a kid's life, leading to less stress and pressure in the future. A mental health crisis for teens Doctors and teens alike have been especially concerned with young people's mental health in the last five years, with Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general under President Joe Biden, warning in 2021 of a mental health crisis among adolescents. More recent surveys have shown some improvement in the prevalence of teen sadness and depression, but clinicians are still seeing 'alarming rates' of anxiety and depression, as well as suicidality and self-harm, Amber Childs, a psychiatry professor at Yale School of Medicine who works on youth mental health, told me. Allowing mental health days can also help destigmatize mental illness, and encourage young people to be open about any struggles they're going through, rather than hiding them, kids and experts say. Among teens, mental health days have emerged as a popular coping strategy. Students began advocating for them even before Covid hit, and lawmakers in states from Oregon to Utah have agreed, giving kids a designated number of mental health days per year, or simply changing the definition of an excused absence to include psychological reasons. While hard numbers on how many days kids are actually taking are hard to come by, the practice seems to be increasing, perhaps driven by a growing awareness that psychological well-being is as important as physical health, Spannagel said. The concept of a mental health day might sound pretty foreign to previous generations. Growing up, 'I never got any days off,' Rothman of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, who has three teenagers, told me. 'Your parents were kind of like, you either have to have a fever or you're throwing up, that's the only way you're staying home.' But adults today need to understand 'how different the world is now for our kids than it was for us,' Rothman said. Because of social media, young people today don't have much downtime from social interaction, news, or, well, anything really, Childs told me. Being able to unplug 'not only from our digitally enabled lives, but also from the routine things that happen in the social and academic space' can be positive, 'whether or not something bad is happening.' Allowing mental health days can also help destigmatize mental illness, and encourage young people to be open about any struggles they're going through, rather than hiding them, kids and experts say. The right way to use mental health days However, the way we often think about mental health days might not be the most helpful for kids. Rather than using them when a child is already in crisis — 'taking the release valve off of the pressure cooker,' as Childs put it — families and schools should use them as 'a preventative tool' to keep that pressure from building up in the first place. Ideally, parents can look ahead to a time when kids might have a lot of stressful events coming up, like big exams or performances, then schedule a day off ahead of time. They should also plan how to use the day well. 'A mental health day doesn't equate to chilling on a couch for eight hours straight binging TikTok and television,' Childs said. Instead, Rothman suggests getting outside, reading, drawing, or playing card games — 'whatever is calming and helps them feel more like themselves.' For teenagers especially, a day off could be a time to just catch up on sleep, something they're often lacking due to early high school start times. What kids feel the need to do on a mental health day can also give adults 'clues about what might be crowded out during a typical school day or week,' and help build those activities back in on ordinary days so kids don't get as stressed out and depleted, Childs said. (If kids keep taking days off to sleep, it might be time for the school to consider a later start time.) Taking a day off shouldn't be a way for kids to avoid something they're anxious about, like a class, a difficult friendship, or school in general, experts say. Childs suggests that parents look for patterns — if kids keep asking for a mental health day on a Monday, it's an opportunity to delve deeper into what's happening at school on Mondays that might be stressing them out. If requests for a day off are very frequent, or if feelings around them are intense, it could be a sign that 'you're getting avoidance of a problem that most likely is going to be there in two days' when the kid goes back to school, Spannagel said. Meanwhile, if symptoms like stress or sadness are going on for more than two weeks, or parents see major changes to behavior like eating or sleeping, it could be time to reach out to a child's primary care doctor to have them evaluated for mental health conditions, Rothman said. Kids with ADHD, autism, or learning differences might need the reset of a mental health day more than the average kid, to help them recover from sensory overload or fatigue, Spannagel said. At the same time, a kid frequently feeling too exhausted or overwhelmed to go to school could mean they need additional help with executive functioning or social skills, or that the accommodations they have at school aren't meeting their needs. When it comes to concerns about absenteeism and academics, families and teachers can have a conversation about making up any work a child misses on an occasional day out, Spannagel said. And while some fear that allowing mental health days could encourage kids to skip school, that concern is 'giving me like, if we talk about sex with them, they're going to want to have more sex,' Childs said. 'I think the question is more complex, which is: What about the current environment has lent itself to kids not feeling engaged in school?' Mental health support goes beyond a single day A few mental health days aren't going to fix problems with the school environment, not least because giving a kid a day off in the middle of the school year just isn't possible for every family. Experts don't recommend leaving kids home alone if they're struggling mentally, and many parents don't have the job flexibility to take extra time off with their kids. But schools can help by building aspects of a mental health day into the school week, adding time to shift the focus 'away from academics and performance into exploration of self,' Childs said. Having resources in the classroom, like a quiet corner where kids can take a moment to themselves, can also help support kids' mental health day-to-day, Rothman said. (My older kid's teacher brought this calming dog stuffie to their classroom in the fall, and I honestly would like one for myself.) Talking about mental health in school is also crucial, whether that's part of a formal program or just a teacher 'being open about the things that they're feeling,' Rothman said. 'It fights the stigma around it.' What I'm reading Seventy-four percent of teens say social media helps them feel more connected to their friends, but 48 percent also say the platforms harm people their age, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to eliminate Head Start, the federal program that provides early education to more than half a million kids from low-income families. One graduate calls the program 'one of the few times in my early life where I felt truly loved, seen and supported in a place of learning.' Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s remarks about children with autism who 'will never pay taxes' recall the dark history of eugenics, writes Jessica Grose at the New York Times. My older kid and I are reading the Aster series of graphic novels, about a little girl who moves to the countryside so her mom can pursue her career as a robot-bird scientist, leading to friendships with an 800-year-old woman, a sheep wearing a tie, and three chestnuts who are also knights, among other colorful characters. From my inbox Two weeks ago, I wrote about how tariffs could drive up the cost of items like strollers and car seats, making it harder to have a kid in America. Reader Diana Braley responded, 'As a mom in 2025, I've realized raising kids doesn't have to be as expensive as society makes it seem.' 'Raising children has always required commitment, support, and resilience — not consumerism,' Braley wrote. 'Big companies sell us the idea that spending more makes us better parents. But the truth is, our instincts and community matter more than any fancy product.'
Vox
27-03-2025
- General
- Vox
The problem of spring break
is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of three novels, including the New York Times bestseller Outlawed. This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox's newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions. Over the next few weeks, millions of kids around the country will come home from school, toss their backpacks in a corner, and begin an annual ritual that can be fun, relaxing, stressful, and confusing all at the same time. I speak, of course, of spring break — a phrase that has historically meant one thing to beach-bound college students, and quite another to families of younger kids, facing down a week (or sometimes two) when schools are closed and work is decidedly not. Summer has its own challenges, for kids and adults alike. But spring break, like the countless other interruptions that pockmark school calendars, can be even harder to plan for. Fewer camps are open; summer school is months away. Some families go skiing or take a cruise, but amid rising prices, those options are out of reach for more and more parents. For many families, 'you kind of cobble it together on your own,' Lauren Smith Brody, CEO of the Fifth Trimester, a workplace gender equality consultancy, told me — which means a lot of stress for parents and, often, a lot of screen time for kids. It's not just an inconvenience — days off of school can mean days of hunger for kids from food-insecure families, who rely on school breakfast and lunch to get through the week. And the spike in juvenile crime between the hours of 3 and 6 pm on weekdays suggests that for some kids, unsupervised time can be dangerous. Some school districts and afterschool programs offer free or low-cost spring break camps — a way to 'reinforce some of the learning that's going on in a way that feels like the kids are having fun and having a break,' as Jodi Grant, executive director of the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance, put it. But those programs were underfunded even before President Trump ordered the closure of the Education Department, which administers federal funding for afterschool programs. For now, spring break is yet another reminder of the mismatch between American work culture and the needs of human life — for relaxation, for connection, for something to shake up what can sometimes be a draining daily routine. At their best, Grant said, spring break programs for kids are 'just a chance to do things differently.' If you don't have a school-aged child, you might not realize how many days off kids have in addition to summer break. In New York City, where I live, it's about two dozen, which includes winter break, mid-winter break, spring break, and a number of religious and other holidays in between. School breaks are intended, at least in part, to give families and staff time to observe said holidays (in many districts, spring break encompasses Easter, Passover, or both). Spring break, in particular, is a popular time for travel, with 48 percent of families with children planning a trip during that period, according to a 2023 TransUnion survey. But that still leaves more than half who stay put (it's not that easy for one or two adults to get a full week off work at a time that's neither summer nor the winter holidays). When kids are off but parents are working, the options are somewhat limited. Some camps operate during spring break, but the cost, which can run to hundreds of dollars a week, puts them out of reach for many families. Then there's the cobble-it-together approach, with parents (and sometimes other family members like grandparents) splitting up care and work as best they can. 'There's a lot of juggling,' Brody said, and 'nobody ever gets any rest.' Kids, however, do really need breaks. Take it from a student at John Jay High School in Lewisboro, New York, who wrote in the school paper in 2022 that 'There are so many responsibilities on high school students' plate, whether they must do homework, study, work, play a sport or activity, take SAT or ACT tests, look at or visit colleges, take AP exams, etc. Having a break in the school year could help a student relax and feel okay.' Experts agree that there's a reason kids don't go to class 40 hours a week, 365 days a year. Longer school days have been tried in some districts, and both kids and teachers get exhausted, Grant said. 'It's also really important for a lot of kids to have an environment that's not graded or judged or prescribed.' So what are families supposed to do? In Philadelphia, one answer is Spring Break Camp, a free, full-day program operating at 22 schools in the district. Some publicly funded afterschool programs offer spring break and other day-off camps as well, Grant said. These programs give kids a chance to hang out with new friends and new educators, to have more choice than they typically do during the school day, and to sample activities from yoga to weightlifting to building electric cars, Grant said. Many afterschool programs also provide snacks or meals for kids. But publicly funded programs often have limited space, and private ones can be expensive. Around the country, there are nearly 25 million kids whose parents want them to be in afterschool programs, but who don't have access, largely because of cost, Grant said. Expanding access to free or low-cost afterschool programs would help families deal with the three to four hours every weekday in which parents work but schools are out, as my colleague Rachel Cohen has written. It would also provide a solution for those two dozen days every school year that leave many parents scrambling for care — and many kids bored on their iPads all day long. However, federal funding for afterschool programs has not kept up with inflation, Grant said. The Trump administration and DOGE have not cut support for these programs, but that support is administered through the Education Department, which Trump has instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle. 'We're feeling the same uncertainty as everyone else,' Grant said. In the absence of robust federal funding, some states, like California, are stepping up by funding afterschool programs out of their own budgets. Employers, too, can help by 'fostering a culture that invites people to be open about their caregiving needs,' Brody said. There is, of course, a core problem at the heart of the spring break conundrum: as Brody put it, the amount of paid vacation American parents typically get (which hovers around 11-15 days for all but the most senior employees) 'is just so out of line with the number of weeks that there aren't school.' You can solve this problem with camps, or you could solve it with more paid time off. The latter, of course, feels unattainable in a time of worker precarity and a resurgent grind culture. But as kids know well, everyone deserves a break sometimes. What I'm reading The Trump administration has reportedly cut funding for a program that provides legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children, potentially forcing them to represent themselves in immigration court. Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., announced 'Operation Stork Speed' to improve the safety of baby formula. It's not bad to devote more attention to formula, experts say — but the Trump administration's cuts at the FDA could hamper safety efforts. Evereden, once a baby brand, is now trying to give Gen Alpha tweens what they want. And apparently what they want are body mists. My little kid and I have been reading Fox and His Friends, originally published in 1982 and now a time capsule of 20th-century child-rearing norms. Fox, a school-aged child/animal, is tasked with babysitting his younger sister for an entire day with no adult input whatsoever. He is terrible at his job and eventually allows her to scale a telephone pole, then bribes her for her silence with ice cream. I am not sure if this is an argument for giving kids more independence, or the opposite. From my inbox Last week, I asked for your spring break experiences. Reader Kareen H had less-than-fond memories of spring at the YMCA as a child: 'I NEVER wanted to be at the Y.' However, Kareen did enjoy field trips, adding that 'I won 'best singer' award, because I was singing to myself in the Y van, coming back from some field trip.' I have no memory of what I did during spring break as a child, but I am positive I have never won a 'best singer' award in any context. As always, thanks for your messages and get in touch any time at
