As children in level three areas head back to school this week, those in year four and above will be required to wear face masks, as will their teachers. While it’s natural for parents to worry how this will impact kids, save yourself the stress, writes child psychologist Dr Emma Woodward.  

Good social skills are something we all want for our kids. The ability to connect with others, engage in conversation, practise attentive listening, make friends, and generally be able to function well in social situations are some of the most important skills our kids will learn while at school. 

Throughout their development, children learn to recognise many different facial expressions. In addition, they have to learn labels for them – like, “happy”, “sad” and “afraid”. Many of our social and people-reading skills flow on from recognising these facial expressions. 

Kids’ ability to decode facial expressions has been shown to link with their social, academic and emotional outcomes. Reading the emotions of other individuals from their facial expressions is an important skill in managing social relationships, and the ability to form and sustain relationships is integral to good mental health and wellbeing. As such, children with stronger face-reading skills may find it easier to make friends at school as they can effectively read and respond to emotional intent. They also tend to perform better academically. 

It seems natural, then, that the thought of face masks being worn in primary schools is intimidating for some parents. It’s an unknown quantity in our society: so is it fair to question what the impact of face masks, and my child not being able to read facial expressions as easily, will have on their overall development and school experience?

Long story short, no – if you’re worried that your child’s development will be negatively impacted because of the introduction of face masks in schools, save yourself the stress. School is important for peer-to-peer social interactions, but most kids will still have ample exposure to facial expressions and cues through the faces they’re surrounded by at home. Most important to your child’s social development is a happy and settled bubble.

Additionally, while facial cues are important, when you’re reading the emotions of other people, you don’t focus exclusively on their facial expressions. You rely on a variety of information, including tone of voice, body language, and other contextual cues. For most kids, once face masks are explained and demystified, it’s not going to be an issue (see further down for a structure to use).

For the most part, I would recommend taking a deep breath and feel reassured that you can take any of the hyperbolic commentary swirling around at the moment with a grain of salt. 

A place we should be turning our attention to on the topic of face masks in schools, however, is accessibility – and how this change will impact neurodiverse children. Neurodiversity refers to variations in the human brain meaning that ​​neurodiverse people experience and interpret the world in unique ways. ASD and ADHD are two common examples of neurodiversity.

For neurodiverse kids, recognising emotions, facial expressions and other emotional cues (like tone of voice and body language) can be much more of a challenge. Expressing and managing their own emotions is often hard enough, let alone understanding and responding to other people’s emotions. You add a face mask into the mix for a neurodiverse child, and you may start to see some behaviour changes – not only because they might be confused and have trouble understanding what’s going on due to the additional cognitive load it places on them, but also because they may be scared or anxious.

The same goes for Deaf children and those with a hearing impairment. For virtually all Deaf children and youth, including those who use sign language, the ability to see someone’s face clearly is important for lip-reading, understanding facial expressions, and understanding non-verbal communication. Face masks can obscure speech, making it harder to use any residual hearing. 

So, how do you approach the accessibility issue of face masks in schools? As our neurodiverse children and children with disabilities are already more likely to have barriers to education, it’s important that we address any potential accessibility issues that face masks may present inclusively and proactively. We need to consciously adapt our approach and develop skills for communicating effectively in a masked world. This starts before they return to school, so talk directly to your child’s teacher about their needs so you can form appropriate plans together.

Once any adaptations have been considered and implemented, it is important that we support and involve our children to understand how and why school might look different. We need to find out what their concerns and questions are (such as what teachers are doing to support them), and how they can ask for extra support should they need it. Preparation is key and one way we can do this – for neurodiverse and neurotypical children alike – is through the use of social stories.

Social stories are short descriptions of a particular situation, event or activity, which include specific information about what to expect in that situation and why. Created by Carol Gray in 1991, social stories are commonly used to help neurodiverse kids understand how others might behave or respond in a particular situation, helping them to cope with changes to routine or unexpected situations. They can help neurotypical people to understand the perspective of a neurodiverse person and why they may behave or respond in a particular way. 

Social stories present information in a literal or “concrete” format, which aims to improve a child’s understanding of a previously difficult or ambiguous situation. Providing structured information about what might happen in a particular situation, and some guidelines for ways of behaving in these situations, helps to reduce anxiety and increase compassionate responses from others.

An effective social story is situation-specific and has a clear goal, defined from gathering information about the situation and tailoring the text to match. For example, the goal may be to teach a child to expect to see their teacher wearing a face mask at school. Gathering information consists of asking several questions about the situation you want to describe in your social story, such as: Where does the situation occur? Who is it with? How does it begin and end? Finally, the story should be tailored – answering six questions: where, when, who, what, how and why. Here’s an example of a social story you could use to speak to your neurodivergent (or neurotypical!) child about face masks in schools: 

1. When we go back to school, I will get to see my friends. I’ll get to see my teacher and play all my favourite games again. 
2. To help keep me safe from getting sick, my friends and my teacher will be wearing face masks. That means I won’t be able to see their mouths. 
3. But they won’t look scary – and their faces still look the same underneath the mask! 
4. If I don’t understand what my teacher wants me to do, I can ask them for help. 
5. If I can’t hear my teacher, I can ask them for help. 
6. I can ask for help by….

It’s also important to note that some children will have medical exemptions that prevent them from wearing masks. A one-size-fits-all approach never reaps much benefit, and we’ll need to recognise that what suits “everyone” might not suit a neurodiverse child. Primary school-aged children like to flex their developing senses of moral justice – noting when things aren’t fair is a key example of this – so conversations will need to be had with our kids about how most of their peers will be wearing face masks, but not everyone will be. And that’s OK. 

Parents have had an exceptionally tough time over the past 18 months, with the work-and-kids juggle often feeling impossible to balance. For most kids, heading back to school with masks won’t be an issue. Neurodiverse children and those with disabilities may require tools such as social stories to help ease the transition. However, most importantly, we need inclusive consideration to enable full participation and achievement for all.

And if you’re a worried parent who’s made it this far – relax, no doubt you’re doing a wonderful job despite it all.