CUMBERLAND — As the coronavirus pandemic stretched from days to weeks to months without end, the mental health of Amanda Choiniere’s daughter Isabella, 16, and son, Ben, 13, began to suffer. Home-schooling, social isolation and the transformation of life to the netherworld they and many other children now inhabit exacted a price.
“When a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old can no longer play sports that they usually play or interact with friends they usually hang out with on a normal basis, that impacts, of course, their mental health status,” said Choiniere, who works, remotely now, for Adoption Rhode Island.
Ben, who attends middle school, finds himself frequently frustrated, his mother said.