TPP 309: Anya Kamenetz on Her Book The Stolen Year and the Impact of COVID on Children
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
35 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 2 days ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main focus of Anya Kamenetz’s new book *The Stolen Year*?
We heard a lot during the pandemic about the revolving door of kids in acute crisis going to emergency rooms, sometimes in adult emergency rooms, and then getting a psychiatric bed, and then it's there's a shortage, so they're discharged too soon and there's not a lot of in between availability day programs or other things that could support them coming back into the community. So that's that's a really terrible problem.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Rieber. Today I have author and reporter Anya Komenitz back on the podcast to talk about her new book, The Stolen Year, How COVID Changed Children's Lives, and Where We Go Now. The Stolen Year is a powerful look at how the pandemic disrupted children's lives, their learning, mental health, and overall well being. The Stolen Year wasn't written specifically for parents of differently wired children, but I thought it was really important to explore what the research and data shows the cost of the past two years has been for our most valuable resources, our kids, as well as consider the question, where do we go from here?
During our conversation, we talked about the trends on decreasing graduation rates, the impact of food scarcity on children and adolescents, and caregiver depression. We also talked about the kinds of resources families need to recover from the pandemic, especially within marginalized communities and more severely impacted populations. And we got into so much more. But before we dive in, here's a little more about Anya. Anya Komenitz has covered education for many years, including for NPR, where she also co-created the podcast Life Kit Parenting in partnership with Sesame Workshop. Anya has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York magazine, and Slate, and has been featured in documentaries shown on PBS, CNN, HBO, and Vice.
She's also the author of several books including Generation Debt, The Test, Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized Testing, But You Don't Have To Be, and The Book That We Dussed Together when Anya first appeared on my show, The Art of Screen Time. This is a thought provoking, timely conversation. I hope you get a lot out of it. Alright, thanks so much for letting me share this good news. And now here is my conversation with Anya Kommonitz. Hey Anya, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me back. We were just talking before I hit record, and I went back in my archives to see when we last had our conversation. So it's like, oh, it was just last year we were talking about your book, The Art of Screen Time, and it was over four years ago.
So I don't really know how that happened, but here we are. It's been a busy time for a lot of people. Yes. Intense, busy time. Time. And in that time, you have parented through a pandemic, been on this journey with the rest of us, but you've also just come out with a book, which we're going to talk about today. It's called The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children's Lives and Where We Go Now. Before we get into the book, I actually would love to know when did you know where you were going to write this book and what was your purpose in diving into this? Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. So the pandemic started. Obviously, it was really hit the ground running for my team at NPR at the time. You know, we were covering education. Education all of a sudden was a enormous international story. But I also had to figure out, you know, I had my husband's working full time, his job pivoted to home. I had my kids were three and eight years old. So our neighbor came in and gave us about twenty hours a week of child care, which was amazing and made it possible. So I was documenting right away, I was spotting the trends right away. I had, I think, a unique perspective because of my experiences. I'm from New Orleans originally. It's my hometown. And I was there right after Katrina. I was there for a lot of that year back and forth, the year after Katrina, as a reporter, also as a as a person there.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of Anya Kamenetz’s new book *The Stolen Year*?
0:00–5:01
2
How did the pandemic’s school closures shape the long‑term learning loss Anya describes?
5:01–9:01
3
Why does Anya argue that mental‑health impacts are as important as academic setbacks?
9:01–13:16
4
What trends are emerging in graduation rates and school attendance after COVID?
13:16–18:31
5
How did the shortage of child‑psychiatrists and emergency‑room care affect kids during the crisis?
18:31–24:19
6
What role did food insecurity play in children’s physical and emotional well‑being?
24:19–29:08
7
Do experts consider COVID‑19 an adverse childhood experience (ACE) for all children?
29:08–33:44
8
What resources and policy changes does Anya suggest to help families recover?
33:44–35:20
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
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