Mask bullying in schools unlikely to end any time soon, children’s mental health a casualty | Opinion 

An advisory to parents from Boston Children’s Hospital is titled: “The great mask debate: how to deal with bullying over face masks in school.” Then there is the 8-year-old child in Missouri asking her school district to mandate masks after being bullied for wearing one by fellow classmates without masks.

Bullying in schools over mask wearing has been reported by local news media across the nation. Students wearing masks and those not apparently have been bullied and ridiculed, though it appears those wearing masks more commonly targets. This bully, however, hasn’t been a salient topic in the national debate over face masks in schools.

One might expect that this bully would evaporate now that many states are ending statewide requirements to wear masks in schools, leaving the decision on mask mandates to local school districts. The opposite may be the case, however.

Previous discussions over masks at school board meetings haven’t been encouraging, in any case, with occasions of threatening bullying (by adults) of board members seemingly more the rule than exception.

And, also, the mask debate remains alive in states like Florida and Virginia where their respective Republican governors, Ron DeSantis and Glen Youngkin, have crusaded to keep local school districts from even consideration of mandating wearing of face masks.

Bullying among children does often reflect the world outside school. Thus, Professor Sara Goldstein, an expert on child bullying at Montclair State University, said bullying in schools this school year will partly reflect “mask wearing controversies surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.” She adds school districts “should enact efforts to make masks normalized and uncontroversial” to dampen bullying.

Tall order, it seems, for schools to make face masks uncontroversial when the adult world outside is still far from one without controversy.

As recent as last week,, Gov. DeSantis stoked the discord over masks, adding fuel to the bullying fire.

He was at an event at the University of South Florida to trumpet state funds for training students in cybersecurity. And the high school students behind him were wearing masks, whereupon as he approached, he barked: “You do not have to wear those masks. Please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”

One issue raised by those opposing masks is that they harm children developmentally or psychologically. Evidence showing such harm presently appears thin, however.

Whichever, the advisory in December 2021 by the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on children’s declining mental health during the pandemic, with the rise in depression, doesn’t mention face masks once. One risk factor mentioned, nevertheless, is “disruptions in routine, such as not…going to school in person.”

As in-person learning returns, a paradoxical question comes to mind: Is it wearing masks per se or mask bullying which harms children the most?

School bullying around masks is unlikely to recede quietly, with the mask debate finding new territory to infiltrate (that is, more schools where wearing masks is optional).

Some parents want masks in schools to protect their children, particularly from other students not vaccinated. Others believe governmental agencies have been wrong about needing masks in schools and, anyway, can’t be trusted.

Among children, especially the younger among them, level of trust in government is basically irrelevant though. Relevant is trust in people: family, adults, friends, classmates.

Inability to trust others is known to underlie depression and anxiety. And bullying harms a child’s ability to trust others. Even children who witness bullying can become distrustful of others and experience depression.

Trust is poisoned when children mimic in their actions toward one another, as in mask bullying, the quarrel over masks heard among adults (including loud politicians) around them. Poisoned with the mental well-being of children (whether masked or maskless) a likely casualty.

Frederic H. Decker is a Maryland-based sociologist and a retired civil servant formerly at the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC.

This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 12:00 AM.