Anyone else’s KS1 child not coping emotionally at school after lockdown?

[MrsH201]

Mine son is in year 1 and struggling enormously with regulating his emotions. This has always been difficult for him, pretty much since birth, and then family circumstances have compounded it (I became severely unwell when he was 1.5). Just wondering if anyone else’s child is also struggling?

*my

Was he better in lockdown, OP?

Yes, still struggled a bit but much better than now. Outside of going to nursery, where there were only couple of children his own age who then went to different primary schools, he has had much less contact with other children his own age than we would have liked.

Several I know, including one of mine (they have ASD so all the constant changes are hard). Came out every day last week and burst into floods of tears. We’ve had toileting accidents, angry outbursts, insomnia, nightmares... it’s been hard. This week has been better and I’m hoping it’ll keep improving. It’s very hard having yet another version of “school” to adjust to, being reminded of covid constantly, the relentlessness of this winter and this time it seems very full on from the moment they returned with academic stuff and assessments.

It’s a great pity the government narrative for such young children is about “catching up” on what is a fairly arbitrary set of targets (as though there’s some biological imperative that if they don’t understand histograms and exclamatory sentences by 7 they’ll spontaneously combust or something). I’d have preferred a focus on playing, reestablishing school routines and relationships and a bit more time for “nurturing”.

Is he getting any help from school OP?

Yep. Nightmare here. Complete meltdown last night at bedtime. Utterly emotionally drained. It’s tough going back after lockdown.

What do you mean by regulating his emotions exactly? Is he having meltdowns? What have the school said? are they being helpful? Has he had anyone in to observe his behaviour? x

I’d prefer not to go into the particulars just because it’s a very public forum. Whilst it’s upsetting to know that other children are experiencing similar struggles, it is in some ways reassuring. Hopefully it will pass as they readjust. As Ifiwereadaisy said, it’s a shame that the focus is on catching up in terms of learning rather than social development. It’s also a challenge that half the class were still at school during lockdowns, so they’ve been with other children developing social skills and have built friendship groups.

Mine are both KS2 but are struggling. DS2 y3 doing better than the autumn term when he struggled to settle back into friendship groups, but that is now on school's radar since Nov.

3 times thisweek, I've had to shove a sobbing DS1 through the doors. It's not a first but it's normally around the last couple of weeks of a long term and not multiple times in a week. He has ASD and normally masks through school, but even so it is an escalation of an occasional tendency.

I agree about the focus of catching up (even though mine have struggled with home learning). It does matter for KS4 & KS5, but the KS1 & KS2 targets are pretty arbitary. At this point, healthy social skills and getting active will help most for wellbeing and future learning.

Yes, totally agree. But then I always thought it was ridiculous starting proper sit down learning at 5 (or in my son’s case, being one of the younger ones, 4 and 2 months). It’s heartbreaking to hear how other children are struggling too. Really hoping that they will adjust back as quickly as possible.

Mine is very chilled/resilient and has generally taken all the change in his stride and is happy to be back at school - but even with him I’ve had some out-of-character emotional outbursts after school this last week (over-reacting to small things and getting upset and angry).