Children thinking lockdown lasted years 😢

[Mayflower282]

Was talking with my kids about Covid (they were in primary school when it started, now in high school), they asked how long lockdown lasted and I couldn’t actually remember, but I said around 6 months…they were shocked and said they thought it was 2-3 years. I guess their perception of time at that age it felt longer. Felt so sad hearing this 😢

Anyone else had similar from their kids?

Oh OP it sounds like you've blocked a lot of it out! Were you traumatised?

Had you forgotten the restrictions over Christmas 2020 then Boris sending them back to school for one day in January 2021 before shutting them again? I am surprised ypu could have forgotten all that.

I remember the school closures well as my youngest was in year 10 at the start. Schools shut in March 2020 but some children were invited back on a particular time basis in the summer term (plus key worker's kids). Schools were open in the Autumn term 2020 though under covid rules, then shut again in January. (BJ said he wouldn't close the schools, then did at 24 hours notice). Opened again sometime in March.

All the other restrictions and myriad changes became too complicated to remember, some even at the time. But they definitely affected young people's lives for several years. My dd lost all confidence in school and herself - the 2 subsequent years in college (16 to 18) were very difficult for her. Think it got more or less back to 'normal' by about 2023.

Agree. Loved the sound of her own voice that woman.

Have to agree with everyone else.
It sounds like your dc have a clearer memory than you do.

There were multiple lock downs.
There were lock downs in some parts of the Country and not others.

There were different 'tiers'.
There were all sorts of restrictions when we weren't in official 'lockdowns'. Your dc are probably remembering "when things weren't normal" rather than just complete lockdowns.

To my DCs it's a moot point that Granny died in summer 2022. They last saw her in autumn 2019. Thanks to the logistics of international travel and hospital/ carehome restrictions she was too near death by the time they were permitted to see her and by that stage it was better to leave them with their memories of her being herself rather too frail and wasted away to be able to recognise them even if they hadn't been altered by 2½ years of growing.

We tried taking them over summer 2021 and made it into the country within a week of flip-flopping travel restrictions being eased, but only DH could visit the carehome. 2020 was a write off. By 2022 she was literally in her death bed but at least she had a proper funeral.

It was years. I’m sure there was some sort of restriction for multiple Christmases. We were certainly in and out of it for a while. I was working from home and some days I lost track of what I could or couldn’t do.

Even to this day there are some days when I’m working from home and for a split second I think we are still in some sort of lockdown 🤣

It was years. DH mum died autumn of 2020 and they weren't all allowed to get together for a service of any sort until the following summer and even then someone was in a different tier or something.

My dc all had no birthday party/family celebration at least once and some twice. My youngest couldn't have swimming lessons for ages - he still hasn't caught up to where his siblings were at the same age.

I couldn't hug my df from early 2020 until we knew he was dying in late 2021 (cancer).

It was all awful and went on for absolutely ages.

It had to be done though.
People were dying in large numbers.
NHS was overwhelmed.
It was an unprecedented situation.

I would move on OP. You are probably more bothered about it than your children.
I’m guessing you were perhaps lucky enough not to have lost anyone from COVID - many others did and the numbers would have been much higher if it weren’t for lockdown.

It last just over a year with 2 reduced restriction periods within that in the U.K. by summer 2021 most things were getting closer to normal in my area at least

It did

We were talking about lockdown last weekend. My DC, now teens, were year 4 and year 6 in 2020.
They don't have many memories of it really - I think that's because we didn't go anywhere or see anyone much! As a proportion of their lives it was a huge, empty time, punctuated by covid bereavement and loss. Socially, quite frankly, they and their friends are still behind.

My previously close parents kept their distance for 4 and a half years, DM developed health anxiety only tackling it at the end of 2024.
The impact casts a long shadow on all of us.

2020 and 2021, basically my mat leave (lucky me! 😑)

In Wales they went on for ages, long after they were lifted in England. But certainly the first Christmas our churches were still closed, the second Christmas we were still very socially distanced as I remember in my church that normally sits over 130 we could fit in 35 people for our Christingle service and then we had to turn people away.
And we had lockdowns where we could only shop in the county we lived in, which meant I had to drive way further to get to a shop than if I could have crossed into the neighbouring county!

Definitely 2 Christmases - Dec 2020 was all about tiers. Dec 2021 we still had testing (I went abroad and had to test and then isolate for 10 days or something and actually got a phonecall to checkup on me)

It was way longer than 6 months before you could actually go and do what you wanted, without restrictions.

I can't remember exactly how long it was but when they bought the banding system in my area was consistently in the top band so we had a good long stretch of lockdown when most of the country was in and out of it or out of it all together. In general lockdown was longer than 6 months though.

My kids remember it really favorably, which I was surprised at. They merrily list off the daily one hour walk, making nhs posters for windows, trying to complete home learning. It was such a stressful time for us as adults but my kids remember it as more family time.

She loved it, daily party political broadcasts on the BBc. Makes me laugh people thinking she was great - remember vertical drinking and cutting the bottom of fire doors?

And yes, restrictions until summer 2022 in Scotland.

Scotland did no better with covid than England.
Much more damage was done to the economy too.
Glasgow had some of the harshest and longest restrictions in Europe no home visitors from August 20 to May 2021
School kids had masks I'm sure into 2022.

I feel like it went on for about 3 years!

I agree with them. There were three lockdowns between March 2020 and July 2021, and other restrictions weren’t lifted until well into 2022. And WHO didn’t declare the pandemic as over until spring 2023.

Dd missed two birthdays and completed two plus a few month of school online. Even when she wanted to back there were serious restrictions in her school for another year. Our case was a bit of an outlier because of our family health situation, but it really did last that long.

It was years!

Yep. Longer and deeper lockdowns with no significant difference in numbers. Closed everywhere else but kept Glasgow open as long as possible despite the numbers going haywire there. We lost a significant sporting facility, the only one in Scotland because twice she said it could open, they spent huge amounts of money on getting ready then she closed it again at the last minute.

The only thing she did well, was talk.