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?

Do you think any of that might be due to the negative messages she's heard?

I would put money on it, like I said an entire generation being raised to believe they were victims and that they can’t be expected to do x, y or z because of Covid.

I mean you could visit your grandma inside from July 2020, it was only about 4 months you couldn't meet in someone's house.

A long time for a small child but important not to be hyperbolic as adults

I suspect because people do talk sometimes as if it was like that. But it was varying periods of lock down, with different rules about going out and about. And not one lump of you cannot go out for years.

It was at least 2 years , on and off for most unless you lived in Leicester. I was fortunate because I lived in a tier 2 area when it was tiers, all the surrounding area to me was tier 4, our shops were packed.

Ah okay - people were dying but the kids couldn’t go to Cubs…

The hyperbole is ridiculous

Husband could go fishing though.

Unless you lived in Leicester

It was on and off and restrictions were different across the country. I had it early on, my second week of self isolation was the first week of the first lockdown in March. Most shops reopened for Chistrmas. I invited my parents for Christmas but they cancelled cos they have been told thst police were telling people on the road to go back if they deemed the journey unnecessary. I think we were back in lock down and masks were in use by January. I know we couldn't rebook our wedding til 2023. So it was at least a couple of years.

I second that. Live alone
We had to work from home. Was not allowed to see partner. All this nearly broke me😔

I remember that Christmas with tiers, we were Tier 2 so was DS in another tier 2 but we had to drive through tier 4 where they all had to miss Christmas that year to get him to us.

For children, it was a very long time indeed. Those 15 months of pure madness were a quarter of a 5-year-old’s life; and we will probably be reminded about it when those children grow up, having been robbed of a vital part of their formative years. We must not forget that. And the effects of the government-sponsored campaign of fear lasted well beyond that. It’s funny how Covid was immediately followed by Ukraine, monkeypox, extreme heat, and now hantavirus - we’re constantly being nudged to believe that apocalypse is just around the corner.

Thank you for this thread - it is vital that we remember the pure farce of the whole thing, before it becomes memory-holed out of existence, with “it wasn’t that bad really, was it?” and the political classes are still whispering “what lockdown? It never really happened”. Partygate was massive proof that the government knew lockdown was nonsense, and it was a convenient distraction from the real scandal: that lockdown was imposed for so long, that it caused massive pain, probably killed more people than it saved, and was imposed with no exit plan, no parliamentary scrutiny, no discussion of the consequences, no apology for the massive damage it would certainly cause, and for some people, no financial support at all, who had their businesses and careers literally snatched away overnight.

And I haven’t forgotten that there was hint after hint that restrictions might become very, very permanent, with no end in sight: phrases such as “new normal” strongly implied this. Sometimes I think that Partygate was the one thing that prevented seasonal restrictions still being in place now.

But why would you just let them think themselves victims all their life? You are doing them no favours at all. Resilience is important. Yet people wring their hands and make allowances.

Fuck knows how they would cope if they had to live in one of the many countries that are being torn apart by war right now.

There wasn’t one single continuous UK lockdown — there were several national lockdowns and regional restrictions between 2020 and 2021.
For England (the dates most people mean when they say “UK lockdown”):
First lockdown: 23 March 2020 → restrictions began easing from mid-May, with major reopening in July
≈ about 3.5 months
Second lockdown: 5 November 2020 → 2 December 2020
≈ 4 weeks
Third lockdown: 6 January 2021 → most legal restrictions lifted on 19 July 2021
≈ about 6 months, though rules gradually eased from March onward
Altogether, the UK/England spent roughly:
9–10 months under significant national lockdown restrictions
spread across about 16 months of the pandemic period overall.

Several people have got AI to find this info.

They weren't robbed of vital years, they were alive and able to play, learn and spend time with their family.

Depends where you live, remember the teirs and local restrictions

Mar 20 -June 20
Sept 20 - May 21 (excl Christmas Day)

Glasgow's was even longer it was August 20-May 21

The bit you are missing is humans are social beings. Wars don't isolate people. The don't make people wear masks and stop children seeing faces.

Communication isn't just about words children need to see faces, hear different voices, make human connections.

People were discouraged from taking kids to shops. Play parks were shut.
Kids groups were shut too

And skive off school for a few months

I didn’t say that.

And as for the idea “lockdown taught them resilience” - couldn’t be further from the truth. Lockdown robbed (and yes, I will say “robbed”) children of the very experiences that would have taught them resilience: school, playing with other children, going to places.

I’m not missing anything.

It’s never been easier to communicate with people. Given how many children use screens from being toddlers, they could speak to their friends and family as much as they wanted to.

School aged children didn’t have to go to school, teens didn’t have to bother taking exams.

People died, others lost their jobs and everyone was worried. Yet apparently the children were the main victims because they couldn’t see people’s faces - oh and then the poor teens who didn’t get a prom.

For a couple of years max. It’s been over 4 years since things returned to relative normality (so twice as long as the total lockdown period).

And I said lockdown should have created resilience.

Are we really going to excuse an entire generation because, for a tiny part of their lives the world was going to hell?

They have been able to go to school, play with their friends and go places for four years. It isn’t that which causes resilience. It’s being able to get through adversity. They were not robbed of anything. I despair of the attitude that not being able to go to the prom or cubs is enough to ruin the future of a whole generation.

Its great some children werent affected and had a lovely time.

Others did suffer for various reasons. Nothing to do with resilience, it just happened. And those effects need to be acknowledged, otherwise mistakes will be made again.

COVID wasn't terrifying - the universal madness was. Nobody willingly harmed themselves and their families for no reason during any war. We now know how gutless, selfish and mad those around us are and that can't be unseen.

It was a real reminder that we're not different from our medieval peasant ancestors.