To feel so sad for my 3 year old

[Myfriendanxiety]

I know there are people with bigger issues so I’m not comparing it to others- but I feel so sad about the current situation for my 3 year old.

He loves his friends, loves his preschool, loves playing out with friends, going to soft play and activities etc. All of this has stopped and he is just home with me 24/7. I just feel so sad for him that his little world has changed so quickly and he doesn’t understand why. He has some sensory issues and needs his routines so I worry how all this could affect him longer term.

Anyone else feeling sad about this at the minute?

Although I feel sad for my 5 yo reception child, there are silver linings. This has seriously slowed the pace of life down for families. We have been playing together, taking the time to look at nature, things like flowers and ladybird. Skyping/ sending videos the friends. The kids are no longer at the childminders and exhausted from the long days.

The situation is incredibly shit but I think there will be long term changes we make a result of this.

I forgot my main point:

Kids are resilient, they are looking to us for guidance on this. Stay calm, make it is a good as it can be and let's hope the future is bright

Little kids don’t have a clue I would t worry. The school years I feel genuinely sorry for are 6 11 and 13.

I feel like I’m always the bad fairy on these threads but I do feel concerned when I read constantly that toddlers won’t remember their experiences. Of course they do! Especially if they’re negative and the body very definitely keeps the score. Think about the children who’ve suffered abuse and neglect in their very early days and years - the effects are lifelong.

Please do consider what our children are hearing and absorbing about the Coronavirus. These are unprecedented times and legions of adults are terrified and anxious. Why do we assume our children are automatically resilient unless we model and nurture that resilience?

I honestly think there should be more help to prepare our little ones for life with Coronavirus. In the short space of time, society’s rules have changed so massively. DON’T TOUCH!!! Explaining why we can’t buy the foods in the supermarkets we need to keep us healthy and why we can’t visit the Grandma who lives in the next street but is self-isolating (who ever thought they’d be explaining that expression to a toddler?) and why they can’t go to nursery or playgroup or the park or soft play?

I could go on for ever but it’s beginning to get my goat on some of these adults vs kids threads as to who has it hardest. It’s equally as shit for everyone, in my opinion, but our smallest citizens can’t really voice an opinion as they know no better. But is that a great place to be for them?

I feel sad for my 3 year old too. He has 2 best friends at nursery and talks about the others in his class all the time. He was due to have 3 weeks off for Easter so I've just told him nursery closed early for Easter so far as I don't want to worry him too much.
He had a few invitations to birthday parties that he keeps asking about and planning his own birthday in a couple of months too so I do feel bad that they will most likely all need to be cancelled.

I’m thankful that ds (15 month) is too young to know what’s going on but I still feel sorry for him. He’s very active and loves other people. He loves waving and blowing kisses to people on the bus and he adores his nanas who he can’t see. We’ve been social distancing all week and it’s taking its toll on his behaviour. He’s started crying and whinging constantly which is unusual for a baby that has always been cheerful.

My 3.5yr old has never been in better form (we in Ireland so 10 days in) & she's very sociable & loves playschool & going out. The 12 yr old I feel sorry for he in last yr primary & loving this year. missing friends & actually bit worried & stressed with it all. I think the younger ones are oblivious & happy to have everyone home all the time.

We’re in Ireland so my seven year old only child is on day 10 of no school, no seeing friends, no seeing anyone other than his parents who are FT WFH — our elderly parents are on lockdown. He’s doing absolutely fine, enjoying the slower pace, no school, some strange forays into the countryside — some growers who usually supply restaurants are selling produce straight from the field — seeing more of us, playing games, doing crafts etc.

It doesn’t help him if I’m weeping about lost friendships and opportunities.

cryalot you can still walk your dog. I think pets will be a lifeline for many people during this time. I am so grateful for our little cat.

Completely different as I am childless (not by choice), but I teach in FE, and I am so sad for my graduating class. They are now learning online, and the college was shut before our last class together. I have set up a class chat group on Microsoft Teams as well as formal learning sessions, but i won’t see them again, and they will all be off to different unis. No end of year speeches, no class meal out, probably no graduation.

I feel sad. For my friend who is burying her son next week and can't have a proper funeral or wake. 3 year olds will get used to being home, its different, but it will be fine.

I just posted this on another thread:

For a young child, 6 months absolutely could affect their development. For a baby under 1, it'll be more than half the time they've been alive. There isn't much historical precedent for raising huge numbers of young children in such isolation from other children for many months. My own anecdata about cases I've known involving individuals (only-children raised on lonely farms etc.) aren't encouraging. Of course, being isolated from other children for six months is not the same as being isolated from other children for six years or sixteen years. But it wouldn't surprise me if there are some subtle negative effects, albeit much lesser in degree.

Remember the "wire monkey mother" experiments (by Harry Harlow)? These experiments are most famous for showing the importance of mother-baby bonding---baby monkeys reared without mothers or a passable substitute displayed chronically disturbed behavior. But less well known is the fact that Harlow also carried out other experiments in which he tried raising baby monkeys with their mothers but without any peers (i.e., they had no contact with other young or baby monkeys). These monkeys also displayed abnormal development, suggesting that exposure to peers is very important for growing children.

The cohorts who have been through all this will bear watching. I suspect we are going to see elevated rates of things like myopia, screen addiction, sleep issues, allergies/autoimmune issues, vitamin D deficiency and a whole bunch of other things, at the population level. It will certainly tell us some "interesting" stuff about child development---I would even go so far as to say that it'll be a data goldmine.

It will be a blip in his life, he will not remember any of this. Think back, do you have lots of strong memories of being 3?

Six months is a sixth of his total life. And the concern is not about "remembering" things---it is about the fact that children appear to need contact with other children (does not have to be the same age, but needs to be "kids" of some type) to develop normally in a social sense, and there may be crucial window periods in development.

It is utterly shit. And as I said in the other thread, it's why we need to think about off-on timing, in the nature of "drug holidays." Because otherwise we could risk storing up a lot of serious problems for the future.

The long term effects of anxiety about hygiene, constant instructions to keep away from other people and think of non-family members as inherently dangerous, and to not touch things, are also worrying to me. I think it risks tipping a lot of kids over into outright social anxiety. And lack of exposure to normal germs during window periods in development is known to increase the risk of allergies and autoimmune disorders--I would be very surprised if we do not see a significant increase with these cohorts of kids, depending on what age they are at the start and beginning.

It’s not unreasonable to feel sad at all. All of our lives have changed so much in such a short space of time, including your little boys. But to think of it another way, at 3, you are the biggest thing in his world and he has you still. Also another positive is that it’s likely that he will not remember much of this time in the future and that’s a good thing. Just do the things you can do with him and have lots of cuddles.

I feel sad for my kids too. My son is in Year 11 and like others his age, his whole world has changed in a few days. No exams, no seeing friends, no saying goodbye to kids and teachers he’s been with for years. The summer he had planned, prom, a part time job, all no longer happening. College is completely up in the air. He’s ok but I think he’s just in shock really.
My daughter is in year 6. She didn’t get to say goodbye to friends and teachers, no SATs that they’d been being prepared for forever, no trips and no transition to secondary school.
I’ve read some very unsympathetic views on here about what kids are going through but I think we need to be mindful about the effects this will have on children.

The situation at the moment is really awful but that doesn’t mean we can’t sympathise and feel sad for our children’s worlds changing in such a short amount of time.

What’s the point of fighting this thing when there’ll be nothing left to live for when, or even IF, this ever ends.
This sounds very drastic, what do you mean exactly?

Some people are dismissing the day to day lived experiences of a 3 and 4 year old here - as someone says, children evolved to be with other cchildren! My nephew who is 3 is really really sad - he misses his little friends who he spent every day with and he may have no other children to play with now for many months. How is that not upsetting or unusual for both him and his family?

However - yes, children survive many many awful terrible things - they survive war, trauma, disaster - but this is a trauma for them, let's be real about it.

Better to be realistic then we can better help them cope with it.

I couldn't give a toss if DS remembers it when he is older- this is shit now! He's active and curious and used to spending time with people and exploring.

I am sick of the nasty posts about "just fucking stay at home" because people like me are managing to get out to deserted beaches and woodland once a day to try and maintain some semblance of normality for young children. If everyone applies common sense, we shouldn't have to have this "full lockdown" that people seem so hellbent on.

Do you have a garden? If so let your 3 year old play out there for something a bit different to indoors. Even if not, don’t have worry, they’ll be fine. Play games, read, cuddle up and watch something, free play, twinkl has a months free trial in this mess so you can download some resources for number and letter work. He’ll be fine, children are very resilient. When he asks about soft play, play datesor nursery, just say it’s closed/ have a cold

@BlusteryShowers it's not a normal situation, young, healthy people are also ending to in ICU. Stay at home FFS. Walk locally, honestly.

@Marieo I am walking locally. I live in a rural county with lots of woodland and undeveloped coastline. I am deliberately choosing places I know are highly likely to be deserted, and if they are not, I am not going into them. But again "stay at home FFS".

@user1477391263, i agree. I think it's important to use the nursery rhymes that some Nurseries are putting online, where they still see their teacher/children center worker doing the actions.

Watching programmes with real people in, like the dreaded Mr Tumble/something special etc and not just animated cartoons.

Toddlers need to see people interacting and watch people's mouths move while speaking. That's how we pick up communication.

A lot of children who've been kept in isolation because of neglect are very 'blank' and struggle with socialisation, it's like they don't see the point of other children. It's very sad to see. It's why they won't diagnose children going through the CP system with SN, because a lot of time it's the lack of seeing normal interactions.

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself and my GC, who are really socialable children. My nearly 2.5 years old GC has just had a spate of parties cancelled. It's the first year that they are properly aware.

Granted, we aren't going through the earthquake that Croatia is, which has broken their isolation. But our way of life, as we know it has, had a massive change. Massive changes aren't easy.

No. They'll forget. And quickly. People are losing their livelihoods and their relatives. It's not going to harm the kid to watch TV or read a book for a couple of weeks. It builds resilience and ability to cope with frustration.

You’re not unreasonable to be feel sad. And even though there are bigger things going in the world, you’re still allowed to feel sad about the negative effects on your child on your child and family life. I hate these sanctimonious ‘I live in a shoe and my children eat carpet but I just feel so GRATEFUL to be alive, I heard a friend of a friend passed away today’ posts.

And I get you. My little boy is only 8 months and I’m on mat leave but I used to take him to playgroups and baby groups everyday and he used to see his grandparents once a fortnight. Now he doesn’t. Now we go out once a day to walk the dog - he’s strapped into the buggy and we don’t talk to anyone. I know he won’t remember but I’m still upset about it and I am worried about the effect on things like his speech, his social development and his immune system.

I'm finding it very difficult generally. The level of anxiety and worry. My 3yo loves being at home but he was supposed to be starting school nursery in September and I worry about how we're going to manage that after he's been with me solidly for six months with no interaction from other children. He misses his family, his friends, and his routine.

I honestly think there should be more help to prepare our little ones for life with Coronavirus. In the short space of time, society’s rules have changed so massively. DON’T TOUCH!!! Explaining why we can’t buy the foods in the supermarkets we need to keep us healthy and why we can’t visit the Grandma who lives in the next street but is self-isolating (who ever thought they’d be explaining that expression to a toddler?) and why they can’t go to nursery or playgroup or the park or soft play?

This. It's unprecedented but I wish there was more help available.

I’m sad for DS, a sociable child, that he won’t see another child for months. I’m worried about the impact on his mental health, too.

I don’t think it’s wrong to recognise that you’re comparatively very fortunate, but feel sad about the situation your child is in.