to think that the effect on children's mental health is exaggerated?

[SmudgeButt]

Look I have no doubt that lots of kids are missing their friends, school, grandparents. And all of these things will effect their development and mental health. But is it really that bad a situation compared to other things in the past?? Or is it just that we talk about it a whole nauseatingly more?

I'm thinking that the current situation isn't a patch on the effect of living in a country that's at war - thinking back to WW2 and the effect of being suddenly shipped off to strangers in the countryside or even to a different country. Thinking of those children in Europe who suddenly had to fend for themselves in Jewish ghettos or concentration camps.

People that survived (yes a lot didn't as they were murdered) no doubt had lifetime impacts but so many of their children say "dad was always cheerful, never talked about what happened".

AIBU to think that in a few years kids of today will say "wow, that was weird and I'm glad it's over, now let's get one with life" ?

This kind of things is almost always said by people who don't have young kids.. Do you had kids @SmudgeButt??
It's so easy to ne dismissive. I hate comparisons with ww1 and 2, its a different situation and it's very much a shut down of people's concerns.
My dcs are fine, we have a lovely house, security, good areas to walk etc etc
There will be so many children in awful home situations, isolated and totally unsupported, so many who of course are anxious; imagine being a child and suddenly hearing reports of thousands of deaths and hearing other information you may not be able to process or understand properly? , I can well imagine thinking as a kid that it might kill me or my parents. Imagine how stressful it is for parents who are trying to keep a job , work while full time educating their kids. Siblings of children with severe sn .. I'm in Ireland and absolutely no schools open for anyone, vulnerable, key workers , children with sn, nothing.
Instead of being dismissive and making really unhelpful comparisons have some empathy.

I bet the op doesn't have children, its the tone. The kind of implication that kids these days are weak and parents are pandering It's a narrative that's so unoriginal but pretty nasty. Also a kind of " I wouldn't stand for that nonsense with my imaginary children" , cringe tbh

I hate this idea that we must put all suffering into perspective. What perspective? No situation or person are exactly the same. I suffer with anxiety (generally well controlled) but I can promise you that in the middle of a panic attack it doesn't make me feel better to think if all the people that have it worse. Cause at that moment it's the worse I feel. My suffering doesn't diminish theres or vis versa.
Just because someone else somewhere in the world might be having a shitter time doesn't mean that the person or child suffering here isn't also having a shit time. It's not a competition and if it was who the fuck would want to win it?

The kind of implication that kids these days are weak and parents are pandering It's a narrative that's so unoriginal but pretty nasty

I agree totally. There’s a lot of it on this thread. It’s very unpleasant. I wonder what kind of people spout such unkind rubbish.

Speak for yourself OP. Just because you can’t imagine how other people’s children are suffering, doesn’t mean they’re not.

What a horrible thing to say. I have one DC who is struggling massively with the isolation and their MH is shot to pieces. FWIW the schools didn't close in WW2 and a lot of children were evacuated with classmates/siblings/cousins etc.

Some children are very happy at home. My daughter is one of them. Not all children like school. In fact many of them don't.

@Changi

Pretty sure at least 6 million jewish people were murdered and that's just during WWII!

Add to that around 15 million Russian civilians killed.

Yup @IDontMindMarmite is talking bollocks.

There will of course be some mental health impacts. But overly dramatic catastrophising like that does nothing but add to the problem.

It's not helpful

@iknowwhatyoudidlastsummer

Ok so my kids (secondary) are home alone all day completing school work
Me and DH are not both key workers and we definitely can't work from home, (we do manual/engineering type work). Can't be furloughed as business is busy. We need to earn to pay the bills.

When I get home we cook and help them finish their school work.

Weekends I'm either on call or we're all a bit knackered from this way of life so we just do a little walk out.

And their mental health has nose dived.
Today I've offered to paint, play games, cook with them and they're not interested. They have no suggestions. Ideas please?

@Larsingsong, my suggestion would be to ask them what they want to do. A fry up? A roast? Playing computer games? Showing you their Tik Toks? Playing board games? Burgers? I've found crashing into their room with a glass of wine and a glass of coke, plonking myself down, seems to open up conversation. . .

I think it is a misunderstanding about the "how many people died in WWII" If I remember rightly someone on TV said more people have now died of covid than died in the blitz or than civilians who died. Obviously very different numbers to the total number who died in WWII.

@mbosnz thank you.
I do ask them, a lot.

They have no enthusiasm for anything.
But they do chat to their friends online which is a good thing.

Me and the younger teenager watch Netflix together, he plays a bit of lego. I feel we've run out of ideas and energy

It's so hard, isn't it?

Sometimes we have to summon the energy and the will. I'm ashamed to say, I almost cried last weekend, as I asked my eldest to come out for a snow fight. We had a great time. But dragging/luring them out of their dens/lairs, is very, very difficult! Especially when we know how they're feeling because we're feeling the same way ourselves.

Crap movies or music from your teenage years that they can hate on/ secretly love ?

I’m just very grateful that CAMHS are offering face to face support to my teen. They suspect she has ASD and so we are looking at a diagnosis now - but she did have mental health issues before the pandemic.

Unfortunately lockdown brought it to a head. She started cutting herself, saying that she wanted to die, wrote suicide notes and took 12 paracetamol. After being admitted to A and E she was assessed by CAMHS and taken on within a few weeks as a priority. This was all brought on since March last year. I have two ‘normal’ dc who have done brilliantly and have got on with remote learning.

Were it not for my vulnerable dd, I might have been smugly posting about how lockdown wouldn’t harm kids - they are resilient etc. But some kids aren’t. Some of the kids who aren’t are also from loving homes just like yours.

My GS is quite happy to spend hours educating me and DH. The things we seem to have misunderstood in our lives is amazing, not sure how we've survived so long. Still it gives him a goal in life and he is happy to share his knowledge. I did argue at first but now I nod and agree.

I wonder what all the people saying 'stop talking about mental health and teach your children resilience' think resilience is. It's not about shutting up and getting on with it. That doesn't make people resilient in my experience. Quite the opposite.

@HamnetandJudith

I’m just very grateful that CAMHS are offering face to face support to my teen. They suspect she has ASD and so we are looking at a diagnosis now - but she did have mental health issues before the pandemic.

Unfortunately lockdown brought it to a head. She started cutting herself, saying that she wanted to die, wrote suicide notes and took 12 paracetamol. After being admitted to A and E she was assessed by CAMHS and taken on within a few weeks as a priority. This was all brought on since March last year. I have two ‘normal’ dc who have done brilliantly and have got on with remote learning.

Were it not for my vulnerable dd, I might have been smugly posting about how lockdown wouldn’t harm kids - they are resilient etc. But some kids aren’t. Some of the kids who aren’t are also from loving homes just like yours.

I think many of us understand it varies, if anything I think my GS has been happier than usual, he is a bit of a glass half empty person normally.

Obviously if it goes on he is going to get restless but for now I am relieved that he seems OK but it doesn't mean I'm smug. It is good that your daughter is getting help from CAMHS, I hope she will be OK.

Some kids are resilient. Some kids sit on window ledges and threaten to jump off, so you have to call the police.

@ancientgran I didn’t think you were smug. It is galling though when you are struggling with an autistic dc who isn’t coping and people are unaware of how hard it is for some dc.

I hope people aren’t taking their kids out for longer than an hour a day, they’re not supposed to be.

say who? can you show me the legislation that says that we can only go out for an hour a day?????????

This thread is horrible

@IDontMindMarmite

There's been more deaths than ww2 and ww1 combined so let's not underestimate the fear we are living in.

Eh? You believe more people have died of coronavirus than died in both wars combined?

Unless I've misunderstood what you mean, this is one of the most fucking stupid things I've read on these forums. Over 50 times more people died in both wars combined than have died of coronavirus.

@SmudgeButt

Thanks all for your considered comments. I've found even those bordering on abusive to be insightful.

I know some parents who have been trying to do what's best and the kids are suffering or not in much the same way they were before this all started. I can't imagine how hard it is for those who care and have children who simply cannot cope.

For what it's worth I've met a number of Holocaust survivors and listened to their and their children's stories. Also to an SS officer, other German soldiers and their kids. I guess some are more resilient than others.

Still passive aggressive and nasty in tone, nice little pen knife pithy sentence at the end. What a horrible thread.

I take it you don't have children OP. It is always the people who don't have children who declare kids will be fine, close the schools, close the parks, lock them up, they're super spreaders. And then think they should have the right to swan around golf courses and shopping centres and pack into bars and restaurants while the kids are stuck at home.

Some children are more resilient than others. Some are neurologically typical, some are not. Some have had trauma in their lives, some have not. Some are very sociable, some are not. It’s disgusting to judge children for not coping and to compare them with Holocaust survivors fgs. Those who weren’t resilient during the Holocaust died after all. I don’t think we need to judge children by that baseline.