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" ?

There was evidence that first lockdown meant a huge improvement for some teens due to reduced bullying and peer pressure. Dd is 13 and is much more confident home schooling - naturally academic and bright but can choose who she speaks to and not deal with disruptive kids in the class. I think it will depend on individual circumstances.

Anecdotal, but lockdown led directly to my dd taking a paracetamol overdose, ending up in hospital and now having CAMHS support. If you know how under resourced CAMHS are, you’ll appreciate the level of distress she has been in. Her school work has suffered and she’s gone from being on track to pass them all with good grades to being at risk of not passing a number of her subjects.

@IDontMindMarmite
More than 2 million people in the world have died from covid

Just to put it into perspective, Malaria kills 3000 children everyday. It kills 1 million people every year.

Unfortunately, Malaria is a 3rd world disease (90% of Malaria deaths occur in Africa) so no horror there, no quick cure has been found like it has for covid. The thing is that as an African, many teenagers currently live with that daily.

To actually answer the OPs post...
I think all children and families are different. Some will cope some won't.
Just be kind when you do see people. It will greatly help the over all effect on individuals and society.

I can't help but think there will be negative effects that last a life time for some people. And right now we do t k ow who those people will be. So always make an effort to support and help.

Social media doesn't help and neither does scare mongering.

On another thread, many parents are saying they don't get dressed, don't take their children out on a daily basis and don't exercise them. Because it's not fun and they moan.

That's a choice they're making and it has little to do with with government restrictions which are designed to facilitate exercise. But it will be having a catastrophic impact on mental health.

And the people who are locking their children up and sitting them in front of screens for 8hrs only letting them out once a day? Are you in the UK? If so why are you doing this, of course this is damaging, try parenting.

Oh fuck off. I'm out at work all day and my ds has no choice but to sit on a screen for 6 hours a day, its called home learning apparently . Funnily enough he doesn't really fancy a walk by himself in torrential rain with outside temperatures sitting at 2°C.

Firstly comparing any of this for the majority of kids to ww2 because play time is different is just insulting to a generation that lived though a time of far greater threat & deprivation than now.
Secondly- no one is claiming that many children are not suffering badly through this, but many are still coping well and a quiet minority have found that not going to school is a respite from bullying or an inflexible system that fails to meet their needs to a point of being actively damaging.
“Our children” are not one thing. It would be a more constructive conversation if we could see children as variously harmed or benefitted from both the previous status quo and recent homeschooling/lockdown conditions. Then more realistic solutions might be sought for all the varied wonderful individuals that exist under the umbrella term “Our children”.
They all count the same. When the previous status quo returns, will the minority who were never thriving even be remembered?

It's funny how so many posters are "too busy being working all day" to take their own kids out

but still find a slot in their busy day to post about it on Mn

The figures are showing it is having an impact on children.

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

Yes, it is bad. But the pain isn't equally shared.

Happy, healthy children in happy, healthy families are probably mostly doing ok. A bit more screen time, a bit less exercise but probably nothing that won't sort itself out in the end for most of them.

Sedentary, struggling children in sedentary, struggling families are probably doing much worse. Stuck indoors with unhappy, stressed parents who don't take them out for exercise. Some probably don't move more than a few metres from their beds during the course of a day. Previously, at least school would have kept them active and been an escape. Of course their mental health is going to take a battering.

And it's not just a few months. Many had at least 6 months of this last year. And they're going to have minimum 2 months this year.

What a pointless thread.
The world children are living in is horrific, and their earliest years have been taken from them. It's incredibly hard for everyone, and children are suffering, there's no doubt.
Shall we just tell them to man up? There's no bombs kids, but there's a killer virus everywhere!
Yabu 😒

I think OP is very naive to think children will bounce back.

Yes, they will develop coping strategies but they will also miss out on learning from various social interactions liked to brain development. So, they will never be able to catch up... leading to low confidence/ self-esteem and anxiety... and other problems liked to mental health.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55863841

The is for OP, whose knowledge of mental health matters is clearly lacking.

I mean kids who lived through WW2 weren't always the most undamaged adults... many of them were quite fucked up for life I imagine

What a silly thread. If you're determined to compare the 2, my mother was a WW2 child, and she is without a doubt the most batshit human I know.

Well for what it’s worth my Grandparents were kids during the war. They’ve said that this is much harder. Multiple people their generation have said the same. “This enemy is invisible and all around us”.

I’d rather listen to them that your conjecture.

fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/child-health-profiles/data#page/1/gid/1938133228/pat/6/par/E12000008/ati/202/are/E10000016/cid/4

This is the data

I think a lot mental health is most definitely thrown around too much. As you mention there have been situations that were hard for people in the past and a lot of people have come through the other side and can look back with a sigh of relief.

I am mostly with you and the point you make. I think mainly children will react and deal with situations on how their parents deal with it. So a parent who is level-headed and calm will invoke this onto their children and they will remain calm albeit perhaps bored. A parent who shows their frustration and upset at the situation - the same. Children are capable of learning resilience and those with parents who can reassure them that everything will turn out ok in the end are likely to come out of this unscathed I feel.

There are a lot of issues in ‘normal’ life that take a toll on children’s mental health, social media (in my eyes) being a huge one yet it continues to be used daily by teenagers.

I do, however, think there will be a percentage of children who absolutey will suffer genuinely. I worry about those but I do not believe that it is to the extent people are saying.

Totally agree OP. My kids are fine. Having a great time at home. And I’m a single parent in a high rise council flat. No outdoor space. Overcrowded. One bedroom. There’s far too much whining going on- children are resilient if shown the way. And this is nowhere near as bad as living in war torn areas.

Urgh!!
Can I just reiterate that when it comes to mental health, it isn’t what happened or scale of how many deaths that matters, it’s what coping meachanisms and resilience factors are present that matter and make allll the difference to whether people sink or swim!

Relationships and community are MASSIVE resilience factors that children are missing right now.

I am usually one of those who argues that temporary restriction of social life as such is not likely to be permanently disastrous to children's mental health - though of course, if lockdown means a decline into poverty or increased exposure to abuse or domestic violence, that IS likely to be disastrous. At least restrictions on their social life for a year or so are probably not as disastrous for them as bereavement due to Covid would be.

But the idea that children should be totally resilient, and that people survived wartime separations, and even imprisonment in concentration camps, so modern children can survive anything, is very worrying.

Just because it wasn't much discussed at the time, doesn't mean that people didn't suffer lasting mental damage from wartime evacuation, especially if they were very young or if the foster care was not very good. A number of studies have shown this; e.g.:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19484603/

And the effects of being in concentration camps were disastrous, both physically and mentally to many - even among those who survived. We have to remember that very many children didn't survive, and that those who did were already a selected group, likely either to be exceptionally resilient, or in some way protected by others from the worst consequences, or both. Even so, Holocaust survivors have been shown to have had a high risk of permanent brain abnormalities as a result of their experience - even affecting their descendants to some degree:

www.algemeiner.com/2019/07/01/major-neurological-study-reveals-long-term-mental-health-impact-of-holocaust-on-survivors-and-their-descendants/

The idea that people, now or in the past, just got on with things and were unaffected by trauma is simply wrong.

@Mang0Mel0n

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

I am sorry if you have a One Hour restriction where you live, I am South East England we never had such restriction.