Aibu to think that a lot of kids are extremely anxious after lockdown?

[MrsHookey]

I've got one child who seems extremely anxious since lockdown. Anecdotally it seems like a few kids I know are like this. Is this a wider thing? Are mumsnetters finding their children have become anxious since March 2020?

And on the flipside, kids that found solace in learning from home at their own pace, not having to socialize/mask at school and having their own space and enjoyed lockdown are now in tears begging to be allowed to continue with remote learning when schools want them back in full time. They are terrified of getting covid still and terrified of integrating back in.

Dd aged 10 became quite clingy but that seems to have calmed down now she is back at school.

Yes, huge impact on my 2 infant aged children. At parents eve last week, teacher told us lots of reports from early years practitioners around developmental delays and lack of social skills as a result of lockdowns. Professionally, we are also dealing with a massive increase in anxiety related issues in children

@MrsHookey @Blueeyedgirl21 I completely understand that some people had a horrific lockdown, but just to clarify I'm not living in Buckingham palace. I'm a single mum in a London ground floor flat with an urban garden. It's just that my daughter is into horse riding and our local livery yard allowed kids to loan their horses over lockdown, as they needed daily care and exercise whilst the riding school was closed

My DD's (10) mental health suffered significantly during the first and second lockdowns and she ended up having counselling. It was a combination of lack of access to friends, amplified by the fact that my employer shit and layered on the work so I was working all the hours God sent in the room next door to her. It was awful.

With the help of counselling and a lot of talking, and with the benefit of things having normalised to a large extent, she's much happier and more stable. But she still has a lot of anxiety about certain things and is quick to anger and get stressed and I can't help worrying about how her teens will be.

I think there's a huge amount of hidden anxiety among children and young people. I think they are resilient to a greater or lesser degree in that they will get over it and it will just become something they went through -- children survive war and awful crises. But I do think many of them will bear the mental scars of it for some time.

@noideabutstilltrying

I have a 16 year old son and a daughter 13.

They have both struggled in their own ways. My son now doesn't want to leave the house as he worries about bringing the virus home with him. Now only goes to work and school.

My daughter is angry that so much was taken away for so long.

They have had a rough couple of years though. Dad left us, grandmother died in April 2020. Dad had cancer and big surgery and no sooner than he gets the all clear their grandfather gets a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Hard to pin it all on Covid but it really doesn't help things!

I'm sorry to hear about this. It songs like you have had a horrific time.

Yes dd has become a lot more anxious and is quite scared of crowds, socialising etc. It's difficult because she's just started uni but IMO wasn't quite ready but was determined to go. Lots of support needed, coping but not yet thriving.
What happened to all the promises of free catch up play sessions over the summer? I heard very little about them and suspect they would have helped lots of children enormously. Maybe schools should have been allowed to focus on maths/English and play, rather than straight back into serious lessons/ofsted inspections.

[quote XelaM]**@MrsHookey* @Blueeyedgirl21* I completely understand that some people had a horrific lockdown, but just to clarify I'm not living in Buckingham palace. I'm a single mum in a London ground floor flat with an urban garden. It's just that my daughter is into horse riding and our local livery yard allowed kids to loan their horses over lockdown, as they needed daily care and exercise whilst the riding school was closed[/quote]
Pleased for her. This sounds like it has been great for her.

My 15yo DD was much better once allowed back into school. It was hard watching other years go back, and the large number of key workers’ children at primary; it felt really unfair I think. I thought she’d grumble at all the health and safety requirements (and her year are in masks full-time again now) but she’s ok with that - I’d say resigned though, not resilient!)

She’s getting pretty angry though at the disconnect between age groups and mitigation measures - no second vax for teenagers so there’ll be another cancelled holiday, while other age groups can go ahead with everything. And it’s hard to know whether her short temper is because she’s a bit fragile, or because she’s a teenager!

I see Young Minds has some ideas on what to do. May take a look at creating a worry box. I don't really know but it's a start.

I have heard this Young Minds org is brilliant and offers free counselling for young people by the way: www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/blog/how-to-make-a-worry-box-a-guide-for-parents/

Very sad that so many are affected. Has anyone any ideas on wtf to do? As a single parent, it is always great to get more diverse ideas.

@XelaM that’s a brilliant idea. Did you never get stopped/ questioned about traveling to and from? I would have just done it regardless I think but the covid threads on here were slating people for leaving their house with kids to kick a ball around on a field a 3 minute drive away, and that’s not an exaggeration!

What to do can be quite simple IMO

Dragging them out daily so they can get fresh air and exercise, making life as fun as possible, trying to be kind and patient in the family, eating well, having conversations, borrowed a dog, celebrated whatever was there to celebrate. Letting them see friends when it was possible.

But we had some very dark times (a combination of several stressful things happening at once during lockdown). One of my children said he felt suicidal for a bit because of all of it, but we bounced back from it by doing the above.

He is back to his happy old self again, sporty, sociable, doing well at school, mostly joyful.

My youngest sometimes says she wishes covid never happened and that since then she isn’t ‘creative’ or happy anymore. But she seems happy, she still wishes the carefree pre covid life back.

I think on the whole kids are able to bounce back, but it may need dedication of keep doing a lot of simple healthy things every day. And keeping an eye on it.

OP, it’s tough and I get the feeling that you’re going to be able to support your child through this. The worry box is a great idea btw

I sadly have to add my dds to the list (5&8). They have most definitely been affected. My youngest insists she needs her hanitiser, my eldest has gone from being full of wonder with life to angry (the anxiety comment resonates with me now). They often ask when coronavirus is going away. We’ve tried to be “light” about it but they’re surrounded by the affects at school, articles pop up on tv, out and about people wearing masks (me included). Someone said the affects of this won’t be fully seen until years after and this is a fear for me, based on what I’ve seen.
Before the new regulations came out, we had the dreaded email from school, the close contact one - your child has to isolate (again) and my eldest literally begged me saying “please Mummy I can’t do this anymore” it was heartbreaking. Trust me I understand the risks of contracting covid (I was on the shielding list) but I can see what this is doing to our children, I don’t know what the answer is though, I wish I did, we’re not putting the fears in to them at home but you can’t escape what they’re picking up on externally. We’re lucky, we have a medium sized garden but they no longer wanted that, they wanted “normal”, in fact needed “normal”.

My toddler became terrified of people. When playgrounds reopened it took a day or two to coax her back onto the equipment, but for months if another child approached her she’d run away, and if an adult spoke to her she’d burst into tears.

She developed selective mutism, where she wouldn’t speak outside the house even to us. We are lucky that where we live selective mutism is dealt with by SLT so we got referred for help through them. In the next authority over it’s CAMHS and the waiting list is forever. So we got support and workshops and so on, and over months and months she’s getting more confident and will talk a bit more now. I dread another lockdown sending her back to square one.

My son is 8, his anxiety was at its worst when he first went back to school after each lockdown, but is fading a little now. He is still struggling to readjust to having to navigate friendships on a daily basis though!

No lasting effects for my two. Thankfully we live in a roomy house with outside space. My DS spent a lot of time talking to friends through his PC, although he probably would have done that anyway. My DD got a bit bored during lockdown but that’s about it.

Lockdown has affected lots of people ,I have a disabled child and his special school was closed throughout both lockdown,s we all struggled ,in not sure what the alternative was though ?

Our experience is probably the opposite.
DS now 16, started college in September.
LD for him was Yr 10 and part of Yr 11.
I think he has bloomed from a confidence perspective over the past 2 years.
No hangover of COVID concerns, happily went back to school and on public transport. I guess we were lucky.
for those facing struggles, it must be tough

Yes the impact on both of mine has been noticeable but especially on my previously very outgoing 17 year old who now suffers from anxiety. Its been one long stream of worry for her really from what was going to happen with cancelled GCSEs, worrying about would she be sent home from school if there was a case, when second lockdown would end, constant assessment at school in case her A levels are cancelled this summer and the pressure of knowing that she is competing for university places against people with inflated grades last summer who have decided to upgrade.

She's getting counselling for anxiety through school but has refused to be at all ambitious about her uni applications as she feels she can't handle the stress of an aspirational offer. Going in to the 6th form she was keen to apply to Oxford she hasn't although she is planning on a gap year so will think about reapplying grades in hand.

It's awful to see the change in her.

Yes. Mine are 6&8. We’ve started home schooling them partly because of this. They were so angry and anxious. Literally about everything. Since we’ve withdrawn them from school we have our children back. They’ve only been out of school for a month but their attitude and behaviour is so different. They still argue a bit occasionally but it’s quite a dramatic change. We are fortunate to have been able to do this. No more bullying or feeling left out. No anxiety about being ‘behind.’ My 8 year old was obsessively cleaning her hands and asking us all the time if they were clean. It was verging on OCD. That’s stopped also. She now only asks very occasionally.

We are slowly going to introduce more lessons and groups for them to attend. Will review it in a year. If it’s working we will continue. If it’s not then we will find a different school.

Either way if there is another lockdown I won’t be telling them about it and it won’t impact them very much.

Without a doubt. One of my children appears to have taken it in her stride and loved being off, but is thriving since going back to school. Her sister, on the other hand, has really struggled. She's 10 and once she returned to school in March, she became terrified that something will happen to either DH or I while she's not with us. She was diagnosed with severe separation anxiety, I've not been able to leave the house for most of this year without it causing her genuine deep-rooted distress.

We're lucky, we've been able to access therapy for her, and she knows we're listening, supporting and doing our best for her, but it's been heartbreaking to see her struggle this way. Interestingly, her school had access to a county-led anxiety workshop for parents to help them support their children, and even though we responded within an hour, it was booked up in seconds. There's clearly a lot of demand for support right now, and I know we're not on our own.

Yes, definitely. Not mine, but the college students I teach. It's been an awful semester for so many of them due to mental health stuff.