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?

The dismissing it as anxious parents on here is bullshit though- those speaking up were the ones being ostracised and attacked constantly to the point of being largely hounded off many parts of the site for trying to push back against the collective societal anxiety and pointing out what harm it was doing to our kids.

Exactly. It became a parenting site where you couldn’t talk about impact on children, it was fucked up.

I stuck at it more than some but then gave up on certain threads. I’d have the odd look and it was the usual derision, ridicule and hounding the few that posted against it.

It actually still makes me incredulous that parents were happy for this to happen to their children. Just went along with it. "Oh Well, never mind that you haven't been able to play with your friends for months on end 3 year old child, you have food and a tablet to play on"

What planet were people living on? I know fear does strange things to us, but adults really should know better.

I desperately hope that parents will not let their children be treated like this ever again.

People didn’t want schools to close. They wanted safe mitigations for schools and this just didn’t happen.

Yes, and on here there was lots of shouting and hounding of posters who wanted safer schools to keep them open. People didn’t want to hear it and we ended up with school closures.

Safer schools for who @noblegiraffe?

@hamstersarse

Safer schools for who *@noblegiraffe*?

?? For everyone. Mitigations would protect children and staff and reduce community transmission.

@hamstersarse

It actually still makes me incredulous that parents were happy for this to happen to their children. Just went along with it. "Oh Well, never mind that you haven't been able to play with your friends for months on end 3 year old child, you have food and a tablet to play on"

What planet were people living on? I know fear does strange things to us, but adults really should know better.

I desperately hope that parents will not let their children be treated like this ever again.

Me too. Yes it was ramped up fear but I felt the same.

@Iggly Protect children from what?

Everyone, hamster. The kids, their families, their communities and the basic structure of society (if you recall the spiralling death rate and the utter chaos around Christmas).

Kids don’t exist in a vacuum and what happens to others affects them too. There are, unfortunately, a lot of kids out there who have suffered bereavement or have parents/relatives who were seriously ill with covid and this has had a huge impact on them. It’s not all simply about lockdowns.

I was talking to a kid the other day whose mum was hospitalised with blood clots on her lungs due to covid and who is still recovering. He’s had a really shit year and you could see he was really worried about her.

I read on this very site

Numerous posters saying they were struggling to get out of bed, felt beside themselves with anxiety etc

Of course that’s going to feed in to their children
Utterly baffling that anyone would think otherwise

Of course this is not the case for all those children suffering anxiety now. But of course it will lie at the heart of the cause for some

They'll be ok. Most just knew they needed to save their elders and it wouldn't go on forever.

What struck me was the number of posters that said they weren’t ever going out. Even for the one walk a days. Even when no one vulnerable. How the heck did their children fare?

Every day, every single day, we were out. Long walks, picnics. Was lovely actually

DD is 3.5 and she has been fine throughout the pandemic. I've always made sure to get her out of the house as much as possible, even during the stricter first lockdown we would be out of the house 9am-2pm exploring the local area rather than being stuck at home. Very happy running around different parks and gardens all day. We went back to toddler classes, playgrounds, holidays and libraries/museums etc as soon as they re-opened.

We were lucky in a way that she was under 2 when it all started, so she didn't socially interact with other kids much at that stage but it helped to be outside and seeing other people out and about. She started nursery part-time for the first time in June last year so she's always been able to access that continuously since then, since nurseries were open even when schools were shut, plus toddler groups were running during lockdowns as well (last year I remember sitting out in parks in the cold November/December singing nursery rhymes as it was the only activity available). I think it would have been much harder with school-aged children, my nieces/nephews have lots of gaps in their learning. We live in London so we're fortunate that so many toddler classes and children's centres have been open within easy reach (I know lots are still shut in other areas), but the flipside is that we live in a small flat with no outside space, so they've been essential for us really. Life here feels very much back to normal.

People didn’t want schools to close.

I think the people shouting “CLOSE THE SCHOOLS FFS” probably did want schools to close, actually. And there were quite a few of them.

@TeaForPterosaur

People didn’t want schools to close.

I think the people shouting “CLOSE THE SCHOOLS FFS” probably did want schools to close, actually. And there were quite a few of them.

The issue is schools have always been the key hotbed of infections which is why in desperation to get numbers down people say that. Especially pre-vaccine with 1k+ daily death tolls.

I didn’t want The schools to close
Nor did my children

But when they did, we rolled with the punches.
I said they would continue to get lie ins and continue to go on long walks with picnics and treats, continue to be able to FaceTime friends freely and continue to be able to each pick a film every night to watch (previously no tv Monday -Thursday) and go to bed an hour later.

They shrugged and we just got on with it

I never ever ever had the news on in front of them. And as a single parent they never ever heard me talking about it with another adult

The issue is schools have always been the key hotbed of infections which is why in desperation to get numbers down people say that.

And if they think the costs of closing schools are worth it in the bigger picture then fine, but own that. Don’t immediately start swiping it down the memory hole as soon as the costs start coming to light with “kids are fine and nobody ever really wanted schools to close anyway.” It wasn’t that long ago, people haven’t forgotten.

@Oftenithinkaboutit

I never ever ever had the news on in front of them. And as a single parent they never ever heard me talking about it with another adult

yes, I’m sure my toddler’s anxiety issues were all caused by me spending too much time discussing Sky News with my 1-year-old. That’ll be it. Silly me!

If you’d even bothered to skim the thread, you would have noticed that most of the anxiety issues discussed here aren’t even anxiety about the virus itself. But that might raise the uncomfortable possibility that not everyone could just parent their way out of massive impacts to children by doing fun picnics and FaceTime calls so I doubt you’d want to.

It was a follow on point

In addition to a number of other points

Your 1 year old suffered severe anxiety and became terrified of people.

Presumably
You went out every day without fail
You met with a friend also with a young toddler for a walk
You face times friends and family?

I'm still completely baffled as to why schools didn't reopen in the summer term of 2020 when cases were very low. It really did seem like they thought, ah well, may as well have the whole year off now.

I'm not the poster in question, however ..

You met with a friend also with a young toddler for a walk

I don't think this was actually allowed in lockdown 1

You face times friends and family?

Plenty of 1 year olds would find it very hard to engage like this through a screen.

Presumably
You went out every day without fail
You met with a friend also with a young toddler for a walk
You face times friends and family?

No, I just shut her up in the broom cupboard for nine months. Was I not supposed to? What is a ‘walk’? Goodness I do wish you’d been around at the time, you’d have saved us a world of bother.

Look: some children are miserable. Some families are struggling. People who are struggling this much, whose children are struggling this much, have doubtless tried all the things you can think of off the top of your head. There are plenty of places on Mumsnet where you can blunder in to helpfully suggest obvious and inadequate solutions to other people’s problems, but this bit, here and now, is not the best one.