to think kids are more immature since lockdown

[mummyofthreeplus]

Seeing my DS (13 and in year 9) and the way him and his friends act it seems more like the way my older dc would have acted I’m year 7 or even 6. I have a friend who is a teacher and she says far more behavioural issues and friendship problems that pre covid and even in sixth form far more issues with not doing work and poor attendance. Has anyone else noticed this that it seems like kids are now a lot “younger” for their age since covid?

Well, yes, for obvious reasons. Maybe lots have reverted to how kids really are, modern life and it’s complications aside 🤷‍♀️

I've noticed it, thankfully my ds more mature but always has been for his age.

Yes, but it’s hardly surprising, is it?

Yes I think it’s a documented it thing

You see it with the little ones who had their infant school lives disrupted even more than with the teens

My Ds and his peers (age 10) are also much younger. It made me sad - this is probably how childhood should be without us pushing them into growing up sooner. That said, Ds has probably more skills than he would have that will aid him when he’s older - he has learned to cook, do more jobs round the house etc than he would have. Building blocks for later on I guess.

They missed out on 2 years of being expected to mature, given responsibility at school of course it will have a massive impact.

Yes. It’s had a strange affect.
This years 7 have been an eye opener some are immature, and make silly choices, have zero road sense. Others have clearly had exposure to too much adult content and screen time.

Yes and I am so thankful for it. It was lovely to see my 8 year old forget about trying to be cool and play dress up with her sister. She went back to playing with her barbie dolls and generally acting like a child should in my opinion. All reverted eventually when schools went back though.

I think you have conflated things there for the convenience of your argument that seem a little suspect.

If children are struggling with behavioural problems, friendship problems and poor attendance then clearly, this is a problem. But these things aren't markers of maturity of immaturity but of stress.

If children are "less mature" now then you need to be more clear about what that means to you because if it's that children aren't being shuttled through their childhood at a rate of knots, are less self conscious, more them selves and even sillier for longer, then I don't think that's a bad thing and I don't think it's a response to stress.

To be fair they are kids.

Maybe it's a good thing - they were far to old for their age before covid.

My DS is 21 soon, he is quite underwhelmed by it, when questioned he said to be quite frank Mum I still feel about 19 in my head. The ramifications whilst I agreed with some of them of the lockdowns will go on for a long time. 🙁

It’s not a massive surprise that some children are displaying behaviour issues- after being stuck at home for months on end, sometimes in homes that aren’t happy ones with parents who function well under stress. They weren’t socialising and missed out on loads, and that’s without all the children who needed extra interventions anyway and went under the radar.

Yes - we’ve also noticed it with recent university graduates / those that graduated just pre-Covid. It seems a lot of the “growing up” and etiquette learned through working in offices etc. has been missed during covid.

The social, emotional, psychological and developmental impact on many children and young people is far more significant that the educational impact. We will be feeling its impact for a lifetime.

I think this is true. My DC are primary-aged so actually I'm pleased they and their friends are still very much into playing - their school has a lovely adventure playground area and at after-school club I see all ages from Foundation to Y6 climbing, hiding, running around after each other and it brings me joy to see none of them consider it uncool or are just slouching round the edges.

But on the other hand I have Lower Sixth students massively in a Year 10 mindset - think that I'm setting them work to ruin their weekends and that the aim is to get away with as little as possible. I have been teaching a long time and was honestly shocked at the poor quality of some of the work they thought was fit to hand in. They need way more handholding and scaffolding than a class usually does at this point in the year, and still sulk and take criticism personally etc.

Stands to reason surely? They’ve missed two years of new experiences, or socialising, of normal existence. Poor buggers.

They’ve lost 2 years of their lives. If you are only young it’s a huge chunk of your life. Socialising online and zoom instead of in person activities is not the same.
We learn through experiences.

Definitely. Ds2 compared to ds1 huge. Ds1 had been out partying by this point, Meeting up with friends to play football getting the train to different places to facilitate meeting up and playing football and then going to McDonald's etc.

But, they are starting to. At least.

Also something I’d sort of forgotten but looking back was fucking insane was how dystopian it all was. That must have been incredibly unsettling and therefore damaging to, well everyone but particularly kids

getting kitted up to go and queue at the Supermarket for hours to return home to say there was no pasta. Going out for your daily walk around the same old neighborhood for MONTHS. Not knowing where to stand when you met your neighbour. Bellowing at them from 2m away. Our kids were witness to all this.

wall to wall coverage on the news, tv, social media. The drastic changes to routine and the expected order of events and the hysteria no matter how much we tried to keep a sense of normality. Nothing was normal. And now they know something like that can happen, normality isn’t a given anymore. That’s quite a legacy for them to deal with. If a bit of immaturity is the only thing we need to adjust to we’ll be very fortunate

Exactly. They haven't had the usual experience of life/education/socialisation that people their age typically would. I don't think it's immaturity or whatever though. They're young people who have had adverse educational and social patterns and events during their time in education.

I find it plays out in different ways: the y7s are kind of wild - they're the ones that were left to their own devices school wise and childcare wise before they typically would have been. Y8s seem to be a bit pack-ish, like they're latching on to each other more readily than they might otherwise. Y9s are a bit more settled because they had time in secondary school but they're also quite volatile because the fledgling friendship groups they were starting to form have had a lot of change and disruption. Y10s and, more worryingly, y11s don't seem to fully realise the implications of the exams they're working towards because they haven't really observed the preparation for and rhythm of them just as members of the same school community while younger.

is it surprising? A child in year 2 has been at school for almost three years but never had a full school year free of covid disruption. A year 13 sitting a-levels hasn’t had a covid free year since year 10.

they missed out on loads of formal learning at school, socialising and learning social skills with adults and other children, clubs and activities.

I've seen quite the opposite. By necessity my 11yo has had to become much more mature in terms of studying independently, making her own lunch and lunch for her little sis sometimes when I was in work meetings. I've seen this in friend's dcs too.

Yy. Also a child in y2 has only been alive for 6/7 years but covid restrictions have been around for over two years. So covid has been there for around a third of their lives.

Children younger than that again went through all of the crucial socially-dependent developmental stages at a point when people, for a prolonged period of time, were not socialising.

It is what it is - there's a pandemic that kills a lot of people - but none of it is positive, nobody had a good time, everyone has experienced adverse effects. (Apart from that woman who wrote that fucking stupid poem people were sharing on Facebook about us all staying home.)

But there were plenty of people enjoying the fact that they were spending more time together as families, enjoying the fact that they weren’t rushing around or commuting, or trying to fit in lots of stuff.

Now there are people who are very reluctant to return to offices, despite the requirement for hybrid or wholly office based work.

Maybe it turned us into more selfish, less tolerant people generally. That’s often been said. My friend’s children do seem to be less mature and less independent in their late teens than I’d expect.

Well yes lol, fearful and bewildered people are generally intolerant and selfish. It really isn't true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger; we just tell ourselves that as a form of self soothing behaviour. Adverse events have adverse effects.