To say that every child and young person…

[KnowButNeedU2TellMeAsItIs]

That got through the pandemic, followed the rules, stayed indoors for long periods of time, endured isolation, online learning, ping pongs in and out of school, slow vaccination roll-out…

Should get a medal.

Our kids are amazing and gone through so much but not one bit of recognition.

They 'did' nothing more, and really a lot less than many others. I feel more for those who lived alone and were complete isolated with absolutely no support staring at 4 walls alone, more than kids who slept in and got home schooled. I feel more for the health care staff with PTSD and burn out, because there never was a stop. I think you're being overly melodramatic. Kids, in general, had family support, and no financial concerns.

My teens are 15 and 17, so I know a lot of teens the same age. Parents meet up and we go 'oh they're fine'... after 5 minutes of small talk, when conversation gets more in depth, it turns out all our kids are suffering. Mental health issues are prevalent. And there is no support available wherever you turn. Until its a crisis and even then its very scarce! Self harm, anxiety, depression, eating disorders. It is almost universal.

This cohort definitely need something different, some recognition, acknowledgement, change to society. An actual medal would be a waste of money but they do need 'something '.

I would rather see support for services for children and young people, making sure none are going hungry, and HEPA filters in classrooms (because the pandemic still isn't over). I know it would cost more than medals but we need practical interventions to improve their lives. 12 million has already been spent on jubilee books. Imagine what good that money could have done.

@druto yes I agree a lot of existing problems were exacerbated and new ones made worse by the pandemic. However, I also feel quite strongly that wrongly attributing issues to the pandemic ignores the foundations and states of compliance/ignorance that allowed them to develop. There’s no solution or improvement if the rot hangs around unacknowledged.

@KnowButNeedU2TellMeAsItIs you’re talking about children, my child, as if they’re some sort of army who chose to sacrifice their freedoms and education. That’s not what happened and absolutely not what I want my dc to think they did. This happened in the world around them, to them, and you’re talking as if they had a choice and those that were really badly affected should be in some way honoured for a set of circumstances that led to that. Since when was ‘rewarding’ trauma something people did?

You want to recognise children? Do something constructive to make the world they live in a better place instead of entrenching a shitty period of their lives as the best thing they could achieve.

Yes, it's been rough. Young people aren't designed to spend their fifteenth/sixteenth/seventeenth year locked up with only their parents for company.

The younger ones couldn't even do the online socialising thing: a lot of kids stayed pre verbal/ not potty trained for far longer than they would have - key life stages pushed back with all the subsequent developmental leaps also delayed. And let's face it, it's not as if we're well set up in regard to kids with developmental delay in the first place.

I'm not buying into the whole medal thing , but I find the attitudes of some posters baffling at best, and awful at worst. Almost sneery at children and a tone of "what do they have to be upset/depressed " about?

Yes a lot of children were ok.
A lot weren't though... some were stuck in abject poverty , some were stuck in abusive or chaotic households with no respite, some died, some were beaten, some were neglected ,some were taken into care , some that were already in care barely saw their parents/families for months on end, some kids developed mental health issues, or their previous issues escalated ,panic attacks,anxiety etc. , some didn't see one or both parents for months because it was too risky and many many more.

You don't have to give them a medal, but pretending it was all sunshine and rainbows and sleeping in and all hunky dory is fucking insulting.

I can only assume that these people don't spend any time with children. Including their own! (Well, after lockdown that's maybe understandable... )

No not really, I can totally understand why particularly some children with certain disabilities would of struggled and isolation periods weren’t pleasant either and some families were put under a lot of stress. It wasn’t beneficial for my youngest who was an older baby when it started as really needed the real life stimulation of being out and about and socialising. However it didn’t really bother the older ones, to be honest, it didn’t really phase them, even when they went back for that 1 day in January snd then were off again for weeks. They just seemed to adapt to the changes as they happened and as parents we tried our best to make it as fun and much as an adventure for them as possible, the teachers were amazing too in trying to turn it into a positive for them and gave us lots of ideas and activities to help us. The teachers definitely deserve some recognition

Everyone had a tough time in different ways
My parents retired and handed back the keys to their hotel, no big celebration after 50 years in the trade
A friend lost his job
I shielded living alone for the best part of 2 years

It's not a competition, it's just appreciating everyone handled it differently. I would rather have been a child living with my parents than totally alone

And if your parents were abusive,or neglectful,or alcoholics, or drug addicts, or had learning difficulties as did your siblings and you effectively had to care for them at 7, and .. and .. and...?

For many kids it was not ok,it was not better, it wasn't safe. It's shitty to completely ignore and forget them.

@ldontWanna that's why I said everyone had it tough in different ways, replying to the OP and saying not all children/young people need a medal!
SOME children suffered more than others
Being alone was tough, being a child with neglectful parents was tough, being in a care home with no visitors and no idea what was going on was tough, so was being a HCP...

I actually agree with you OP, I think our young people did incredible!

And most of these things existed before and after the pandemic.

Krrraist on a bloody bike. OP seems to be the proverbial Snowflake personified.
OP, do you have any idea what is going on in the world? Wars, conflicts, large scale hunger, terrorist attacks, drug wars, etc. ad nauseam.
🙄🤬

This. Ask kids in Ukraine whether they’d prefer to be a locked down British child or live in the middle of a war. What do you think they’d say?

I'd rather the money was used to sort out the NHS backlogs

Wtf?
Children in this country lived through 2 world wars. They lived through bombing, rationing and the loss of parents and family. Thousands were evacuated from their homes, torn from their parents and sent to live with total strangers, not oll of whom were kind.
They lived with anoth 6 years of rationing post war, and had to live in temporary accommodation if their home had been bombed.
Thei schooling was disrupted, their lives disrupted for 4 years and 5 years respectively
Then there's the children in numerous war-torn countries across the world suffering...
OP, get a fucking grip

Did incredible? What does that mean?

Yes I feel this way too. My kids were fine during the lockdowns. I’m not saying they didn’t have their fed up moments but we spent extra time with them between work, gave them plenty to do and went out of our way to ensure that they weren’t too adversely affected by the changes.

I often think about the children who don’t have that. Those affected by domestic abuse or with neglectful parents who don’t care or those with parents who just didn’t have the energy ir skills to support them through it. My kids certainly didn’t do anything out of the ordinary or deserve any sort of medal for sitting at home doing school work, playing video games, playing in the garden and going on their bikes or chatting with their friends. They know how lucky they were to be able to do so. But some kids will need recognition and extra support that they won’t get from their parents and I very much hope the resources are there for them.

go on, list what they did.

And?

So fed up people comparing war to today. Children certainly haven't had it easy these last few years. But why isn't that valid? I can't imagine being a young child and suddenly being told that I can't go to school for months on end, not knowing when I'll see my friends again. I also can't imagine being in the shit situation of having to go school and having to be so careful not to bring home covid to my vulnerable relative.

Young people have not done anything ‘for us’. Lockdown was as much for their benefit as anybody else’s. You could equally argue we did it for them, and they should give us a medal. That would be an equal amount of nonsense

The toughest thing mentally for my dd has been the stream of people telling her that lockdown was bad for her mental health.
Yes, she is too easily influenced by what she reads, but before that she was quite enjoying it.

And I've never seen such a happy bunch of year 9s as when ds' year group were sent home for isolation.

One child local to my cousin lost both parents due to covid, which he brought home from school. Does he get a gold medal for having it harder?

This. Ask kids in Ukraine whether they’d prefer to be a locked down British child or live in the middle of a war. What do you think they’d say?

Fine but if we're going to start whataboutery, I don't want to here anyone complaining about COVID either. Would you rather your parents died in hospital or died in a war?

Nobody is saying it's worse than war, they're just saying the impact on young people should be acknowledged and even praised. I was happy to take my chances. Nobody did me a favour like pp suggested.

YABU and ridiculous

it’s not only kids and families with kids who suffered under lockdown. And even having struggled myself, I’m well aware that what I went through was nothing compared to NHS staff working on covid wards for example.

and kids around the world go through far worse things every day than being told to stay at home with their families. Just look at the children fleeing Ukraine!

get a bloody grip