I’m worried about this family.

[CrikeyMatron]

Since Covid started friends of ours who live very locally have been shielding.

One of their DC has CP and they have a few other DC too including a teenager.

The DC were taken out of school to protect the vulnerable child and have now not physically seen/been with their peers or any other people for nearly 2 and a half years.

We’ve tried to stay in touch and asked about a socially distanced meet up but the parents aren’t keen. They told us their original plan was to to isolate until vaccines became available for all their DC.

This has now happened but there’s no sign of any change.

We know that the family rarely leave the house and have managed to holiday in fairly isolated SC accommodation a few times. They make sure they avoid people when on holiday and get all shopping delivered when there.

We’re especially worried about the teen DD. She hasn’t seen any peers (she had a robust friendship group before Covid) for such a long time and her friends have reported that communication has petered out with her over this time.

The DD is quite a bit older than her siblings and we suspect her MH has taken a hit (her parents mentioned her anxiety in passing).

I really empathise with how frightening it must be worrying about their disabled DC but think they’ve got bunker mentality and don’t see an end to their isolation 🙁

Has anyone got any advice please?

What are the people who are still shielding basing their decision on?

What science or data is recommending it?

I would call social services. They’ll do a welfare check and keep an eye on them.
The parents are obviously mentally ill. I’m on no way underestimating what some children have gone through, but There is more chance their children will die from falling debris then covid.
this is a very unhealthy life for the children and they need help.

Not everyone who is CEV is vaccinated yet

All of the family the OP is talking about are.

So what are they waiting for, or is this just their life forever?

If she is under 18 I am wondering why school/college etc haven't though this is unusual? As others have said, maybe a quick call to social services may be helpful though do remember that if there is nothing sinister going on the family will likely feel shocked, upset, angry and attacked. That said, if you do it anonymously that isn't your problem.

If she is over 18 its not really a children's safeguarding issue and we shouldn't assume she hasn't the capacity to make a (albeit incredibly sad) choice.

@Topgub

Anxiety mostly I suspect.

Are you meeting people outside? Letting your children visit farms and beaches and wildlife parks search?

In our case with our family member she could be potentially incredibly ill with any virus, as could many of the other children, covid is no different, the outcome is the same potentially and shielding has never been an option before, just better hygiene and avoiding those clearly ill. Not taking her out of life altogether.

No vaccine in the world is a 100% protection for anything, but life is certain we live with an element of risk every day.

Every 'shielding' family needs to be checked out, so that someone is responsible for them, and monitoring the children's welfare, why wouldn't you support that safety measure? It could save the lives of many children.

As well as the damages already mentioned, I wonder what the effect will be on the immune systems of the healthy siblings, when they have not been exposed to normal bugs and viruses for extended periods of time.

Disablism? Really?

Op just look at the poll if you want the answer: 90% of people would report them to social services and at least get them on someone's radar and checked out, I would say that was about right.

I’d phone SS OP and let them decide what to do. It’s really worrying there are still people living like this and making their children isolate. Children need normal social experiences for their well-being and development abd it’s not right that they are being kept from this. I hope something is done to help these kids.

Definitely needs to be reported. I'd do so in an instant.
There are always "Turpins" somewhere.

In any decision about making a call to SS it is always worth considering how you would feel if you didn't call, and it is just one phone call, if something awful was happening or had happened to the children? How do you live with doing nothing even though you know it is wrong to leave them in such dreadful isolation for years.

In the very worse case scenario were you a responsible adult in the situation.

One phone call we not activate a removal, it will simply be something for them to check out - and if all is well and it is a genuine case then no one has anything to worry about. Children come first.

@Burgoo

Yes, mostly likely but a few posters have said they're basing it on science /doctors advice

I just wondered what that was based on.

I do feel sorry for people who have been driven to this level of anxiety but they need help to deal with it.

This isn't a disabled post, how ridiculous.

@FoodSchmood but covid isn't going away ? Do you plan to live like this forever? What about work etc
Colds kill vulnerable people too and many other illness
Do you have a threshold when you consider covid less of a risk ?

@FoodSchmood other countries have high numbers too and its rife everywhere pretty much and even in a country with lower numbers if your that much at risk then just one person is all it takes
And every family member is important and if mentally being kept apart from others os detrimental to one member then other options may need to be looked at
Covid is here for a long long time

@searchhashtagRealCarersWeek but if OP reports and all is well , then no issue and you are going outside this family are not even doing this
Plenty of cev people are doing things , some are not and all cases will be different but if all is well SS will see and that will be that
All the children in the family need to be considered and how long as your dr said outside only and when does he see a change as covid is here to stay and numbers nowhere are known , many countries are not testing now , restrictions had to be lifted as the goverment have to consider all 67 million people , they can't just consider some , its just not how it works .

I wonder if some of these people have actually asked their children what they want ?

No worried because that would be a reasonable thing to do, I doubt the dc would know what they want to do after two and a half years of being locked away. Their capacity for independent thought will be limited, the chances of the children weighing up the risk versus benefit will be lost, and all critical thinking skills.

In my view the parents still 'shielding' perfectly healthy children is child abuse, pure and simple.

Whether SS get involved or not, all is most definitely not well in that family.

Preventing children from accessing real life beyond their immediate family is abuse and neglect of their social needs. It's also coercive control to lay the responsibility of the health/ life of their siblings on each other. An online life is no substitute to children/ teenagers for practicing social skills and how to navigate life.

There is no "when Covid is over". Vaccination over the winter was as high as it will ever be. Rates are currently at their seasonal low; this is the same seasonal pattern in May/ June 2020/ 21/ 22 regardless of restrictions or "mitigations". China is demonstrating perfectly that zero Covid will never happen no matter how draconian you are.

Social contact always carried a risk of illness and life in 2022 is no more hazardous than it was in 2019.

I've got an elderly relative at the stage of spending more time in hospital than not. Her immune system has gone due to an underlying health condition and accelerated by minimal access to healthcare in 2020/21 There's been covid cases on her wards yet she's still failed to pick it up. To be adament in 2022 that exposure to Covid is an automatic death sentence is anxious delusion. The virus is milder than its 2020 form and the majority of the population is protected from severe illness by vaccination/ prior exposure reducing the risk to all. The virus is not new/ novel anymore. It is exactly like the timeless risk of living with colds/ flus. We've seen how people have "caught up" on minor illnesses when social conditions have normalised. It's more unhealthy and risky to minimise all social contact because your immune system is then not maintaining itself and the family become more at risk to any minor illness through lack of exposure.

Covid will show up on death stats even when it's not the primary cause of death. I've lost an elderly relative this year and he caught Covid on the hospital ward; the cancer, stroke and ongoing heart failure were more influential, the Covid was a technicality. Death stats like this are an incredibly poor reason to justify denying children normal social interactions. (Decent home schooling does not do this)

Contact social services and let them assess the situation.

In my view the parents still 'shielding' perfectly healthy children is child abuse, pure and simple. - Absolutely agree!

Preventing children from accessing real life beyond their immediate family is abuse and neglect of their social needs. It's also coercive control to lay the responsibility of the health/ life of their siblings on each other. An online life is no substitute to children/ teenagers for practicing social skills and how to navigate life. - AMEN!

@CrikeyMatron I hope this thread has given you the resolve to contact the school and/or SS. Let the professionals decide whether all is well or not. The thought of these kids being so invisible that no one knows/cares is unbearable to me as the parent of a pre-teen.

PS @CrikeyMatron Thank you for caring.

Thanks for all the replies and sorry for seeming to post and run!

To add some more information:

The parents are very loving and want the best for their DC. Both used to work but Covid/redundancy/caring responsibilities have meant that they’re both at home full time now.

We (as in people close to them) have realised that they can be quite ‘insular’ in their views and I’m afraid that now they’re in their own very small echo chamber it’s got worse.

The DM seems to have a ‘them and us’ attitude and we realised exaggerated stories and (we think unknowingly) told tall tales about the kids’ schools which we found out were not the whole truth and always portrayed the schools in a very bad light.

Things like “
DC was left to be pushed around in his wheelchair by other pupils all lunchtime and neglected. Another sibling was ‘bullied’ and the staff did nothing about it. The SENCO said xy and z to us in front of other adults’

I’ve since discovered that these stories are so far from the truth. Various unbiased witnesses with no agenda have stated that these events did not happen as the DM said.

We’ve also been in a situation where the DM has totally twisted, exaggerated and rewritten what actually happened.
Eg. Walking together and a car waits for us and DC to move then the driver can park gets twisted into ‘that man opened his window and was going to grab the wheelchair handle and nearly hit us whilst mounting the kerb and swore at us’

Think she sometimes forgets that these ‘events’ have witnesses or totally convinces herself that it actually happened 🙁

Sorry for the derail there. Things are just bubbling up as I type.

Parents of friends of her teen have said they’re concerned. One is a medical professional who is well versed in safeguarding and they have approached me to see if we’ve seen the girl.

The family aren’t engaging with any local homeschooling groups. The girl does online work (not from school as she’s been de registered) and seems to be in her room most of the day whilst the DP are with the younger 3.

I’m afraid without having any ‘normal’ outside influences their world will become scarily smaller to the extent it could really damage the DC.

I know how vital it is to have peers you can confide in and ‘safe’ adults you can go to when you’re growing up and, from what we know, the teen doesn’t have this.

I think the plan of action for us will be to get our DC to contact the teen again (after sporadic replies during lockdown the teen stopped communication) and try and arrange video calls or even see if they’ll have a socially distanced walk with us? Don’t think SS would be interested and it could totally fuck things up with the family.

Another local family with an equally vulnerable disabled DC tried to speak to them quite a while ago. Their DC and siblings have been going to school and no longer shielding but because, I believe, this did not mirror or support the shielding family’s choices they didn’t engage.

They must be so bloody scared.