Kids still feeling the effects of lockdowns…

[sloanedanger]

I just got caught reading a really interesting thread on Twitter started by a teacher:

“Is anyone else thinking we are starting to see the impact of 2 years of disruption and time at home, due to COVID 19, in schools? Extreme behaviours? Some pupils very emotional and struggling to regulate? Low attendance compared to normal? Winter bugs hitting hard?”

A lot of the comments say Y3 is the worst, others saying Years 7 and 8.

My DS is in Year 2 and often struggles with emotions and self regulation at school. It’s made me think, perhaps there’s a reason why linked to the pandemic. Lockdown was hard, DP and I were home with very young DC, trying to work, poor mental health, emotions high. Very little patience.

DS2 has just started reception, he was diagnosed with a speech and language delay before covid and possibly autism (diagnosis process stalled and shows no sign of restarting). His teacher reports that due to so many kids missing out socially during lockdown DS2s difficulties and behaviour don't actually stand out as they would have done a few years ago.

My yr3 DD loved the lock downs and thrived, despite missing a good chunk of reception and yr1 she is doing very well in school now. I attribute that to her general personality, resilience and a very supportive school.

DS1 however was in yr4 (now yr7), already an anxious child that struggled socially he became very miserable and emotional and has not bounced back. The middle school pushed the SATS last year relentlessly and the year group couldn't cope, lots of behaviour issues, immaturity, bullying etc. The worst thing was they gave out the results publicly in a ridiculous ceremony with all the parents watching. It was so awful seeing kids opening envelopes and sobbing while the parents were seated away from them. What that did to their mental health I dread to think.

This push just to get back to education, get results and gloss over what was missed is doing untold damage, I work in a high school and the behaviour issues are horrendous, so much time is taken up dealing with the fallout and feral kids that teaching is falling by the wayside and so many teachers want to quit that I can see there being a crisis is education soon.

YANBU it was a total disgrace of a policy to close schools. My kids are older but it’s only this school year they seem to be finally settled. My youngest has ASD and struggled as lockdowns and restrictions ruined his last year at primary and his transition to high school, his first two years at high school were awful. Who knows if he’ll fully catch up.

Of course education was sacrificed. I've had multiple second year students on a maths degree tell me that they never learned integration because it was the last topic in their A Level and so the teachers never covered it and focused on revision. It's fundamental calculus.

Parents use childcare to work, to pay the bills and feed the kids. Their jobs mean that the produce gets to the supermarket for you to buy it, that nurses' (pitiful) salaries are paid, court cases can go ahead, your bank account functions.

I have an only, now Y6, and during lockdown WFH doing the most hours I’ve ever done. Calls starting at 6am and until 10pm, with the idea of ‘flexibility’ to fit with homeschool but meant I was on the edge of a breakdown too as had no rest. Work also put people on furlough who are needed.

Fucking hideous, like it was for many parents. No family nearby and we didn’t break lockdown. We arranged some Zoom call ‘play dates’ but it was v hard seeing keyworkers children on screen, whilst I of course understand their circumstances.

School were ace as we are lucky to be a well funded state. Lots of nurture groups to support emotional well being and interaction as they went back in Y4 and Y5. We also paid for a tutor as they missed so much and that was causing issues as school expectation is still high since govt think catch up funding means everyone should be super achievers. It’s now a distant memory and everything is going v well - we are extremely lucky. Part of that is because I decided to quit my job 12+ months ago and focus on home as I could see the impact. Wonder why so many are economically inactive - thats one reason.

I can totally understand how children have been really badly impacted and for a variety of reasons have still not, and may never catch up. I am also a school governor and see/hear the effects on different children based on circumstances. The effects and costs of lockdown will be with us for so long. Those who were baying for it have a lot to answer for and I’m no BoJo fan but him holding out on the Omicron data is one of the most sensible decisions he made.

Whilst all that is true, we were not in a situation where we as a nation were confined to our own houses for the duration of the pandemic. We had various periods of varying levels of controls but the way people are carrying on you would think that we were all not allowed out of our houses for 6+ months at a time.

The govt provides nursery hours to get parents back to work and because some parents are pretty awful and fail to parent their children adequately so the state needs to step in. Peer socialisation can happen outwith a formal childcare setting in normal circumstances. There is no need for children to attend pre school in order for them to develop along typical milestones

My dd was year 7 when covid hit. I am eternally grateful she was this year group because she’d been through year 5/6 and wasn’t yet at exam stat, albeit I know some of her peers were and still are affected. Some, including dd, switched to private school post restrictions. Others are home schooling, including a couple I know of, who simply refused to return to school.

Dd didn’t miss out on ‘socialising’ too much. The first lockdown, she and I basically did the work together then when free, she’d be on house party calls with friends. In year 8, she was more independent and did her school work on FT with a friend. They mostly worked autonomously so the FT Was largely silence and just a presence. She had virtual ‘sleepovers’, where she and her friends would stay on FT all night, including when they fell asleep then chat the next morning. As soon as they were able, she was socialising. Summer 2020 was the year of eternal garden playdates. Lockdown 2, she went walking with a friend for 2/3 hours as soon as allowed in freezing conditions.

Dd also does a lot of activities and did zoom dance classes so was also in contact with those friends and when restrictions eased, she could do some of her classes in the garden with a local friend. We were very lucky with the summer in 2020 and all of these things kept her mental health good.

All of her peers in her new private school had virtual zoom lessons. Dd got a lot of lockdown work and ironically, this saved her education as she learned far more at home than at school but had the added bonus of still being in state school thus having friends close by when restrictions eased. There are gaps though. She learned hardly any science for example.

Dd has her own struggles and health issues btw, both with her own and my ailing health so the pandemic not affecting her is a silver lining.

I’m sorry so many children are still affected. Idk if any of strategies dd used will be of use to anyone, who is struggling now.

I found lockdown a lovely experience, especially the first one. We were both at home with the children and although working we would go out in the middle of the day for a lovely long walk. We look back on it as a happy time, I know I shouldnt say that but it was a happy bubble to be in 😬. We conceived our 3rd child during this time too 🤐, planned I'll add. Our children were reception and nursery age during the first wave, now y1 and y2, no ill effects. It hasn't impacted everyone negatively, we did bend over backwards to keep up with school work though so our kids didn't fall behind plus I think having a sibling close in age meant they didnt feel isolated.

That is literally proving my point, what you have illustrated is a failure of parenting not an inevitable result of lockdowns. Yes parenting became much much harder, but the onus is on the parent to mitigate the difficulty, not just transfer the difficulty onto the child.

I feel you so much on this one for losing your love for being a mum. Me and DD, who is three, both find the toddler groups completely overwhelming now whereas I loved them pre COVID. Everything is too loud for her and I struggle to process the number of people I see on the buses or in town. She went to nursery, luckily, but we never went anywhere together other than walks!

@JenniferBarkley There was a female doctor in South Africa trying to tell other countries Omicron was fairly mild for most people She was shouted down.

I wish I’d ignored the lot of it, pile of shite that it was.

Never again will the government tell me who I can and can’t have in my private dwellinghouse.

Not all of them @BestMammyEver there are still a couple of them around.

You have to consider that if we had not locked down and cancelled the summer term of 2020 that more teachers would be dead. All very well for small kids to go out into covid and be fine, but at that stage there was no vaccine and people of all ages were dying. My db is a teacher and caught covid after having 3 jabs. He almost died, ventilator in ICU. Now if he had caught it with no jabs in summer term 2020, he would most definitely be dead.

For all those kids that suffered in lockdown, many thrived. Many escaped bullying for example. Many worked hard independently. Many spent time with their family that they wouldn't have otherwise had - I know someone whose dh used to commute to London and stay the week every week. Kids hardly knew him until lockdown happened.

Most comparable european countries locked down. It was not unreasonable for us to lock down. People weren't vaccinated. Hindsight is a wonderful thing anyway!

And with hindsight isn't it wonderful that she was right, Omicron turned out to be the answer almost as much as the vaccines.

After multiple waves, if you were in a position of power and the decision of whether to close schools or otherwise lockdown rested in your hands, with a new strain that appeared to transmit more easily and that the vaccines weren't as successful at stopping - how much evidence that it was mild would have convinced you?

I don't think all the right decisions were made all the time, but I'm sympathetic to the fact that life couldn't carry on as normal and decisions did need to be made.

I'm must less sympathetic, and in fact furious, at the lack of effort to mitigate the longer term effects now that we're past the initial sort term uncertainty.

having a parent so arrogant and ignorant to spout such crap and with such little empathy or understanding of broader society is far more harmful in the ranking of parenting fails.

For all those kids that suffered in lockdown, many thrived.

Huge amounts of data would suggests that the vast majority did not.

Yes parenting became much much harder, but the onus is on the parent to mitigate the difficulty

i’d also really love to hear the genius ideas of how parents were supposed to mitigate the ‘difficulties’ of a national lockdown?

@trumpet50

"
That is literally proving my point, what you have illustrated is a failure of parenting not an inevitable result of lockdowns. Yes parenting became much much harder, but the onus is on the parent to mitigate the difficulty, not just transfer the difficulty onto the child."

+++

Hmm OK let's look at the example in my post.
Why was the child at home in the first place? Well that would be because there was a lockdown.
Why was the mum working from home and not in the office?Well that would be because there was a lockdown?

This is not an example of a failure of parenting but a result of a lockdown policy that placed a mum in a situation she would otherwise have not been in and in which she tried to the best of her abilities to balance the need to keep her job and look after her children.

Not all families had the same experience.

Flats vs houses with large gardens
Parents on furlough vs parents trying to wfh vs parents working outside the home
Only children vs siblings close in age
Friends and family close by vs isolated
Online lessons vs virtually no input from school

Its no wonder that some kids suffered more while others thrived.

@trumpet50 I'm presuming you are on a wind up. No one can be that stupid to believe children can have healthy development without any peer interaction.

Although it always baffled me how these lockdowns passed so easily with parents and maybe it's because there are many more Trumpet50's lurking amongst us than I dared to believe

It's heartbreaking to hear of all the impact this has had on children. Not surprising in any way, but nevertheless still heart breaking

My dd is the same! She was 10 months old when lockdown started and we were just beginning to thrive, with me adjusting to motherhood, the routine of groups, and her learning to walk. I'm so sad for who she was when she was a baby compared to now. She used to shout at people across the street as a baby and go up to kids in the park to play as a one year old (before too many months of lockdown had happened), and now she's selective mute and doesn't know how to get children to play with her.

Primary and younger do not socialist via phones. They had nothing to talk about, nothing to say.

I bought my then 9yo an Xbox so he could play and chat with pals. It was horrific he was shuffling food around on his plate. The signs of depression were kicking in.

My then 3yo didn't appear to suffer but his speech is very poor for his age.

Some children with furloughed parents it was all a great big holiday. Out bike rides in their sweet wee family bubble.

For others it was the telly in the corner. Wall to wall cartoons while mum and dad were trying to work from home.

As for shite about WW2 kids coped, well actually most of them were still at home going to school and nursery.

They didn't have a telly in the corner spouting how many people died that day.

However those who were evacuated will have very different experiences and some will have been left with long term issues even if it was never officially recognised.

The rules on who/ how many/ where you could meet up were very restrictive for the vast part of 12 months and pretty much all of it if you were in Leicester, with Manchester then Birmingham not far behind.

If your family weren't local, friends bubbled up with their local families and the people you knew were strict about following the rules (and many people went beyond the minimum) then there wasn't the company to meet up with.

I took my children out as much as I could. We walked (and walked and walked), we climbed into empty playgrounds, we went to zoos and as many outdoor attractions as we could in the window when they reopened, but we couldn't force other people to change their priorities to socialise.

In autumn 2020 it was legal to meet friends from 5 households in the pub to go for a drink as a group of 6... but it was illegal for 2 families of 4 to meet up with each other for a walk. Which was the higher Covid risk? Who did the laws prioritise?
Playgrounds legally opened on 4th July with the pubs. Many remained shut far longer as land owners and insurance companies sweated over details of social distancing and cleaning... even though they were outdoors where the virus rapidly degrades and used by a low-risk demographic. The whole playgrounds opening bit was a last minute afterthought in the first place because there was an outcry that pubs were going to open first.

For various reasons, many childrens activities were out of action for prolonged periods. Junior parkrun 13m (5k parkrun 16m) volunteer groups often didn't reopen until Easter 2021 for outdoors activities, September 2021 to function normally. Life stopped, and started and stopped repeatedly. It was a very unstable time and routines were repeatedly broken sometimes within weeks such as Nov 20/Dec 20/Jan 21. It's only really since spring this year, after 2 years that many schools are operating normally again including plays, sports days, fetes, parents evenings.

That's a huge chunk of time in childhood.

Blaming the parents is so Spring 2020 along with "flocking", "flouting", "selfish" and "granny-killer"

Ah, this again - the elderly that supposedly want to sacrifice themselves for the children. This was trotted out so many times in defence of the worst arguments by those who simply didn't want to do what the Government asked them to do.

And it isn't just elderly people that die of Covid. You know this. Teachers can also become very ill and, yes, die. My 50yo sibling with cancer currently has Covid, is extremely ill and I'm really just waiting for a call. I'm sick of the silly minimising rhetoric here.