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.

I'm noting all the "teachers should" "schools could"

You know, we could only do what we were told to do.

I felt very sorry for all those headteachers having to come up with new plans with sometimes only a few hours to spare. The governance in this pandemic was shockingly shit.

My children are home educated anyway. During lockdown I stopped all formal lesson, we played games, did art and crafts, watched lots of TV and never talked about COVID only to say that we were helping old people stay healthy. When they started getting lonely I started breaking the rules with like minded families. It's not COVID that has damaged the kids it's your response and school system.

My issue is that while vulnerable and disadvantaged families and children were disproportionately disadvantaged, a whole bunch of people who do not fall into that category are absolutely absolving themselves of any responsibility for not having kept talking to their small children, kept their school children in a routine of getting up on time, getting dressed, doing school work, going out for an hour's walk etc. and so many parents talked so much in front of their impressionable children and teens about how everything was so unfair and impossible and all somebody else's fault, that the negative impact has been vastly greater than necessary.

This is a sufficiently idiotic take that the only appropriate response to you telling people they need to do some serious reflection is derisory laughter @PorridgewithQuark.

Good for you @Grimed that you broke lockdown 🤔 I personally don’t care that you did but to suggest everyone should have done that and there were lots of other like minded families nearby who wanted to and that’s why your children are fine is either stupid or disingenuous.

Yes, speaking as someone who also did a lot of lockdown breaking with like minded loved ones, I think it's important those of us who were in a position to do that recognise that there was luck involved there. There are people who didn't have any access to that kind of setup and/or whose neighbours would've grassed.

I can relate to this. My youngest child was in the transition year from primary to secondary in 2020, my oldest left school for uni in 2021.

They have missed out on so many events to mark the transition and it's been challenging for them. Things are improving now but my eldest, who was at home all last year sitting in his bedroom watching online lectures was very low and depressed and we were so worried about his mental health. So many more children in their peers groups who are anxious and with eating disorders.

Children were completely thrown under the bus for Covid which was never anything more than a very minor disease for almost all of them. Plus all the stuff on social media about groups of teenagers "flocking" places to play football or just get some social time with their friends.

How did we wartime children cope? I had disruption in Y2 when we were evacuated; we had to shelter in school during air-raids; time at home after school was bombed, then taught in a church hall with no desks where we knelt on the floor and rested our books on chairs. We survived, grew up, got married, had children, had careers. We are your grandparents.

If you genuinely were in year 2 (not that this existed) in 1940 then you are now around 85. Amazing that you’ve managed to get to the age you have with such a narrow minded view of life.

You survived, grew up and got married. Not sure how you managed to have a career as well unless you are a man, that was very lucky. But the people who didn’t survive as well didn’t survive but I guess you’ve forgotten about them.

This is one of the arguments that makes me most angry if I’m honest and it was at the time. People in the war weren’t stronger or saintly, they bent the rules, carried makeup around in their gas mask boxes, looted, got drunk and fought. She’ll shock was a major problem that killed many in the long term from the horrific experiences.

You are right and I am being cruel. It's just so utterly heartbreaking to hear all these stories. I wish more people would have told Boris to do one.

That's your opinion, and in my opinion it's incorrect.

There's a balance between the angry at the world, nothing can possibly be my responsibility attitude displayed on this thread, and recognising that many, many government level decisions during the pandemic were poor.

It's absolutely clear however that children and teens outcomes were as influenced by their parents' attitudes and response during the pandemic as by public policy. The expectations of schools seem to imply a belief on the part of some posters that teachers live in the stationery cupboard and didn't also have to deal with the pandemic outside school, with their own children to support.

The whole rhetoric of it being up to the vulnerable to shield is deliberately obtuse - the vulnerable doesn't just mean elderly people, but a whole lot of working age people with learning disabilities and severe mental illness.

I felt very sorry for all those headteachers having to come up with new plans with sometimes only a few hours to spare. The governance in this pandemic was shockingly shit.

I felt a lot more sorry for the children and still do. Some head teachers seemed to manage it reasonably well and some (dd2’s) were appallingly bad.

I can’t believe this has turned around to ‘the poor teachers’. Get over yourselves.

Blimey - members of the ‘it wasn’t lockdown, it was your terrible parenting ‘ brigade in the wild! I thought they’d all disappeared back into the woodwork after December 2021.

It wasn’t my parenting that made my DD (age 4-6 during the various lockdowns/restrictions) anxious, tearful, volatile, clingy and unwilling to engage with online learning. It was that fact that overnight her world was upended and virtually everything she enjoyed was removed. It was illegal for her to meet a single other child in public for months, and nothing I could do as a parent could mitigate the impact of that. Of course I played with her endlessly, read to her, set up zoom calls with her friends and family, did my best to engage her with the online schoolwork, but none of that made up for the fact that she was denied any in-person interaction with other children for months on end, or that her nice safe routine and fun activities were suddenly taken away, to be replaced by uncertainty and endlessly shifting ‘rules’. Of course all that had a bloody impact on her mental health.

One issue with that is your still exposing the teacher to 30 odd kids.

I do think back in 2020 when we knew so little it made sense to close schools, just about every country in the western world did at that point.

But that first lockdown few schools had any live interaction, no zoom, no teams, no Google meets. We kept getting all sorts of excuses, data protection, safe guarding, etc.

The second lockdown our school at least managed 45mins of Google meets a day.

My then nursery aged child still got nothing.

The way things opened back up was unfair too sports were allowed but Scouts and Guides etc weren't.

Yes, but given what you've already come out with, your opinions simply aren't of sufficient value to deserve anything other than laughter at your arrogance when you lecture other people about having a look at themselves.

Addressing the substance of what you write here, it is not 'absolutely clear'. It's a thing you have claimed. Let's take your argument at very highest and assume for the sake of convenience that it's correct: these parents were existing in the context of a governmental lockdown policy that had deliberate stoking of fear in the population right at the core and that treated societal networks as something that can be turned on and off. If you're going to pursue a blame game, that needs to be addressed.

You've also failed to explain why exactly the group you were demonising in your last post are so determinative that they amount to a reason why people critical of school keyworker place policies need to take them into account. Which is because it's tenuous bollocks, obviously, but worth spelling that out.

It's not mutually exclusive. Read the many posts I've made this thread about the detrimental impact on children if you're labouring under that delusion.

My DC are yr 3 and yr 7 and they are fine as are most of their friends. The ones who have struggled in my experience have parents who have also struggled and the anxiety or isolation issues have rubbed off on them. Again, this is just my observations of those around me, I understand others have different experiences.

Well done, have a 🏆. As it goes mine seem okay too, but there is evidence plus accounts from professionals that say otherwise. Not all children are as lucky as yours.

Also if the anxiety of the parents were made worse by lockdown, that is a direct lockdown effect surely?

One issue with that is your still exposing the teacher to 30 odd kids.

Education is not a nice to have, it is a human right.

To close schools early for Easter was sensible, but a plan should have been put into place to get ALL kids back in at least part time asap. Instead most children did not return until the autumn.

I live in Glasgow and it was awful. Our schools closed 23 March 2020 and didn't open again until August 2020. Then we were out again from about 18th December 2020 to mid-April 2021. Until the end of summer term 2022 there were no trips, concerts, events in school. Soft plays were shafted by the government and couldn't open for so long. We had all the nonsense about not crossing your county border for non-essential reasons.

In response to @trumpet50 , my kids don't need as much "looking after" as my youngest was almost 12 when lockdown hit. They did not need me constantly sitting with them teaching them maths or checking their spelling. Which I couldn't have done anyway as I was working at home to pay the bills. Teenagers though don't wan't to play on the swings in the park (which was banned), they want to be in each other's houses gossiping, watching netflix, eating pizza. Or going into town to mooch around the shops, have a Nando's or go to Starbucks. All of which was banned. My daughter's friend used to come over to see her and DD would sit on the kerb at one side of the street and her friend on the other. Heartbreaking. Teenagers need their peer group and in the second Dec 2020 - April 2021 lockdown we had no hesitation in allowing them to break the rules. Meeting outside for a socially distanced walk wasn't an option as it was freezing cold and wet. So we allowed friends in the house to see the kids, it did them the power of good and I do not regret my decisions one little bit.

Yes it was tough for parents of little kids who needed their constant attention and who were trying to homeschool and work. But it was also tough for older children in a very different way.

There is definitely an element of 'never told no kids' going on.

Yr3 were in reception when the first lockdown happened. I know most of the kids from nursery and that first term as I helped out a lot.

I could tell you the kids who had parents who didn't say no even back then. And they are the ones that are having most problems now.

I don't think you can dismiss the idea that lack of parenting, and the gap that school provide in that, isn't relevant because it is massively. As is parental attitude to lockdown and how the kids picked up on it.

Its also not about only children having a worse time. DS is an only and was absolutely fine with lockdowns. We could have sent him back to school in the June but he was doing fine and the uncertainty of things meant we decided to slog it out til the September. I think about mid Aug he started to get grumpy but thats about it.

As a family lockdown didn't really bother us at all though. We had regular zooms and living in a small community you could not walk to the shops without bumping into someone. We would have conversations across the road fairly regularly.

When things normalised last years we were frustrated by school as they had a teacher who went on maternity and then they had a newly qualified teacher as cover. She was lovely but fucking useless. We felt throughout last year she basically ignored DS and because he was one of the few doing well and behaving, she dumped the kid (who ht thinks has too many issues to be in mainstream education) on him. And thats when we've started to have issues.

DS's own needs were completely missed (we had always thought he was likely to have them because of a family history) and he was used by the teacher as a means to deal with the class because she wasn't coping.

That makes me really fucking angry. It's definitely the knock on effects rather than the direct effects that are impacting us now.

Its the behaviour of other children that's problematic. DS has largely been caught in the middle of it all and has a mature attitude to some of it but is also utterly bewildered by the behaviour of some of the other kids too.

We've been told by school that yes he spent last year 'coasting' which is what we had suspected but hadn't said because we thought it was fruitless to raise with previous teacher. It's frustrating in the extreme.

New teacher this year is having to not only deal with poor behaviour of other kids but also the mess the previous teacher created.

We had to tell new teacher about a number of issues with another child, including stuff he's said that firmly raise red flags. And she's now trying to deal with that and the mess of the previous teacher.

As part of that we've had to point out that DS got put in a position dealing with other children's behaviour that the adults in the room couldn't cope with and how they struggled to deal with. New teacher has completely agreed.

So i think SEN kids ended up behind and not diagnosed and lost out a lot and there were a bunch of kids who just weren't parented. Then there were more kids who were fine than this thread acknowledges. But of this last group I do believe many were subsequently thrown under the bus by the lack of adequate support given to schools to cope with the former two groups. I think a lot of anxiety in kids now is actually more likely the product of being exposed to the extreme behaviour of a minority of kids post lockdown and not actually lockdown itself.

DS is doing OK. We have to catch up on the damage from last year, and work out a way to manage his ADHD needs without support from school as he's low priority and we can't end go private without cooperation from school. He's socially and academically fine but is going to have problems further down the line.

I think its complex - it's not simply lockdown and isolation that's the issue. Parenting definitely is a factor and I think teaching being over whelmed is another. Then there is the lack of support for those who need. It's the needs NOW not being met which are as damaging as the previous 3 years though which I think is being massively overlooked though.

If your kids is 'ok' then they are going to get ignored because of all the other drama going on. And i think eventually a fair number of the 'okay children' will suffer too because no one has got time to even notice them.

I was ridiculously aware of the implications of lockdown on DC and so prioritised keeping their life normal and happy as much as I possibly could, they were 8,6 & 5. I told them it was all a big fuss over nothing. Which is what I half believed at the time but obviously wasn’t sure but i didn’t want them worrying about it. It damaged my relationships with friends and family (by no means all, but some) as I wouldn’t wear a mask, didn’t want people around us in masks, eschewed the one walk a day rule, climbed over railings into playgrounds, never once allowed nasty chemical hand sanitiser on my children. And never ever allowed them for one moment to absorb the evil message they might cause harm to others simply by breathing or existing. We of course, respected people’s personal space and beliefs by distancing from them
etc, but that was it.
This isn’t meant to sound smug at all, we were still negatively impacted, particularly financially and we are still only scraping by. We also missed out on all kinds of cherished plans and experiences. I also had my youngest DD in lockdown one which was narrowing and I cannot even speak of it.
I have had painful experiences previously with putting other priorities/agendas etc over my own family and I learnt the hard way so when it came to covid I was well prepared in that way - nothing comes before my families well being. My children’s mental health, happiness and well-being is excellent but some of their friends are still in a bad way and suffering greatly.

I hope parents will learn from this and protect their children from the constant hysteria and doom. For example climate change! We do everything we can to reduce our impact as a family, we are extremely eco conscious but I tell my kids that the planet is in no danger, that it’s all mostly hysterical nonsense, just like the virus. I bring them up so that environmentally friendly lifestyle is normal and second nature, but I won’t have them worrying about the state of the world. It’s despicable the way this agenda is pushed on to children. One of my daughters friends (aged 8) was worrying about how to address her non binary classmate in after school
club and agonising over if she’d be in trouble for getting it wrong. I tell my kids it’s all nonsense so they don’t even think about it. People are too worried about being seen as a good person, but it’s our responsibility to block out a lot of the adult world for children, to protect them from all the noise and keep their world simple and calm.

It doesn't matter how much attention I gave DDs... I wasn't their friends. I wasn't the school playground, or a birthday party, or Cubs/Beavers. I wasn't their swimming lesson, or a school trip. I was just their parent.

That sums it up, doesn't it. Children of whatever age don't just need their parents/siblings. They need their friends and social network and that was all taken away suddenly and they didn't get it back for months.

It's hardly surprising that we're seeing the effects.

I didn't have that set up. The few people I know locally had their noses to the grindstone as key workers.

The neighbours had a bubble with their local family. By June 2020 when we could hear the neighbours in their family bubble on one side, and the sound of children playing from our school's fields on the other side, DS2 stopped playing in the garden.

I don't begrudge that some children got places in school- they and their families needed it. I begrudge that the rules and impact were so unequal if your social circumstances didn't meet certain criteria. School certainly wasn't business as usual, but at least there was some interraction with peers. There was no legal way to match that if you weren't granted a school place.

By the winter lockdown, I'd worked out that DS1's friend's parents were amenable to law breaking by supervising two children playing in the park. At the same time, half the class were 200m away and legally allowed to be together in an indoor space. There was no legal way for a child aged 5+ and requiring supervision to meet another child of their age. I broke petty, meaningless rules and guidence from early on, but I couldn't make other people do that with me. I could only manage my own behaviour. I did the best I could with the knowledge I've had and have done a decent job of minimising the consequences.

DS1 (ASD) was most anxious before things got going and we cut media exposure for him and played things down a lot, probably why we didn't fall deeply into the fear of the virus and paid attention to pragmatic details rather than hyperbole. He's the one that's emerged less scathed because social interaction means less to him. His brother struggled more because he needs peers more and he was younger and less socially matured

Those rules were imposed by people who weren't living the reality of them and broke many of them anyway.

I quickly realised that I wasn't afraid of the virus, it was society that was the problem; living in a notoriously over-zealous Constabulary and while I could just about cope with the vitriol for my stance anonymously online, I did not want to rouse that in person with people I have to live around for years to come.

Oh the irony of you calling my post arrogant! Yours mixes arrogance and acerbity with wooly accusations to too great an extent to be worth unpicking. We'll agree to differ.

Parenting and parental attitudes did play a role. Some families genuinely couldn't cope, others who could publicly declared their intention not to even try to homeschool or keep their kids in a school day routine all over social media and internet forums, and are now claiming that it's not their fault their children fell behind.

The other issue i think people are underestimating is when schools went back properly, so the academic year 2021-2022 was a full year, they were far from normal because there was still lots of kids off with covid and teachers off.
It was obviously hugely better than being at home as there was still lots of socialising, particularly outside of school. But in terms of education it was crap. There was no continuity. My son had so many cover lessons where teachers were ill. And at any given point several of his class were off so getting the class to progress was a nightmare. Plus all that testing and worrying you wil be stuck in and miss something. I dont think people realise the education challenges of that time as we were all just so relieved they were in school.