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.

The specific reason you're so hilariously, lane ignoringly arrogant is because you felt yourself qualified to tell other people they need to look at their behaviour. I haven't done that, as such your no I'm not you are response, predictable as it was, falls flat.

Meanwhile, I note with interest that you've not told us how the existence of this group, if we assume for a moment that they do, is in any way related to your high and mighty order that parents who are angry about their DC being on the wrong side of the January 2021 school entitlement rules need to have a look at themselves. Because there's no nexus between the two, that's clear, but I'm going to make very sure it's spelled out for those reading.

A friends son went into year7 this past September and the head of year remarked that the children are much ‘younger’ mentally than previous years. She said when you watched them on the yard it’s like they were two years younger - which I suppose, they are really.

I feel like we got off quite lightly.

Both my children were off school from end of March, April and May, but were back at nursery from June. They havent had an overly interrupted education and we refused to test our DD, so they went in to nursery regardless.

We moved in with my parents (my parents accepted added risk) during lockdown and I was luckily on maternity leave. We were the annoying people taking our children to every shop to socialise them, and were the first in the restaurants when they opened, and the last to leave when they closed. We saw friends throughout both lockdowns and accepted the ability to interact with other children and adults outweighed the risk of Covid.

Looking back now, I am so grateful we ignored lockdown measures. I will be forever thankful for that.

I only remember seeing it right at the start, in March 2020 when we didn't know how long it was going to carry on. I think at that stage thinking a month or two of taking the eye off the educational ball wouldn't be the worst thing was an understandable view. (Mine weren't school aged.)

Yes, especially as the curriculum had been suspended at that time. It's not like anyone consented in advance to schools are shutting for most of the next year for the majority of them, and I doubt most people made plans on that basis.

The real inequality in respect of schools kicked in during the 2021 lockdown. Although at least in England we did have nurseries open that time, which was something.

@TempsPerdu you were lucky that she was young you were a SAHM and avoided any Ill effects. And never clearly had to stay in for 10 days

i stand by though the biggest issue for older children was the uncertainly- no one (not even Chris Whitt/JVT etc) had the answers of knowing how long it was going to last - and the effects of that are huge. And the stop start nature each time a new variant appeared and the calls for lockdown

a year ago Omicron was about to properly hit - so many of us had holiday plans including going abroad that one minute was looking ok with testing and then suddenly all hell broke loose. A good friend was due to visit grandparents in South Africa looking forward to it and the bam it’s on the red list

and the testing processes we made secondary school children go through

@TempsPerdu

This fits with what I have seen.

Pre Covid you would have those children that were fully resilient and never wobbled from anxiety issues performed well academically etc etc. Then you those children with issues who under performed academically and had a wobble every day. But the majority were somewhere in between with maybe an anxiety wobble once a week or so and whilst not academic star archives were doing OK.

What I now see is more extremes - there are those that seem to have no issues at all and do well with school work and those that do have anxiety issues etc who significantly underperform academic wise but what I do now see is much fewer children in between these two extremes.

Throw in to the mix a cost of living crisis and it's sad to say but most of the children that are struggling are from poorer backgrounds which then creates a really uncomfortable divide.

And my year 9 missed a whole lot of practical curriculum in Year 7 (and other years) when classes were just in classrooms and labs/art rooms were shut. It just wasn’t the same - various key events through out the year were missed. Some have never got to do a nativity play

What we are seeing is what happens when parents aren't able to outsource all their parenting to the state

I'm not a parent so have been lurking but what a load of horseshit. Parents do not 'outsource all their parenting to the state' - for the majority of parents (those who don't homeschool) having the state educate their children is a legal requirement. The state demands that children attend school - and then in March 2020 the state promptly abnegated that authority with little to no warning and threw parents back on their own devices without any thought as to whether they could manage the job.

I was thinking this today, the kids at DCs school are so glum compared to children in years gone by. At drop off many of them stand close to thier parents instead of getting a bit of play time in before school.

I think the social isolation, coupled with the amount of screen time children had over lockdown has made them forget how to be kids.

I was not popular with the school when they reopened the school nursery, they begged parents to sign a document saying they weren't going to send thier DCs in unless they are key workers. I refused as I believed going back was in DS's first interests, especially given that he is a summer born and many of the key worker children were autumn borns. I'm so glad I sent him back as he has coped better at starting school than many of his peers.

We had pretty much exactly the same discussion this week on this same observation.

@PorridgewithQuark we will do our best and hopefully we will get there. DS is a chilled out and smart kid. He is emotionally mature in some ways though immature in others. He has always been very matter of fact about covid rather than anxious about it. And he has always been pretty sociable and thats not changed.

Its frustrating that we've spent this term firefighting DS's behaviour to a large degree though. He's been copying the poor behaviour of other kids (to the point that we can identify which kids he's copying!) and we've had to make sure he knows it's absolutely not OK. This is normal to a degree for his age but the behaviours are more extreme. We are finding we have to be on him constantly over it and have masses of sympathy with the teacher. She's been brilliant but she's definitely been thrown in the deep end with this lot.

I think this element of poor behaviour having secondary effects on others further down the line is being massively overlooked because its easier to understand the covid effect and the direct impact.

To use an example: Last week DS came home saying that they were doing a catch up test in class and the out of control kid kicked off for over 30 mins shouting and screaming about how he wasn't going to do it and how he would deliberately get all the questions wrong. And he started being aggressive and violent to the staff. It's managable to a degree at this point as this kid is 7 and small. But these type of incidents are happening on a regular basis and there is no sign of it being under control. I just don't know what will happen - we and another parent are very fearful that there will be a major incident at some point as this kid has attacked our kids already. I just don't see how he makes it to the end of year 6. The other kid who this child has attacked was also reasonably well adjusted and doing fine post lockdown but is now starting to school refuse because this aggressive child dominates the class so much and creates stress on top of actually hurting other kids.

This year is proving hard work. For us having an only child actually works to his favour at this point as we don't have multiple kids we are helping to cope with the aftermath of covid. We can just focus on parenting him and gently explaining that certain children aren't that nice and hanging out with them might not be a good idea.

Of course similar situation with a different child or at a different age could go a totally different way. The peer pressure particularly at high school to not behave must be a factor in this too.

I personally think that the government did the right thing with lockdowns to a point. If it had come out that the death rate in kids was high, this would be a totally different conversation. We didn't know that for some time and we didn't know what would happen with a second wave (as traditionally second waves have been more deadly in pandemics). Plus the government were having to tackle the very noisy teachers unions who were pitching a fit.

There was a tipping point where it was clear that it was having an impact though. The justifications on schools definitely became a lot weaker as vaccines became available and the data showed kids were mostly fine with covid.

I remember that even some of the prudent and sensible people who were looking at the data got a load of shit particularly from teachers and the long covid mob. One poster I had a lot of time for got driven off mn by it.

The issue was there was no mood for change in attitude and a revised thinking mid way through things. You almost had to be pro massively lockdown or hardcore open everything up. Neither of which was sensible tbh. There was a more moderate approach and its hard to remember some of these voices and the pressures the government was trying to balance.

Unfortunately I do think if the teachers had been pushed more to return sooner, there would have been legal challenges and strikes over it (which would have had an impact on key services at a crucial moment too).

What hasn't happened has been a real materialisation and on going conversation in political circles about the impact on schools. Its not being prioritised and its not getting the attention it deserves. Because we've been almost overrun with the next crisis. Which has only served to compound issues in school.

I worry for my son's education as a result. I don't know that there is a better alternative out there - including if we go private. The problem is so engrained across society because the system has been overwhelmed.

One of my kids was GCSE year. He had constant migraines from the time his place of learning shut down and felt like every piece of homework was going towards his final grade. So much pressure. He had friends who became suicidal and trauma from only being able to support them online and not knowing if they would be there the next morning. He's doing ok now but it was rocky.

My middle one was of an age where he was starting to want to and be able to do things with friends independently. Suddenly having our vibrant, active, sociable home ed routine shut down at this time was hideous. He went into lockdowns just going into his teens and came out having missed all that time of forming independence. He's now dealing with the aftermath and trying to do GCSEs. We've had a horrid couple of years of worry about him and that is ongoing.

My youngest was more unscathed but we had some like minded families who would meet up as soon as the govt remembered not all children go to school. The law provided that they could meet up for educational activities, but woe betide we got them together because they needed to socialise. We're a creative lot and managed it in people's homes, which was tricky because we also had lost teenagers who'd become noise sensitive and other adults trying to work from home. According to guidance, we were supposed to have risk assessments and all sorts in place, which we adhered to in case of neighbours reporting us. The optics of groups of home educating mothers and children in parks when everyone else could meet in 2's or sixes would have been terrible, so it has to be indoors and increase the likelihood of spreading the thing... Worrying still we knew from early on that the police had not aquatinted themselves with the law and people were doing what the TV told them, rather than checking what the actual law was.
For the other judge home educator - for various reasons we had to weigh up the detriment to our children of being approached by the police vs them legally being able to see each other.

This is simply factually incorrect. The state does not demand that children attend school. It requires they receive an education, how this is delivered is left up to parents.

@SirMingeALot

Interesting value judgement there about sacrificing themselves, in response to a post that was actually about elderly people who wanted to see their loved ones, ie having their own automomy and feelings that didn't align with yours. My grandad didn't think he was sacrificing himself by wanting to spend what might easily have been the end of his life (he's 91) with his loved ones.

I was referring to sentiments often mentioned on Covid threads regarding the shielding of the elderly (or not). When people in their mid sixties started being referred to that's when I decided it was perhaps getting a bit out of control.

Thanks also for your kind thoughts on my relative, or lack thereof.

I would say the biggest factor was that you were a SAHM. Lots of us knew what our kids needed (even without a child development masters), but being able to always do what was best for them - all the time - was sometimes limited

@EndlessRain I get that. I recognise that I was in an unusually privilege position, and I feel angry on behalf of all those who understood this but were powerless to do anything about it. I was on here debating about lockdowns at the time and saw a lot of the abuse that was hurled at anyone daring to question the treatment of children - I came in for my fair share.

But I don’t agree that the majority of parents were alert to the damage that was being done; the majority of our circle, including some other SAHPs and many who were furloughed, absolutely bought into the ‘resilience’ rubbish, kept every guideline to the letter (or even went beyond in some cases, putting their DC in masks; avoiding public spaces even beyond lockdown etc), had their preschoolers using screens all day because they believed this was fine etc. So many believed their children would just ‘catch up’ later, and are now expressing surprise that they now have issues around various things. It was useful just to know, for instance, that there are relatively brief developmental windows for specific skills that once missed are difficult to make up, so we were able to make the most of the opportunities we did have to socialise DD.

Of course, the main target of any anger must be the government and decision makers who formulated the guidelines, but I do think that that there is a general lack of general awareness around ‘how children and young people tick’ that they were able to exploit - hence all the rubbish around resilience/adaptability/bouncing back that so many bought into unquestioningly.

This is simply factually incorrect. The state does not demand that children attend school. It requires they receive an education, how this is delivered is left up to parents

Really? so why fines for non-attendance, then? serious question, like I said, I'm not a parent.

I find it so strange that for nearly a year we were locked in our homes (at times couldn’t even sit on a bench in the park without apparently breaking the law) and it like, has been mostly forgotten about?
we couldn’t leave the house more than once a day

what the hell was that?

My Ds for the first time in his life actually started getting a bit chubby...he was year 7 in the first lockdown. Walking to school, PE lessons and playing football three times a week kept him fit. He had never been overweight. During lockdown we did our daily walk and I played table tennis with him at home but it was no substitute for the organised sports he had previously enjoyed. We were also spending lots of time baking and cooking as there wasn't so much to do.. Now life is back to normal, he's a healthy weight again.

And never clearly had to stay in for 10 days

@Tiswa We did - we just didn’t do it. We took DD to a remote country park at a time when we knew it would be quiet and let her run around. No way was I keeping a two-year-old cooped up entirely for ten days.

Yes, it was clear what you were referring to. You decided to leave out those elderly people whose own autonomy and views of their interests didn't align with yours, which is the problem. I wouldn't call someone in their 60s elderly myself, but people in that cohort had their own views on what constituted their interests and what amounted to sacrifices too and you don't get to decide what was a sacrifice for them and what wasn't. The whole point is that people had their own views on that.

Thank you also for your kind thoughts on my relative, or lack thereof.

There was such a lack of imagination too

I thought this was a real opportunity for thinking outside the box. I imagined I'd see schools adopt a more forest school scenario. I expected them to be able to borrow marquees and shelters. Of course that costs money - which I don't think was forthcoming. Instead we had bubbles and kids never knowing if they'd be in school or not the next day.

In general, I also expected to see more outdoor dining, but with the tier system, cafes couldn't risk spending money on those sort of resources in case they were told they had to shut down yet again.

Well I had my preschooler on screens all day sometimes because I was working. Did I think it was fine? No, of course not. I don't need a masters in child development to tell me that. I doubt your "friends" thought that it was perfectly ok either, but for whatever reason they did what they needed to cope.

"So many believed their children would just ‘catch up’ later,"

Yeah and why wouldn't they? That's, literally, what we were being told. That there would be lots of investment into schools to allow kids to catch up. I don't think you can blame people for (1) following the rules and (2) taking expert guindance as fact. People were not allowed to socialise. How do you expect they were to take advantage of that short socialisation window? Lots of people were desperate for social contact (for many reasons other than child development), but couldnt' and didn't have it because those were the rules.

My three are currently in years 11,9, and 5. Reading this thread, I think they definitely didn't have it as bad as so many but I can still see lasting effects.

My year 11 is doing well at school but never goes out to socialise. At his age, I lived for going places with my friends, I was hardly home. He goes to school, the gym and then home. Doesn't go anywhere at weekends. I think his friends are the same.

My current year 9 dd had it the worst of my DC, missing all the year 6 milestones and just dropped into high school. This is her third year of high school and she's had a different form every year. She makes friends then in the next school year she is put into a different form/ classes and never sees the old friends again as it's a big school. She's had three groups of friends already in high school. And I don't think she's really found true friends yet. She's not really bothered about seeing friends outside of school either. She spends too much time alone her room- a habit which started during covid.

Another thing that really took a toll on my DC is that even when they went back to school, they were constantly sent home for two weeks isolation due to exposure. Dd had 7 bouts of isolation in year 7. She still has never had covid.

Lastly, my youngest now in year 5. The hardest for him was when key worker kids were allowed back to school and he wasn't. 15/22 children from his class were in school. It was gut wrenching watching him counting down everyday until it was time for his 20 minutes zoom call with his class which he looked forward to so much. But it was so short and seeing all his friends at school together while he was home was really hard for him. I never knew if I should stop the zoom calls because it would have been easier for him mentally to not think about his friends together without him. His friendships suffered and he is often in the periphery of groups in class. He hasn't got any strong friendships now.

I also look at children around me, anyone who was on the cusp of a change has struggled.

Absolutely. I currently (last decade) work in primary sector and there are issues with kids just starting reception this year (toddlers in lockdown), year 2 (first years of school in lockdown) right up to my own children who are secondary. My eldest missed the primary to secondary transition. The impact has been profound across the board, but in different ways. Every child 'lost' a stage.

Because once you sign up to school you have effectively delegated that responsibility to the school and there are rules around that, however any parent at any time including during covid can withdraw their child from school and elect to educate them themselves.