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.

Our HT has said that year 3 (my child) have been hit hardest. They had only done 1.5terms of reception before being booted out in March 2020, then missed half of year 1 as well, so the foundations that should have been in place have been completely missed. They've had to work even harder in year 2 and now in year 3 to catch up, but because those essential building blocks were missed, it's like playing a game of snakes and ladders - for every 2 steps forward, its a giant step back.

My child had speech therapy over zoom (which didn't fucking work) and she also had hearing issues, so she was already starting from a place far behind. She's a year behind where she should be in core subjects like maths and English. It now turns out that she has dyslexia and there is a HUGE link between kids needing speech therapy and dyslexia.

I paid for her to have a private screening test to confirm the dyslexia. It's genuinely terrifying to see that the projections are that younger children needing SLT has increased by 10% because these kids have spent their entire lives surrounded by masks/lockdowns and haven't been able to develop their language skills. There's absolutely no wiggle room in the education system for schools to have extra funding to support the growing numbers of children who will be statistically likely to have dyslexia, so this impact will be felt for an entire generation.

I've actually written to my lazy MP about it. Didn't even get a response.

👏

It was never a law in England that we couldn't leave the house more than once per day and there was never a time limit. These were made up rules that politicians spoke about, that were then repeated on TV and the press and everyone believed to be true.

This, for me was one of the upsetting things, that people accepted an even more draconion set of rules than obliged to Including police forces in some areas. It was horrifying that they were in charge of upholding a law they hadn't bothered to acquaint themselves with.

When Boris Johnson first announced that we could meet one other person for exercise, I thought how strange they've made such a fanfare of it. There was always provision for that in the original covid legislation and actually the for exercise was again Boris's spin, it wasn't the wording.

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 Ds is in year 10 now. He's exactly the same. School, gym and football training with his club. Those are the only places he goes. He has never hung round a shopping centre with his mates. They don't go to the cinema or McDonald's. They don't go to teenage parties. He is very popular but they are all like that. It's very odd. I've offered to take him places, said he can have his mates round but no. It's sad.

I'm interested Y8 is mentioned. While they had a hard time leaving primary during the pandemic, current Y9 had a far more difficult transition with starting secondary and often being confined to bubbles and classrooms.

I have a y9 child, who missed out on any transition. He spent the first year of secondary in a class bubble, sat in one classroom all day long in a school he didn't know. At the start of year 8, this cohort didn't know anything about the school yet we're treated like 'normal' year 8s. I understand from old colleagues that some schools did offer transitions out of lockdown, but my son's did not and he really suffered for it. It's only this year in year 9 he's begun to understand the systems and routines in school, and find out where everything is.

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?

It's insane. My sister was stopped and questioned by police because she was walking through a park with her toddler. It's fucking unbelievable looking back

Once children are enrolled in a school, the or otherwise part of the law seems to not count any more and there are separate statutes that come into place for attendance. They are quite vague but have been tested in first and seem to mean whatever the la deems it to be, NOT the parent.

That should say in court... Bloody autocorrect

This is my experience too, with my Y9 child. I've started threads on here about ideas for activities to do with him and was told by quite a few that he was too old for his mum to be organising his social life - well he doesn't know how to because he's been in lockdown since primary!!

100% this.

The nowhere to go.
The lack of socialising for my baby.
The having to keep pre-school children quiet so my DH could work.
Not being able to access support for my high-needs baby.

It destroyed me. I'd go to bed wishing I wouldnt wake up in the morning.

It was shit, and I think my ongoing MH caused by the pandemic has had as much of an impact on my children as the lockdowns themselves

My y9 is like this she doesn't socialise out of the house it's almost all online 🤦‍♀️

My y12 was too but he's better now he's in sixth form he's out with mates quite a lot

That was you going off social media and the hysterical news rather than reading the actual guidance!

Our circle of friends knew it inside out so we knew exactly what we could and couldn't do.

Two in the group had to, to protect their jobs.

Anyone who believed that insanity of not being allowed to sit on a bench was their own worst enemy. It wasn't the state. Or the council. That was people not being aware of their rights and what they could do. If you needed to sit down for a rest, because you needed one that was legal. It never was illegal. And if someone had tried to ticket you for it, it would never have stood up in court in the vast majority of cases.

I absolutely agree with this. As much ksy workers Needed a space for their kids, so did every other child. I find it crazy that some kids got an education in school due to what their parents did and every one else suffered. So very wrong.

Anyone who believed that insanity of not being allowed to sit on a bench was their own worst enemy. It wasn't the state. Or the council. That was people not being aware of their rights and what they could do. If you needed to sit down for a rest, because you needed one that was legal. It never was illegal. And if someone had tried to ticket you for it, it would never have stood up in court in the vast majority of cases

My sister was stopped by police whilst walking through a park with her toddler. When stuff like that happens, I can actually see how nazi Germany happened...I don't say that lightly by the way, I'm a granddaughter of a holocaust survivor.

Totally agree.

I sent DD two days a week (despite WFH - albeit in a sector that fell within the rules for key workers) when I found out my cleaner (domestic cleaning only) was sending hers as cleaners apparently qualified. The school was happy to take her. The was later on in the pandemic and I was starting to realise the people following the rules to the letter, to their own detriment, were very much the minority (making it pretty pointless). Sending DD in for a couple of days of education and socialising was one of the best decisions I made.

You're forgetting though that benches were taped off (and in the case of our council - removed).
I sat on benches, I cheered families having picnics, BUT again, we all had different living conditions depending on which town/village, how interfering people were - the nudge unit used peer pressure to ensure compliance. Remember the drones that some forces used? Remember the young women ticketed with their takeaway coffees in a country park? Remember the complete lack of loos?

Like you, I knew the law because I'd read it and I carried a copy of the legislation around, but I also realised that the police did not. That was scary. On here, we were often told that lawful things weren't in the spirit of the law.
Those of us with children who are sensitive or have sen also had to weigh our choices to go about our lawful day with an encounter with the police or with an angry member of the public and the chances of those children wanting to step outside the house again should that happen.

Tbf that poster might not be in England. They did have the once a day rule in Wales afaik.

But in an England context, I agree. The police freestyling the law was an appalling thing.

I know there was different legislation for Scotland and Wales and it was much more strict, so I was careful to mention England.

I sat on a large green space with my DC...other families were doing the same thing. I remember a woman screaming out of her window "Go away, you're killing people"!

@EndlessRain But that’s exactly what I’m saying; lots of people, like you, did recognise that this was damaging but had no way of avoiding it. But as you say the majority unquestioningly accepted the government line that children weren’t resilient and would catch up just fine. And many parents were very relaxed around young children and screens and didn’t see this as an issue. I don’t agree that the majority are alert to the impact of too much screen time on developing brains - just read any thread on here about screen use in restaurants/in public transport/on buggies for examples of how many parents are perfectly OK with this.

The point is, I didn’t believe all the stuff from the government around kids, as my training and experience clearly told me otherwise. I knew they wouldn’t just catch up. As an ex-teacher I knew that a Tory government would never throw loads of extra money at children and schools - not their voter base; not their problem. I knew DD needed to leave the house and see people in order for her to develop normally. So we bent the rules as much as possible to allow for this.

How do you expect they were to take advantage of that short socialisation window

We still took DD into shops. We still took her on buses and trains, even if there was no particular destination at the end - just so she could see how it all worked. We took her to the local market and chatted to the market traders, who loved seeing her. We drove out of area (technically not allowed) to visit parks and gardens with more interesting things to do than our local park. We saw grandparents (ours were CV but would rather take the risk and see DD). By the 2021 lockdown we’d found a couple of other families who were happy to meet up and did stuff with them. Basically we didn’t stick to the letter of the rules because we knew that many of those ‘rules’ were nonsensical and damaging where children were concerned

And I’ve no idea why you’ve written ‘friends’ in your post in inverted commas - the people I’ve mentioned remain my friends, even if I’m critical of their decisions around covid - I’m sure many of them are critical of mine too, but I’m comfortable with my own choices.

I know schools who did come up with ideas were basically told no by the government. The guidance was clear about no other venues and no staggering classes by day or rotas and there really wasnt money. I can only think it was to create some sort of level playing field of nothingness.

Theres also a thing I keep seeing on Tik Tok at the marked difference with babies born in 2020 now generally being really shy toddlers as they were just not exposed to people as they should have been - no family and friends popping round, no coffee shop visits, no swimming lessons, no baby groups. My own DD was def in her own bubble with me and DH most of the time and struggles with loud noises and big groups of children now.

I actually am in England? You have actually surprised me because I thought we were only allowed to “exercise” outside once a day or we’d been fined

and the bench thing - they had tape all over them. Along with the kids climbing frames.

the advertisements? Gosh. Some poor old guy on a ventilator “stay home!! Save lives!’l like if you don’t stay home this guy is a goner?
just awful

Yes, but working full time while trying to 'educate' two children of differing needs and ages, without ever consenting to it or wanting it, is hardly providing an education. I still maintain my children's human rights were breached as they watched me crack under the pressure of back-to-back zoom (and I told my MP as much at the time)

No, was never the case, but I understand why you thought it. You didnt pull it out of your arse. We had Gove on telly umming and aahing about length of time for a cycle and there were people who took that as gospel.