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.

@SirMingeALot

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.

Your post made it obvious your 92yo grandad is still alive and well, and that's wonderful. My 50yo brother may not see next week.

This reminds me of the posts naming members of the FB group and accusing them of various things.

Utter madness on here.

My next door neighbour is an Early Years teacher at the local Primary School. She said the current intake of Reception children (born Sept 2017- Aug 2018 so around 2 when the pandemic struck) have been the worst affected so far in her experience.

She has the largest number of children with significant speech issues she's ever had within the intake (normally she'd expect 4-5 across the two form intake but this year they have around 15) and the social skills/emotional regulation of many of them are way below where they would be expected to be at this age.

Lots of volunteer run groups like playgroups and brownies stopped due to Covid and haven’t re opened
If you are a young child struggling socially after lockdown then brownies or cubs is hugely beneficial but in many areas a child won’t get a place due to lack of volunteers.
I’m a Guide leader. This time last year I went on a first aid course and we were one of only groups back in person. Our division includes a town subject to more stringent rules, church hall we hire also didn’t reopen immediately. First trip involving more than one unit was summer 22. The girls were doing a Christmas craft this week sitting around tables chatting and were so happy with just a simple thing (they ate 10-13).
The younger ones have been affected more - rainbow leader retired and group closed as she struggled to cope with feral behaviour (5 yr olds) we have brownies age 8/9 too anxious to stay on pack holiday 10 mins drive away.

Absolutely. I was verbally abused by a (unknown to me) man in our village while out on a walk with young DC. He was sat in a garden chair in his front garden and he said he’d seen us go for a walk that morning and now we were out again. He said ‘I won’t report you this time’ in an awful
way and my 5 and 7 year olds were really upset, DS asked ‘will he ring the police about us mummy?’
It’s changed the way I view my fellow Brits in general. Many are no different from
those who eagerly informed on Jews in nazi Germany.

Urgh this thread is such s horrible reminder to what lockdown was like.... [shivers]

I think, for the vast majority of people, whether you were for or against lockdown, has suffered in some way because of the whole covid experience. Can we agree on that?!

I would say our school were excellent in how they handled it all. DD was Y1, so when schools starting opening back up was one of the first back but the school made very clear that the work allocated was a case of "If you can do it all, great, if not just do what you can." they said the main thing was to keep reading to/with the children.

That was in stark contrast to local friends whose school insisted on all children being on Zoom, etc for Registration at 9.15 every day and parent's expected to sit in the room and keep their children (as young as 5) online and engaged for hours on end.

DS was in Nursery at the time so was at home for Lockdown 1 but not subsequently - thank god!

My daughter joined during lockdowns and was looking forward to making some more friends. After coping with zoom meetings, it was just a really chilly and wierd experience, but still she went along well after week, looking forward to getting back to normal. The best friend she made there left due to the wierdness.

In January this year they went back to zoom meetings for a while. My daughter couldn't bring herself to join in. She left this autumn term as windows would still have to be open, she'd still have to cart along her own chair etc rather than contaminated one in the church hall.

The leaders have really done their best and have been absolutely lovely. I'm sad she is leaving, but I understand.

He isn't 92, and I said no such thing about his health.

In the end I mainly took her out when my DP was around, or arranged for him to take her out himself at weekends, as we realised we got much less abuse when he was there - I suspect covid was used as an excuse by some to pick on and bully lone women

Of course it was. Easy targets. There's a poster on here whose mask exempt disabled teenage DD got loads of abuse. Bet those brave heroes would've been much less willing to stand up to maskless, brick shithouse sized blokes.

Yes, can you remember every report of police pulling up someone for sitting in a bench or going for a walk or something ridiculous- it was always women. Not men..

The one good thing I hope about this whole mess is that history teachers can reframe how they teach WW2. Imagine now being able to show recent examples of propaganda, and showing how messages were used to scare people into compliance. As has been said on this thread, it's disturbingly clear to see how the Nazi's managed to convince an entire population to turn against Jewish people, and report them for anything.

I also hope that people start to see subjects such as media studies as actually quite beneficial. When I did my degree (not media, but something vaguely similar), we had lectures on the role of media bias, and how to identify the truth in what would now be known as 'fake news'. At certain times, my own parents kept saying I was on the verge of turning into a conspiracist - mainly because I've been trained to spot media bias, and I don't unconditionally believe what the Daily Mail tells me.

The best advice I can ever give anyone, is to always read multiple newspapers - broadsheet and tabloid/left leaning and right leaning. That way you'll start to see some of the truth in stories, away from the journalistic bias.

The way communications was handled during lockdown was abysmal. It was all designed to scare people into compliance with no thought whatsoever to the lasting effects of those communications.

Can I also remind people that parents we officially advised to put kids as young as 5 years old into complete isolation should they even come into contact with covid.

FFS!
5/6 year olds in their room, food dropped at the door treated like the most nasty criminals for 14 days!!!

Those in secondary seemed to end up with back to back isolations.

That was just cruel.

Yes @thebellagio one thing I remember is that anyone who questioned the government or the narrative at the time was accused of being a conspiracy theorist. It was like a modern day witch-hunt. Quite terrifying actually

really frightening wasn't it?

As other people have said, even just reading this thread back does bring back horrible memories.

I did see a few instances of men being targeted by police too. They were generally black, working class or both, by total coincidence of course. Like the man who was told he wasn't allowed to stand in his own front garden.

I literally remember spending hours on this site arguing that lockdowns were a terrible decision and the harms would outweigh the benefits, I got loads of abuse calling me selfish/stupid/granny killer.

I saw friends the entire way through (any that would be willing to see me) and saw my family for Christmas in Tier 3. My in-laws would only meet us on their drive sat in the car boot 2m apart and remember thinking how stupid and ridiculous it was. If I’d not been able to break the rules I probably would have committed suicide that winter, it was the worst depression I ever had.

I also remember a testing station being set up in the car park of my dcs primary school. We were told we should get our kids tested. I refused but I remember being so angry seeing other parents queuing up to get their kids tested, mainly because I knew if one was positive, my DC would be sent home from school and told to isolate for ten days. It beggars belief that parents were queuing up to have their kids and tested and potentially isolate them. Madness.

We are back to normal now and thriving fortunately but I know it’s not case in every area lots of groups have closed. We have massive wait lists for younger ages.
We tried via zoom but it was hard last thing I wanted or they wanted after a day on zoom for work and school was more zoom. We met outside summer 21 a few times. But logistically difficult no toilets, risk of inclement weather plus needing to be and be seen to be fully compliant. Our church hall is back to normal but I know lots of rooms have stopped renting eg in schools or still have restrictions.

@SirMingeALot

He isn't 92, and I said no such thing about his health.

This is what you said previously (I did get his age incorrect):

"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."

This implies he's still alive and 91 years old.

Yes. It doesn't imply that he's well.

Absolutely, the viciousness it inspired was off the scale.

I have some interest / background in the same and it was really something to see (although being at receiving wasn’t good). A time in history hopefully teaching us about propaganda and not to ignore the damage.

I literally remember spending hours on this site arguing that lockdowns were a terrible decision and the harms would outweigh the benefits, I got loads of abuse calling me selfish/stupid/granny killer.

But the lockdowns were necessary, especially at first. The communication was certainly poor with people thinking they were only allowed out for an hour, or that pregnant women needed to shield - neither of these were ever true but both widely believed. In time we will know more and be able to analyse the decisions and it will be clear that some decisions were taken too quickly or slowly, or that restrictions were too harsh or not harsh enough at different times and in different places.

But there needs to be nuance here.

Debating the pros and cons of lockdown will get us nowhere. They happened and they were shit for nearly everyone. What we need to do now is to compensate for them and try to repair the damage to adults and children alike. Raking over old ground doesn't help and we can't change what happened. We need to be focussing on where we go from here.

Debating the pros and cons of lockdown will get us nowhere. They happened and they were shit for nearly everyone. What we need to do now is to compensate for them and try to repair the damage to adults and children alike. Raking over old ground doesn't help and we can't change what happened. We need to be focussing on where we go from here.

No, the discussion about whether lockdown was the right policy choice or not is vital. This is so we know whether it should be part of our pandemic toolkit in the future or not. That's going to require full understanding of all the harms, so we can do the best job we can at assessing whether those were justified by the benefits. It's going to be a huge project.

We need to do this as well as compensating. You're right about the importance of that, of course you are, but it's as well as not instead of.