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.

Yes it was clear very quickly which demographic this virus affected. I don’t remember at any point being worried about Covid for my children. We were not locking down to protect them. We were locking down to protect the elderly and vulnerable.

I will argue and continue to argue that the ‘cure’ - lockdown- was far worse than the disease.

Though the Spanish government were worse - keeping children actually indoors and not allowed to go outside. Wonder how those children will feel about that when they grow up? The impact on health must have been huge for those children.

In Norway being outside for health reasons, and children playing with other children for wellbeing were some of the exceptions to the isolation rules. It was recognised how important these two things were.

And we could've had that here, whilst still locking down.

I have a friend who lives in the Netherlands. She said that the social distancing rules, etc did not apply to (I think) under 12s so she was able to meet up with friends and their children at the local park as long as the adults stayed 2 metres apart!

Absolutely. There was so many things that could have been done to reduce the negative impacts of lockdown on people who were at low risk. Things that would have had very little impact on those who were vulnerable. I soemtimes felt it was a fairness argument - why should only the old be locked down? It's discriminatory! When really some limited freedoms for other groups could have been possible without making it worse for those most at risk. But we all had to be in it together.

Yes I remember reading about that in the Netherlands and thinking it was sensible. How on earth do you get young children to socially distance anyway?

Also in France there’s no way they would not socialise and see grandparents. So most carried on doing that.

The UK was actually the first country to get rid of the restrictions it had imposed.

Agree with almost everything you said @RedToothBrush but must take issue with this bit - England got rid of restrictions. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had restrictions far longer than England. Scotland required masks from about June 2020 to April 2022.

My main gripe about social distancing for children was the randomness of the cut offs. In summer 2020, when case numbers were very low, the Scottish government said children aged 11 or under could mix freely outside. Children aged 12 or over could only mix with 2 other children. My child at that point was 12, he had just finished primary and was due to start senior school. Because of the cut offs for school entrance in Scotland, half of his peer group was 11, the other half was 12. So legally, not allowed to all go to the park together. Just a total lack of joined-up thinking - rather than saying "primary school children" or "secondary school children" they chose an arbitrary number.

We ignored it anyway but that's the sort of illogical reasoning which caused all sorts of confusion. (And the general idea that lots of the "rules" had no basis in fact).

@HeraldicBlazoning

Our local facebook pages had pictures of groups of kids playing and posters trying to identify the "culprits". I am very glad mine were not in these pics as the abuse the parents got was awful.

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F'ing hell - I would have gone completely ape shit if someone tried to do that on my local Facebook page.

As it was our local Facebook page was a series of reports about alleged or witnessed breaches of the rules.

In my more frivolous moments I made several posts about although not witnessing any breaches of the Covid rules but that I did have strong suspicions of my neighbour hiding a young Jewish family in their attic including a 13 year old girl and how I should go about reporting this.

To be fair - the admins of the FB pages did remove the pics of the kids playing when it was flagged to them. But with everyone at home and stuck for things to do, being mean about your neighbours on community pages was pretty par for the course.

Someone posted for example: does anyone know when the car park at Mugdock country park closes? And in 10 minutes there were dozens of people piling on to say she was a selfish granny killer, she should stick to walking around the streets near home, what if she needed an ambulance etc etc etc. And some of it got abusive. People were scared, I do understand that. But people turned so NASTY with it.

@EndlessRain

"The UK had one of the worst covid death records in Europe, I just don't know how you can say this about its management of the pandemic. Unless you mean generally and not UK specific?"

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This is factually incorrect and false statements that sim

We ignored it anyway but that's the sort of illogical reasoning which caused all sorts of confusion. (And the general idea that lots of the "rules" had no basis in fact).

Tbh I'd have done the same and just got in with it if I had a 12 year old in the same class as 11 year olds because that type of thing is farcical and makes no sense in the real world.

We live on the border with 2 other counties. All these were operating different regional restrictions so we were keeping up with not just 1 set of rules but 3 on a day to day basis.

DH was also doing training in Wales so had to keep up with that.

It all got ridiculous because we knew damn well that people were coming over the council border / going over the council border all the time despite them technically not being allowed to.

Thats where it got really stupid and pointless to me. It became an exercise in regulation watch and the stress of thinking 'we will go into tighter restrictions too' was hard. And actually led to our circle of friends making a point of socialising more (in line with restrictions) 'whilst we still could'!! There was a feeling of impending lockdown which made us want to party more!!!

I think that's the point people started to question things tbh.

@EndlessRain

"The UK had one of the worst covid death records in Europe, I just don't know how you can say this about its management of the pandemic. Unless you mean generally and not UK specific?"

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This is factually incorrect :

It is posts like this that whipped up unnecessary panic.



Exactly. In Scotland we were told that we should not be crossing county lines to go to the supermarket. For my very very law abiding friend, this meant her driving 30 minutes to Stirling for her groceries as that was within her council area, rather than 10 minutes across the county lines into greater Glasgow.

As soon as they moved away from "stay at home" it all got a bit stupid and confusing, all 4 nations doing their own thing, what was illegal in Glasgow was fine in Aberdeen... there was a table somewhere I saw which showed every change made to the rules (just in Scotland) and it was enormously long.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-truth-about-britains-covid-deaths/

I'd really love to ask all those people who reported on others or shamed them on Facebook how they feel about their actions now?
Do they stand by what they did and do it again, or do they have any embarrassment or regret?

Regional restrictions were always ludicrous, especially at the level we had them when there were about 5 parallel regimes within Greater Manchester at one point.

Ok, I'll be more specific, in Western Europe. Still though. That's pretty widely accessible information.

I try to be kind as I think many were scared, but even so, totally dismissing any non-Covid harms and the real concerns of people who were desperate, and hurling abuse at people, was no way to react.

People had no self-awareness either. Some of the people being vicious about others being "selfish" by going for a walk/the shops and claiming lockdown was "no real hardship" then broke rules themselves. Others posted "stop whining, you're all pathetic people who would never have managed in the war!" one day, and "support people with mental health issues, it's ok to not be ok!" the next.

Either way, I hope everyone agrees now that many kids were affected, the idea that kids are just "resilient", and at one time everyone "just got on with it" and got through hard times is a total oversimplification.

I believed at the time that the lockdown restrictions should have either been fully applied or not at all - that way we would either have a had one short lockdown then freedom or freedom continually. I accept that this was an unprecedented event and that the govt was only acting upon the advice they were receiving.

What makes me most cross is the fact that the older generation and those with long term health care were prioritised with little thought for the long term damage on the young. The continual lockdown has had such a negative impact on those who are now age 3 to 23. I feel sorry for those who were in care homes but they were not active anyway, they generally stayed in the home, as did many of the elderly. So in order to extended the life of people who sadly had a very low quality of life we have made a significant negative impact upon the younger generation - who will be feeling this in terms of the education, mental and physical health for years to come.

Great article and sums up what I was trying to say about Sweden. It’s not that they didn’t have measures - but because they weren’t so draconian and stop/start then people bought in to them and self regulated. Children were prioritised. Primary schools stayed open. Their economy didn’t suffer half as much as ours.

In England technically you weren't supposed to cross the council border but going to the supermarket fell under an exemption. So we went to the one in the town in the 'wrong' direction as it was closer and people were wearing masks and distancing there which they weren't doing in the town in the other direction that we were supposed to be going to.

They actually did set up road blocks at one point on the main road to the other town, but all the locals knew so just used the back roads to avoid the inconvenience! We live 1 mile to the border and the police weren't bothered as long as we had a legitimate reason to be out. They were more after people going for a jolly day out in the hills or travelling long distances. Or from Manchester. (dirty dirty Manchester!)

Utterly farcical though.

Manchester was shat on from great height by people who live in Westminster.

In general I think the UK is a very unfriendly place towards children.

I think Leicester suffered some in the longest lockdowns in England? It was all bloody farcical.