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.

One reason why it might have seemed so prevalent in school children esp secondary kids is they were constantly testing so picking up cases that adults would put down as being a cold.

It was a thread where people were sharing stories about how their children were affected badly by lockdown.

For all this

I think there are multiple factors related to lockdown. The lack of routines, structure and social opportunities with peers and teachers/other adults, the huge increase in screen time and instant gratification and the mental health of parents. Add to that that kids as young as 8 have their own phones now and 9+ spend hours on TicToc and we are looking at mental health issues and a disintegration of our usual social fabric.

I honestly think that some people, even now, would have preferred to have just stayed locked a home untill "covid was over" - and wanted everyone else too as well. Regardless of the consequences. Regardless of the proportionality.

Definitely a huge increase in screen time, even for pre-schoolers.

Trying to hold down a job, get one depressed child to engage in school, the LO ended up with far far too much screen time.

@Dinoteeth Yes, exactly.

It's all fine and well saying parents should have been ready pick up the slack and take responsibility for their children, but the vast majority of parents were still working themselves or had other care responsibilities. I do think some of the harshest judgement on this IRL (and probably online too) comes from some SAHMs who can't see why not everyone just miraculously transformed to teachers and filled their days with crafting and baking, and extra attention and special family time, while looking down on their "friends" for letting their kids sit on ipads. The same parents who were posting in the class whatsapp about "the wonderful to scale solar system model little alfie in Y1 made single handedly" and badgering teachers to send supplemental learning, while other parents could barely keep their heads above water with work and other responsibilities.

It's not just the SAHMs it's those who had an easy time on furlough.

My MIL kept telling us what a wonderful time SIL was having they were both furloughed. One would take their LO out while the other did a little school work with their P1.
Then they had time on their hands.

My DH was working really crazy hours, leaving me to deal with my own work and the kids. And I only do part-time but it's still hours that needed to be worked.

Yes those furloughed too. I was in the same position - DH out the house working, I was WFH (in a relatively high pressure job) with a 2 year old and 6 year old at home. Fun!

No, it didn’t seem more prevalent in children, it was more prevalent in children. The ONS data in that graph was from random sampling of the population, not from people testing when they felt ill.

Its extraordinary how in the real world everyone accepts illnesses spread in schools and kids pass on bugs but online some are willing to perform massive mental contortions to pretend it was different with covid.

When a kid in my DD’s class tested positive on a Monday, no one was surprised when half the class were off by Friday. No one suggested that maybe they all caught it individually from elsewhere. And when one of the parents caught it and ended up in hospital, no one suggested that this was entirely unrelated to the class outbreak.

Some people on here would swear blind that was the case.

How come you never seem to be in this school that you teach in @noblegiraffe ?

@hamstersarse 😂 teachers do get the odd break you know. I'm currently on the loo in my lunch break (yes at 11.18am).
Laughing at the utterly nuts comments that covid did not spread widely in schools. Just like norovirus or the cold or any other bug doesn't I assume
The biggest thing I can see is the apathy of the students. They don't seem to want to learn like they used to. We'll get there, but it's harder work this year.

Oh and many teachers are parents too. They are not a stand alone species that live outside society.

Covid sprea through classes of course. And through work places. But the fact is that those school outbreakes didn't lead to a huge increase in deaths (as we can see from e.g. Sweden). Families with children in school were not disproportionately negatively impacted by Covid.

And then we get back to the matter or proportionality. The other side of it. The damage to the children. If we acknowledge some spread, but apparently not a huge amount of associated deaths, then what? well then we have to look at the harm closing it does to the children. And see if that's worth it given the (limited) covid reducing benefits.

That's what I see people arguing for here. Proportionality. Not that there was no spread at all.

I would rather my kids had gone to school and we couldnt' see their grandparents (who we couldnt' see anyway). I know if you have a CEV family member it's not that easy, but then make provision for that rather than sending everyone home.

Nailed it, @EndlessRain . Loads of kids get covid - so what. Covid doesn't usually affect kids badly at all. Kids test positive and don't realise they have it. Big deal.

SOME of those children may be living with vulnerable adults, some of the teaching and other staff may be vulnerable too. But rather than taking an approach of coming up with some sort of system whereby schools were fully open without masks and social distancing and the rest of it, and only children, staff or family members classed as "vulnerable" isolating and doing online learning, the government went down the zero covid route and tried to stop it spreading completely. Which is why my (at that point) 12 year old was sent home three times between August and December 2020 and we were supposed to isolate him in his room for 10 full days each time.

All the children who were in schools were living under the most severe restrictions to protect the very small minority of vulnerable people - lots of us argued at the time that there must have been other options to lessen the impact on the majority and decrease the risk for the vulnerable. But the government and teaching unions would not hear of it.

@hamstersarse Have you not heard of part-time working?
Or are you just taking a pop at @noblegiraffe to shut her down again?

some sort of system whereby schools were fully open without masks and social distancing and the rest of it, and only children, staff or family members classed as "vulnerable" isolating and doing online learning

I see. So it’s acknowledged on this thread that keeping kids out of school was not good for them, in fact harmful in a multitude of ways, yet you are arguing that a large subset of the population should have been kept out of school for what, a year or more, just so that some kids (and I’m suspecting that you mean yours) could attend school without any restrictions?

Why do those kids not matter?

Restrictions are only any good if they work, though.

It isn’t reasonable to insist that certain hoops are jumped through in order to make others feel safer / better.

Did you not see what happened to the infection rates when restrictions (and I don’t mean lockdown) were lifted?

The idea that mitigation measures had no impact is laughable.

The DfE document linked above showed that thousands of days of pupil absence could have been prevented through mask wearing.

It depends what they are though, surely?

I’m not claiming that all the restrictions put in place had no effect at all, but I am suggesting that some were more effective than others and that some weren’t really effective at all.

I’m sure we could all agree that improving ventilation in classrooms would have been a good idea, and yet that still hasn’t happened. (I think the DfE are just now sending out some more CO2 monitors to check air quality )

Not mixing in large groups indoors presumably helped.

Isolation of ‘close contacts’ as identified by seating plan was utter balls, and everyone knew it.

But shutting school so EVERYONE is out of school is better than just some being out of school? Just becaue that's fairer?

Or are you claiming that the pandemic would have gone on longer had the schools not closed, which got everyone back earlier?

Isolation of ‘close contacts’ as identified by seating plan was utter balls, and everyone knew

Well, indeed, but it was hugely disruptive, as were bubbles and the staggered start / end times.

I think it’s possible to acknowledge that things like this were harmful and disruptive and served no real purpose. Other things were harmful and disruptive but perhaps had more of a purpose. It’s hard to say, because I think in any discussion like this there are reasonable points on both sides. Being in favour of lockdowns doesn’t mean supporting everything that happened as a result of those lockdowns: likewise believing that lockdowns shouldn’t have happened doesn’t automatically mean that nothing further should have happened.

It all seems like a really long time ago. I was on maternity leave for some of it, then had a newborn. I definitely didn’t picture having my first baby amid a global pandemic! It’s all taken on a slightly strange, dream-like hue - I remember that it happened but it still seems bizarre it happened!

But shutting school so EVERYONE is out of school is better than just some being out of school?

In March I can’t see there was any other option, schools were collapsing due to lack of staff and kids were being taken out by parents in huge numbers.

I didn’t want schools to close again. I think the situation was forced by mismanagement and a head in the sand approach to covid in schools which meant firmly denying there was any problem until it was overwhelming. The spiralling death rate in the general population could not be brought down sharply enough without a lockdown that included schools - November showed that, and schools in December were the most infected places in the country.

some reminders of the attitudes of some

www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/3857556-Supermarket-special-hour-for-the-elderly-WHO-SHOULD-BE-AT-HOME

www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/3854411-Supermarkets-opening-just-for-those-who-shouldnt-even-be-there-Madness

And this sort of thing.