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.

Apparently this continues to be not allowed on here - we weren't allowed to discuss it during lockdowns and we're not allowed to discuss it now. If we do - apparently it's me telling the world that teachers are lazy and wanted to sit and eat muffins... I don't recall ever mentioning muffins - teachers are more nice chocolate biscuit eating creatures in my experience, then pretending to really enjoy one rice cake for lunch afterwards and being very virtuous.

The damage caused was absolutely catastrophic for some kids - in terms of them being so disengaged from school that they're never likely to re-engage. Of course then you have the ones rejoicing that their home schooling of Tarquin meant that the gap between him and his peers is now a gaping chasm and that it's another excuse to win at competitive arsehole parenting.

Or you have those middley kids who are just about doing OK - but without all of the chaos would have been doing WELL and might never get that chance back. And those kids who are now starting school with speech and language needs way beyond what they'd have in a normal year school starting cohort, and a system for SALTs that is absolutely and completely overloaded, broken and with the added "bonus" that this year's SALT graduates are the ones who had a year and a half of online learning and a much higher drop out rate than normal - so less newly qualified ones out there who'd normally be picking up a lot of the paediatric clinic work (a friend of mine is a new band 5 and has a caseload of over 150! - you can never offer a service against that level of need). There's a shitload of research out there about the impact of poor language skills on future life chances - not just in terms of employment, but friendships, self-esteem, health, mental wellbeing.

Then the GCSE/A-Level age group who got completely screwed over by algorithms, university demand and offers meaning universities got swamped so they get a shit student experience and end up having to camp out overnight to get rented houses for their second year.

Or my area - adults with learning disabilities where half of my caseload is people who had a really solid routine of day centres and activity projects - all lost overnight, in homes where their carers STILL have masked faces, and random lockdowns when cases broke out in the setting - I see people whose families no longer visit them, or ones whose mental health suffered so much during all of this that they now present with some very challenging behaviour, self harm or are now too scared to leave their rooms at all. I'd say about 75% of my current caseload referrals contain the words "things have really deteriorated during and after the lockdowns" or words to that effect.

And we NEED to have the freedom to speak out and tell these stories because otherwise we will never ever learn - and we won't see what the need is to begin to repair the damage - and we MADE these people, many of whom weren't able to understand enough to even consent by themselves, put their lives on hold to keep others safe - so now we have an absolute moral obligation to make sure that we do all we can to get their lives back on track afterwards.

Spot on @CoffeeWithCheese

It is unhealthy and self-pitying to waste anger on re-inventing history and claiming to have been far more clear sighted at the time than any of the people who were stuck in the position of having to make the decisions. It is not wrong to want to discuss the harms done and try to process them in ways that don’t actually just go round in circles and repeat the same angry, negative emotions.

It isn't actually for you to decide that, though. You're not qualified to decide what constitutes unhealthy for other people, it's pure arrogance to imagine that you are. And nobody is preventing you from having a discussion about harms done under the parameters that you set out. You could start a thread for it if you wanted. The fact that you haven't done that and have instead chosen to tell other people they're doing it wrong is telling.

This too, well put

Nice try. I’m not trying to set the parameters of the thread, just suggesting a reason why people on here think it keeps getting derailed… It’s not me that’s bothered by the derailing, after all. But keep letting it get derailed by accusing others of arrogance if you want. I still don’t think that’s healthy, though…

There’s a huge difference between derailment and development of a discussion.

It is derailing to keep bringing it back to teachers and in particular old threads on here. It isn’t derailing to discuss the title of the thread and I’m a bit lost as to why you think others are derailing.

People who have complained about the derailing attempts generally have pretty good ideas why they think that's happening, so there's no reason to expect anyone's egotistical cod psychology to be treated as though it's got any value.

What of it if people express emotions anyway?

Who is to say what others feel. People said it at the time and met a lot of negativity and now are free to say it again. Just give it a swerve if it’s not useful or interesting.

Only their egotistical cod psychology applies, you mean? And you are the arbiter of all their opinions, but are not yourself arrogant. Anyone would think tou are trying to set the parameters of the thread. Remarkable.

@MarshaBradyo - not giving it a swerve because I have an interest in the effect it has had on children - I have children of my own and work with children, after all. I am not interested in the tiresome trying to chase people like @noblegiraffe off the thread, though.

Nah, only someone pretty hard of thinking would think that a person who's cited what the OP, the actual person who set the parameters of the thread, amounts to the same thing as someone who's decided the parameters of the thread are Terribly Wrong yet doesn't feel the need to start their own. Also, basic comprehension skills don't really require being the arbiter of anything.

Speaking of ego, it's not a great look for you to decide that people speaking about their own experiences and what's helpful for them, in a position of much greater knowledge about that than you are, amounts to arrogance.

Well I’m not interested in telling anyone how to feel and disagree about unhealthy / self pitying or other negative phrase.

So feel free to swerve my posts and I’ll read others who I find moving, interesting and useful.

Oh, @PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior - are you actually @sloanedanger, then? Or have you not read my posts? I specifically said I had no problem with the way the thread started out - ie the parameters set by the OP and the OP’s posts. Unless, of course, the OP has changed personality and name, and become you.

I took my 5 year old to a friends party recently and it was the weirdest thing over ever seen- the children all sat in complete silence eating their food, didn't react to the mascot who came in when they were eating, didn't chat to each other etc

Ive just come off another thread where a poster cant get a cab to pick up her DS who is on crutches from school and have seen that its beyond the whit of some posters to realise that a lot of taxi drivers quit because of the lockdowns. One of our taxi firms had fifty drivers pre lockdowns. Post lockdowns they have nineteen.

You said that, but the distinction you want to make fails given that the OP has specifically mentioned her own opposition to policies at the time and also her frustration at the attitudes of others. Those are things she has posted about, so it isn't sustainable to say citing critical views held at the time is fine when OP does it but becomes a problem when others do.

Although even if it hadn't been, it's still not for you to decide whether this approach is an unhealthy one or not. Much less to call people who find it helpful arrogant for making an assessment of their own circumstances. That was rather a wtf moment, really.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior - I was opposed to plenty of measures at the time, too. I should imagine 100% of people did not agree with everything that was done. I feel angry about quite a lot of it myself, but at least I recognise it’s the anger that’s derailing the thread. And it wasn’t even me who complained about the derailing - I just commented on why I thought it had happened, as the thread did not start out angry. Your aggressive badgering isn’t doing anything to change my opinion.

It’s true re taxi drivers. DH was talking about it at the time.

I was pregnant at the very start of the first lockdown, which meant I went into the third trimester in mid September. I was not allowed to work on the premises so had to ‘work from home’ and had a surreal maternity leave with nearly three months off before having my baby. As it turned out, I didn’t go back to that job so I had a very abrupt end to it - no real closure, and things like that are important.

A lot of the trauma is the very fact that children and parents were very obviously thrown under the bus in ways they weren’t in other countries. In that second lockdown a 5 year old could not be in school, but also could not meet with a single
friend outdoors in England by law because of course they needed to be with a caregiver. This wasn’t the case in other countries, including Scotland and wasn’t the case for 4 year olds. It was utterly illogical and abhorrent and obviously so. The fact that neither government nor opposition gave a toss and we’re happy to isolate them completely is frankly horrifying.

That's fine, I'm more interested in demonstrating to anyone reading exactly what your behaviour amounts to. When you've got yourself into a position where you're calling people arrogant for taking a different stance to you about what sort of discussion is useful to them personally, that's rather problematic.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior - I find it problematic that you are the one who accused me of being arrogant.

Yes, I expected you'd say that as your responses have essentially been I'm not, you/the people I disagree with are.

But ultimately, it's you who felt moved to tell other people that their discussion was unhealthy. It's you who decided you know what amounts to a waste of anger, in people you've never met. It's you who said that posters who feel a discussion is helpful for them personally are engaging in egotistical cod psychology when they make that assessment.

So … children?

I thought @Runaway1s point about the rules on meeting up for children over 5 but too young to be out without a caregiver in the 2021 lockdown was very salient. In terms of pointless suffering caused by something that could've been easily remedied, that's got to be one of the leading candidates.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior Yes, I expected you’d say that. But ultimately it’s you who coined the phrase “egotistical cod psychology” and you who accused others of arrogance and you who believes they are so psychologically astute that you feel the need to demonstrate “to everyone reading exactly what your behaviour amounts to.” That’s one hell of a lot of pot calling kettle black for one non-arrogant person who does not engage in egotistical cod psychology.