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.

I thought it would be interesting to have a look at any research around Sweden, where primary schools were kept open.

They found no loss of reading skills.
They also found very low incidence of severe Covid despite schools being kept open.

We really threw our children under the bus during this pandemic. I was very strongly against the schools being closed and for as long as they were. The impact of this will be huge. Our children paid the biggest price of all.

I work in early years and I believe we are seeing the huge impact on the lockdown babies, those born shortly before or during the first lockdown are showing vast delays in speech and language, social skills etc. SEN referral rates are through the roof and there's no resources for them all.

I think every age group is affected in some way though. It's all very sad.

My own children (y12 and y9).seem to be doing OK but the preschoolers I'm caring for seem to be extremely young emotionally and socially compared with other years I've cared for previously.

i think in years to come, when the true cost has played out, we will conclude it wasn’t worth it.

I hope this is a lesson for future pandemics

I'm a Year 3 teacher and I would say the Year 3s are more emotionally immature than the current Year 2s but the Year 1 pupils are as emotionally mature as Nursery/ Reception.

Our data shows our Year 1s and Year 3s have suffered the most.

I am having conversations with my Year 3s about sharing, turn taking, snatching, listening and being respectful that I would normally have with children upon entering Year 1.

I worried about my DS massively at the time as I didn’t believe the “kids are resilient” thing either

That was obviously complete fucking bollocks even at the time. What it actually meant was shut up, having to consider this issue is inconvenient.

We saw my parents, pils and any friends who'd see us

Most of my friends were avid rule followers though so it was very lonely 😩 . Sometimes saw DHs friends though so that was nice

I think the biggest problem is the absolute refusal by the government to accept there is a problem.

They needed to accept chikdren missed out on key developmentsl stages and give education huge boost to mitigate that. Instead you get a tutoring schene that is a bit crap and is on academics which is the easiest bit to catch up, coupled with schools in such tight budgets they have to trim back all the bits kids need.

It’s frustrating for those that were saying this at the time! Constantly arguing on here with all the lockdown lovers. I said time and time again that keeping children away from school, friends, sports clubs, birthday parties, basically everything they enjoy will have a long lasting and profound impact.

I also said history will not look back on us favourably with regards to how we treated children during this time. For an illness that wasn’t severe for them. They paid the biggest price. No it wasn’t worth it.

I agree with both of you. I was the same. Thankfully my 2 seem unscathed by the lock downs.

I feel sad to hear how so many struggled and remain struggling as a result. I hope things improve for your children soon.

It definitely affected different people in different ways.

I was taking exams myself and working shifts in a residential care setting during lockdown. Every bugger decided they were isolating half the time and I had to work massively over my hours while taking finals (retrained) and our exams weren't cancelled here (non UK). My eldest in her final year was taking GCSE equivalent exams.

We're non UK and although I am a key worker both parents had to be key workers for a child to go to school (except special schools and at risk children) so the younger two were home. DH had to go to the office for longer than most because his employer insisted that security concerns meant working from home was impossible, but eventually they decided it was actually perfectly possible.

My youngest was in the middle of getting a dyslexia diagnosis and needed a lot of help with home schooling.

Never the less having to sit with him four hours per day and do his homeschool work allowed me to really become familiar with the gaps in his knowledge and he caught up massively and got into a school his primary school teacher had been insisting that he wasn't academic enough for (it's a selective state school system). It did him good. I was quite driven during the pandemic as I had so much on with finals + shift work+ homeschoolers I couldn't not be - it also made life afterwards feel easy (for everyone).

My middle one too - year 9 now - absolutely thrived on home school in a different way and really became a fully fledged self motivated independent learner, having been quite reluctant about school before.

All of them did miss out on traditional landmark school trips as unfortunately all three were in exactly the three years where those are traditional here - which they remain indignant about, but that hardly counts as being disadvantaged IMO.

I think that because I work shifts and DH had aa structured day we automatically had to make the children stick to getting up as they would to catch the school bus, and ensure that they got their school work done early. That meant they never lost their routine.

Also as we're a family of five they always had people around, and we live essentially in the middle of a forest so I forced us all - teens too - out to walk every single day.

I think lots of coincidences impacted how lockdown played out in different households. Children who had to be completely on their own in front of screens a lot in small flats without outdoor space or who lost the rhythm of their days and weeks because they stopped getting up at school time Monday to Friday probably struggled most to get back to where they should be when things opened up.

For dc they needed to be in class. I managed to mitigate it a fair bit but they needed learning with their peers.

I was against long closure then and could see the damage plainly.

I hope people voice their experiences so it can be understood by responders

I remember talking to a friend (who is a GP) about the fact we both strongly believed schools needed to reopen and reopen properly. I remember we were both made to feel like the "baddies" for suggesting it, as most of our peer group were of the stay home, no matter the cost, mentality

I have to try and not think about how things were, I block it out for the best part.

Had 2 DC- one aged nearly 4 with (then undiagnosed) autism and SN, and another aged 8. It definitely dragged out the whole process of younger DC getting a diagnosis and the support they needed whilst they missed out on nursery.

Meanwhile we were stuck in a tiny house with endless meltdowns and screaming from younger DC. It was impossible to try and homeschool my eldest, the situation was absolute hell for him too.

All I would see on here was endless shaming posts for people daring to try and have a bit of human contact, for slightly bending the ‘rules’. Everyone was ‘selfish’. People went on about how much they were enjoying lockdown and the ‘slower pace of life’.

Then there was the second wave where ‘schools closed’ but so often 50%+ pupils were in, leaving a minority at home at a huge disadvantage...

I work with young adults and this cohort feels so much more apathetic than previous ones. Also very reluctant to take on challenges.

100% this.

As a teacher and mother I see the terrible impact on all kids aged 4-18.

What WERE we thinking?

People were thinking though it was just met with abuse.

@MytummydontjigglejiggleItfolds I just wanted to say that parenting slightly older kids is waaay better. Babies and toddlers are over-rated. Mine are 5 and 8 now and it's honestly a golden time. You'll get it back.

Oof, I bet you needed much wine when you got back home!

@isittheholidaysyet we saw some family and my friends, none of whom followed the rules to the letter. My father is elderly and we talked it over together and decided that we would rather see each other and take the risk than lose years and him not see his first grandchild for the first year(s) of his life, I have no regrets.

I think I see a pattern in the Y2s where those allowed in school during the second lockdown have closer friendships than those who had to stay home. I guess that stands to reason as the smaller
classes meant they bonded more. Makes me sad to see the continued effects.

marshabraydo thanks for sharing that link, I’ve just filled the survey in.
I had no idea about it and I hope lots of people do it so the inquiry gets a full picture.

I think it's impossible to judge because we don't have any data to show what would have happened if we hadn't put restrictions in place. Even Sweden, who are often cited as not having many restrictions, relied on their citizens restricting themselves. It's not as if they were going about life as usual. Brazil was one of the countries that took little action and their death toll was terrible.

I would like to see ongoing recognition of the impact of Covid from the DfE and Ofsted. Instead, to them it's back to "normal" with pupils being expected to perform as they did before the pandemic.

It has hugely affected my eldest son who is now 17. He did well with GCSE's but has suffered from anxiety yo the extent he vomits and health issues since covid. ( complicated but related to anxiety we suspect) . Currently repeating first year of A levels but will inevitably have to drop out as he is not coping. So sad. We live in a dead end seaside resort so no idea what will become of him. My heart breaks for him.
My 14 year son has also been affected. He has lost a best friend due to fall outs gaming online during lockdowns . He is aldo absolute paranoid since having covid a year ago of getting it again. Spending 10 days in his room isolated traumatised him. It was his choice to stay in there by the way. His reasoning was he did not want the rest of the family to catch it even though we said he didn't have to. He is having emotional support at school one session a week and this is helping somewhat so thankful for this.
I also work with year 2 children. Many of them are really emotionally immature and behind with their learning.

I think different age groups have been affected in different ways but the comments about Year 3 really struck a chord with me. DC1 is in Year 3 and was in his second term of reception in March 2020. Late summer-born, had struggled emotionally with starting school, and we also threw a new sibling into the mix. And then in March 2020 it all hit the fan.

The combination of no school/homeschool/total breakdown in relationships with extended family (not local so we couldn’t bubble with them) was incredibly damaging for him. We had two years of appalling behavioural issues and violence at home. It has taken until now for things to settle down and I do wonder whether this cohort will “recover” from the damage, if that doesn’t sound too dramatic.

Yet DC2, a Covid baby who was 9 weeks old when we went into lockdown, has met all milestones, speech ahead of where DC1 was at the same age, socially confident, etc. He doesn’t seem to be affected at all, though we were out and about on our walks every day and on the school run when school was open so he was interacting with people to some degree.