to think uk children in general did not have a bad experience during the pandemic

[orangeleavesinautumn]

Just read yet another post when inappropriate behaviour in a teen is put down to delayed trauma from covid times.

Having worked as a teacher in many countries, I can tell you that the conditions we called "lock down" are normal life for many of the world's children, and our children are incredibly privileged compared to most.

They didn't really suffer, they just had a slightly less ultra-privileged life for a short time. They were not more isolated and deprived than "normal" they were less isolated and deprived than normal, in a world wide sense - they were just more isolated and deprived than we have come to expect in our wealthy world.

Some may have been afraid, or bereaved, but most were not, and many enjoyed themselves enormously, more children I know preferred lock down to normal school, than preferred normal school to lockdown - and I have asked literally hundreds of children!

Can we stop telling them they are disadvantaged and traumatised now please!

You are objectively incorrect and there is statistical evidence to bear it out.

It isn't all COVID but a combination of

@Angelik "Lucky you. That wasn't the case for everyone and that you cannot acknowledge that makes you come across as very insensitive."

I realise it wasn't like that for everyone, but the posts to that point were all about children having no interaction, no tech, no schooling etc. My post was to offer a counter balance.

I'm a single mum, no local family yet I was lucky and able to support my son through covid (actually, I was made redundant after that and spent 7 months fighting to find work so not at all easy ). There will have been an equal number of people like us, who managed lockdown ok.

So as with all things, some teens will be fine, relatively unaffected, while others will have suffered without the social support they were used to.

Sigh, posted before I wrote the damn post. Now have got to get on and do stuff. Will be back in an hour to explain the data. Bet you can't wait!

Nonsense OP.

Your argument is flawed. I don’t personally believe what you’ve said about children from other countries but even so, the evidence of poor behaviour and the mental health crisis before and after lockdown is overwhelming.

You can think it shouldn’t be like that for whatever reason but the fact is it is like that.

A teacher…really! Anyway I’m sure all the children abused or murdered by their parents during lockdown because nobody was keeping an eye on them had a wonderful time.

DS was a teenager at the time. He couldn’t do his a-levels; lost his apprenticeship; unable to see his friends and family; unable to celebrate his 18th birthday. He’s had quite severe mental health problems and couldn’t take part in his usual activities which helped him cope. There were days when I thought I’d lose him.

Despite all this he got himself a job in a supermarket, working all hours to make sure there was food on the shelves. Covering for colleagues who were ill and even caught covid himself whilst at work.

He still refuses to talk about the pandemic and lockdowns, it’s too stressful for him.

Some people have higher expectations from life than you. Just because some people in the world have a really terrible life doesn’t mean I can’t be upset and angry about things that happen to me. Covid revealed how little many people (parents, teachers and government) value education in this country. I find that incredibly sad.

Don't be so fucking ridiculous OP.

Not everyone WFH had a dream experience. On paper, we got off lightly in the pandemic I was WFH, but trying to facilitate my team's part in hospital discharges. As you might expect the workload was relentless and there was no escape from it.

At the same time, DH's employer decided their work was so important that DH must continue to go into work (much of his work can done FH). So I had primary school age children in the house with me, we ordered a 2nd TV and that was what they had to do for most of the time.

On top of my work, I felt enormous pressure to try to take a lunch break, to try to get the DC to do some school work.

I'm sure people would assume from the outside that we were living the dream.

My stressful work was taking up all of my home life, we had the 'risk' of DH having to go out to work, totally unnecessarily, and huge anxiety about providing an education to DC, who were already behind due to some minor LD (major to them).

We had lost a young family member and a friend in the month before lockdown, not Covid related and didn't get to have a funeral for one.

You couldn't see any of that from outside our house.

I think a lot of it is down to how well the adults around the kids were able to deal with it and what your life was like before covid.

So, if you're a single mum or both had to work FT from home with small children, undoubtedly your stress is going to rub off on the kids. If you followed every rule, did every test, watched every news broadcast and listened to the government then the kids will have picked up on it too. And felt like we were in a huge big crisis.

If you were used to being off out doing stuff every weekend and going for meals out, holidays etc, your kids will have picked up on the differences and if you were unhappy about them.

My kids have come out of covid unscathed, but I'm a PT worker and DH was around a lot more (WFH) so we had a great time "playing out". We were out a lot, going on long walks as a family and generally not listening too much to the rules. I also declined for the eldest to be tested at school.

I think all this meant that it wasn't framed to them as a big crisis and as such helped them deal with not being in school or seeing friends as much.

OP what are you actually hoping to achieve with this thread?

It’s just a route into the opinion that all behavioural problems in schools are cause by shit U.K. parents being shit no boundaries too many screens won’t say no to their children, (imaginary) children in other countries are better behaved blah blah blah

Shit stirring.

Shit stirring

Quite

Other people's suck does not make our suck suck any less.

I disagree enormously. Social isolation is detrimental to children. And I think it's stupid to expect them to recognise it the damage themselves.
I have nieces and nephews in Africa and yes they missed out on education, yes they don't have the luxuries my kids have. But they were never isolated. Different experiences, but neither worse than the other.

I cannot stand this type of post. It's that patronising "don't complain about anything because someone else has it worse" bullshit.

OP you are talking rubbish, and my child certainly did suffer during lockdown, as did I.

I assume you have not been striking of supporting teachers’ strikes as teachers in UK have much better pay and conditions than teachers in many countries.

There are idiots you parrot that their kids behaviour is poor because of Covid, rather than parenting, excessive screen time, ultra processed for etc.

Your comparison with the 'world's children' is ignorant to say the least but it's MN so it's ok to be ignorant, it makes for lively IABU threads.

One of the key issues was that the sense of normalcy was taken away and replaced with a collective feeling of uncertainty and fear. This collective fear was actively steered by our government through public communications campaigns including on social media and threads and posts on MN.

There was a lack of daily routine and structure and the world seemed unpredictable. Whether it was or wasn't, doesn't matter, that was the collective experience as conjured up by WHO and governments.

Those silly, colourful DIY fabric masks did nothing to prevent Covid but created an edgy sense that things were frightening, we had to be suspicious of our community and wary.

As a society we were told to do the most human thing of all, socialising and interacting with each other. That's very harmful. You mention kids in china living remotely, well that's their normal and they don't live like that as a result of a 'dangerous' (?!) pandemic. They have their normal social structures and it is not an exceptional alarming situation.

You say that we have freedom and privileges. That's sad. Freedom is NOT a privilege, it's a basic right.

Anyway, enjoy your IABU.

And yes YABU.

I mean, it depends where you live. I live in one of the poorest towns in England. I'm talking 2nd, 3rd generation unemployment, rampant drug use, domestic violence, terrible housing conditions, alcoholism, social services stretched so thin that standards are in the gutter
One of the teachers at the secondary a 10 minute walk from my house, went on his bike everyday to deliver the kids lunch and believe me, that was so he could get eyes on them and check they were okay
A huge number of kids were locked in with their abusers, and left watching younger siblings whilst their parents drunkenly fought
No more escape to school
I'd argue those poor kids didn't much love it tbh

I have a 4 year old with a compulsive need to wash and/or sanitise their hands everywhere we go, speech delays, and a fear of other people.

I have a 6 year old who gets overwhelmed with too much "going out" and needs frequent rest days at home - before covid they would be out every day, and cry if we stayed at home. They cried a lot in the early days of lockdown.

They have two parents suffering from both the mental impact of lockdown with two under threes in inappropriate housing, and the physical impact of long COVID.

We did our best to make it as good as possible for them, and they probably mostly didn't hate lockdowns. But it's definitely affected them long term.

It affected everybody.

Yeah my kids and I had a cracking time in the refuge, loads of us did.

Stupid post

As a society we were told to CEASE the most human thing of all,

And it was great fun working full-time from home and looking after 3 under 10s. Happy times indeed 😂. Not stressful, oh no!!! And the schools expected hours and hours of tasks completed by very young kids, whose parents were working 8-10 hours.

Those who were furloughed had probably a lovely time on the whole though.

@Saschka

Really interested to know which countries have schools in which primary aged children are routinely not allowed to go outside into the playground, or see classmates, teachers or family, more than once a month. How exactly are they being taught, if they aren’t allowed contact with the teachers or their classmates? How are they fed, is a tray slid into the isolation cell? I’ve also worked in a lot of developing countries, and I have to say I don’t know of any which have schooling systems anything like that.

Actually, as Australia is rather a large country, many children live on isolated properties (particularly in the Outback). They have no classmates to speak of but are either home-schooled or have lessons via the School of the Air. This a a correspondence school that gives lessons via the internet and radio. It's a vital service for kids that otherwise would have to go to boarding school. It isn't that they aren't allowed to see teachers or classmates - they just don't really have any in the conventional sense.

When in my final year of school, I had to move states in Australia and I couldn't find a new school to accept me. I had to do my final year entirely via correspondence - and this was before the internet. I had no friends in my new community, so I spent that year in my room doing my work. I had no final prom, no leaving celebrations, nothing like that. It wasn't the best situation, and I wouldn't recommend it, but my only other choice was repeating a year and I wasn't doing that!

So it does happen, regularly.

You’ve made a sweeping generalisation, it’s quite concerning that you work with children.
My 14yo dd was so changed by lockdown that she took an overdose and is still having counselling. My 11yo DS couldn’t have given two shits and handled it well. For every 50 children who put their hands up to say they loved being home there are 50 still dealing with the aftermath.