To ask teachers and parents if Covid still has an impact on kids four years on

[Backtoit123]

Just that really. Four years on don’t still notice a major effect on children from the pandemic. I’ve heard teenagers say they feel a few years younger due to their ‘pandemic age’ but my DC are grown up and I don’t work in teaching so it’s hard to know. Do you recognise a major difference in kids now compared to kids of the same age before Covid? AIBU to ask if the pandemic still has left a legacy on children’s development?
YABU- no it doesn’t
YANBU- yes it does

Not a teacher but volunteer with children and the other day we commented how we could tell the "Covid kids"

They are general noisier, feel like they are younger than they are, more anxious to be away from parents...

Absolutely had an effect.
DS2 is 16 now. He has hated school since primary. Started refusing to go pre Covid but could usually be coaxed into going for maybe half the week. Post Covid I couldn’t get him in at all. So from about year 10 he didn’t go.
He suffered from extreme anxiety and was actually at one point had a suicide risk assessment ( other factors played into this including one of his friends aged 14 taking his own life)
He’s on the whole much better now and will be enrolling in a military college very soon.

But not all kids had exactly the same experience as yours?

My 5yo was 23 months in the first lockdown and due to start nursery (for the first time). I found out I was pregnant the week we went into lockdown. Due to a medical condition we had to shield which meant that DC1 couldn’t go to nursery until he was 3.5 and he was basically completely isolated from other kids until that time, for an 18 month period at just the point when he should have been starting to engage with and interact with other kids. It has had a massive impact on him.

He was so nervous and shy around other kids when he first started nursery that they suspect he had ASD (he doesn’t).

DS2 was 2yo when Covid hit. Over the course of lockdown he became "strange", backing away when family members would visit at the gate. He's is better but describes himself as an Indoor kid.😒

The primary teachers I know say that while they've seen effects in all kids, the biggest effects are in the current Y2 and below. The current Y3 didn't miss early socialisation and while lockdowns affected them, they missed at most a term of nursery and less than a term of Reception. For the years below, the effects of lockdowns were a lot greater, a lot of nurseries took fewer children (especially private nurseries), had a lot of closures due to staffing issues as well as outbreaks within the setting, a lot of playgroups and other junior classes were closed and the disruption to their socialisation overall at a crucial time took a greater hit.

The other group I hear people talking about a lot is the cohorts that started year 7 in 2020 and 2021, where the transition to secondary was a lot more difficult and disrupted and there are still lasting effects. I can imagine the transition to higher/further ed might have seen similar impacts.

My son 17 and was a first year apprentice electrician when the first lockdown hit and should have qualified last summer (qualified 2 days ago!) it's been so hard to watch all the anxiety that covid caused.. cancelled exams, cancelled jobs, witnessing friend after friend be let go. There were originally 32 apprentices on his course and only 9 made it the four years it takes to qualify. While this shitty government had parties and laughed in their faces.

DS is a secondary school teacher. He says behavior is massively worse but he puts a huge amount down to TikTok reducing attention span to seconds. This could of course be indirectly exacerbated by lockdown.

Absolutely. Kids now are very immature (for their age), being silly in class which they didn't do before. This is secondary school age.

I always feel a bit guilty when this question is asked because individually I think DS1 is better off as the result of the lockdowns - he was in Y3 at the start and hated home learning with a passion, his school were totally crap especially through 2020 and we got basically nothing from May onwards. He had been extremely shy and quite passive and just went with the flow before Covid but once school went back and especially once activities started up again he threw himself into everything on offer, worked very hard to overcome his shyness and discovered new talents and passions as a result, which has really eased his transition to secondary and has set him up really well. He's determined to squeeze everything he can out of school life, and that's a result of valuing it so much more now.

But I'm so so aware that we've been incredibly lucky and our experience has been unusual and tbh the picture for DS2 has been more mixed but he's pretty much ok now and his cohort at school are on track, largely thanks to a brilliant (but quite intense) Y1 teacher. And I know that overall so many kids have been so badly impacted by it, either individually or in terms of their peer group.

I think that's a huge issue, people claim kids saw lockdown as school being optional but that's completely down to shitty parenting during that time and not the lockdowns and schools themselves.

This is just plain wrong. And a very privileged take.

Some schools provided virtually nothing, some parents had much less time and ability to devote to homeschooling than others. Some DC didn't even have sufficient internet access and devices. So even assuming you're conflating education with school here, and they're not synonymous, the idea that it was shitty parenting is not one that survives even cursory examination.

These harms were not caused by covid.
Nor were they caused by a pandemic.

They were caused by cruel and inhumane LOCKDOWNS, and an equally cruel and massively unnecessary campaign of fear, both of which went too far.

It is vital to remember this when anyone (especially the government) says “because of covid” or “because of the pandemic”. Nope, because of LOCKDOWNS. This is a hill I will die on.

I can say though, that in my practice I saw definite speech delays and problems in the younger kids (nursery age, so 1-3).
Which they (and I agree with) attribute to the mask wearing

Agreed.

Do you mean specifically what issues we’re having? The children can’t play. They don’t know how. Their social interactions are very immature. I have experience across all early years ages and the level of social and emotional development I’m seeing in my classes now would be on par with just going into preschool or even toddler rooms! We also have a significant rise in speech and language referrals going in. This obviously doesn’t go for all of the children in our class - some of them are absolutely fine but overall the number of issues like this is much much higher.

Preach sister!!!!
Speech delays, isolation etc weren't caused by an illness, but by the fact that we were forced to wear masks and stay in our own homes. While the government, mind you, held parties and went to visit their mistresses across town..

I teach secondary. There’s definitely a lot less resilience and attendance has taken a big hit.
People had to isolate if tracked and traced, even with a negative test at one point so keeping kids off for a sniffle seems much more reasonable to parents now than it did before. There’s a lot more in-school truancy - skipping classes to wander the corridors. Not just the one or two we always had but many kids out of class and a huge amount of time spent looking for them and trying to return them to class.

Resilience is poor and it’s fairly common for kids to phone parents from a classroom if they are upset or told off (and for the parent to then contact the school and take the kid home)

On a personal level my previously out-going and confident child started university during lockdown. Staying in halls where having to isolate was common (3 times in the first term!) and being in a city which had additional strict lockdowns even beyond what the UK in general had. My child is now very anxious. Still wears a mask in public and given the option will attend lectures online rather than in person. Their anxiety is impacting them so much that they were put on medication for it by the GP.

I'm sure it's contributed to my 10yo dd anxiety. She dislikes having people in her home, especially her room.

Surprised to hear that people see the impact on 3 year olds/nursery aged kids. I have a 3, nearly 4 year old who was born on the day lockdown first started, he is in the school nursery and seems completely normal/average, as do his little friends. They seem to engage with nursery and each other really well and talk in full sentences/as you'd expect 3 year olds to talk.

And massive impact on Uni students too! My son went to Uni in 2020 and despite the promise of "blended learning" from the Uni, none of his lecturers or teaching staff were even on campus for the full year, so everything was online only, which meant he barely left his Uni flat. Entire teaching blocks were closed, as were campus shops, eateries etc., and the library was mostly partitioned off and they weren't allowed to study/sit in that either - just go in, get the book, and get out again! Of course, clubs & societies were online only too. As he isn't a drinker/party person, there was literally nothing to leave his flat for, especially as the online lectures etc were all over the day so there wasn't time to go out for a walk/run/cycle between lectures most days either.

He turned into a virtual recluse. glued to his PC screen for lectures during the day and then homework/TV/gaming at night. He never recovered from it and left Uni having barely made any friends, never having joined clubs/societies, etc.

He's finally turning things around now that he's got a graduate job in a big firm, and he's throwing everything he has into it, the socialising etc to try to get back to some kind of normal living. But the 3 years of Uni were really awful for him and there's no doubt it affected him.

The way uni students were treated was appalling. Reeked of trying to ensure they all paid their fees and accommodation money.

I have 4. Aged 4, 6, 9 and 10. Still small. Older 2 missed a lot. 9 year old basically missed most of reception and year 1. But honestly, you wouldn't know. They are where they need to be. We'll behaved. No anxiety etc.

I'm.not sure about those who had Older kids though

I have a year one child and his cohort seem very well rounded socially and academically. I imagine anyone with SEN massively missed out in this age group though due to the sudden stop in support and assessments. DS missed 4 months of nursery in total when he was 2.5 so I don’t think that age group is the worst affected as many are saying. Nurseries were not closed anywhere near as much as schools were. I do know from friends that the children who were in reception, Y1 and Y2 during the lockdown years are very behind academically. I know the Y6’s are currently being given spellings that they should have been doing in year 4 because they just can’t catch up. I think they missed so much of the foundation of primary school. My secondary school step children were affected in totally different ways. One went from being a dream student who excelled at everyone to being one who gets detention (may have happened anyway of course). The other one thrived academically in lockdown in a way she never did at school but became a social recluse and still is. Everyone has been affected in different ways. I just feel sad for any children who were at school during the pandemic.

My now 14 year olds are absolutely fine, still happy well adjusted little people. Pretty sure that's down to their personality type and not anything I did though 😅

My eldest suffered with stuff as she was one of those uni kids who were basically tricked into moving into Halls with the promises of in person lectures only for them all to be moved online immediately after.

The real question is when do we all stop saying it's because of covid / lockdown etc and actually start fixing the issues?

There's some atrociously behaved kids in my youngest 2's secondary school which is constantly excused because they're 'lockdown kids' but very little down to actually address this & find a solution, they can't just be misbehaved forever, not fair on them or the people around them.

Just thought of another impact, but in a way quite positive.
I was pretty sure that DS1 had ASD but he masked incredibly well at school, and DH didn't see an issue. When home learning started, his stresses and issues with not having a timetable really became clear and he started having meltdowns. He's now in S2 and has an ASD diagnosis which has been positive for him.

Very much having an impact here.

My eldest was 17 in March 2020, two weeks before the first lockdown. He didn't sit his Highers and grades were decided by an algorithm. His final year in school was hugely disrupted by isolating and lockdowns and god knows what other restrictions Nicola Sturgeon put onto us. No prom, no leavers days, no assemblies. No uni open days. First year of Uni 2021-22 entirely online because Scottish government didn't give two hoots about anything other than covid.

His mental health is on the floor, he was never the most resilient of kids but the pandemic almost finished him off. My other two younger children appeared more affected at the time, scared and angry about not being at school and not seeing friends but are better now.