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

I think it's really hard to say because so many of the things mentioned above were already being seen in education before covid, so I do wonder if covid is just being blamed for quite a bit.

Decline in behaviour at all age groups, lack of resilience, increase in anxiety, etc were all being flagged with all teachers I know before Covid even came into existence.

In particular, my lecturer friends were all agast at their fresher cohorts around 2018/19 with how much more parents were becoming involved in university education, lack of commitment, interest, stamina, resilience, and so on.

My own child is 4 and very, very shy. I could easy look back to him being in lock down at 18 months and blame it on that. But actually, I was SO painfully shy, as was my mum. And most of his preschool class are very outgoing. I don't see any issues in his development either.

Now I'm not saying that no one was effected: I've seen issues with OCD which clearly come from covid - ten year olds obsessive over 'germs' (genuine OCD that has huge life impacts) and I can't imagine being in lock down over some years of my life: first year at uni; 30s and single and not able to date.

But many generations before went through so much worse. Can you even imagine the impact of war on children? WW2 the country shut down 6 years: fathers left and never returned, teachers had 40-50 in a class; the terror of air raids and sleeping in shelters; evacuation. And yet, 20 years ago we weren't questioning how impacted the older generation were by this, they were just stories to recount.

@scalt I literally couldn’t agree more. Lockdowns caused all of this harm to children when they were the ones who were largely unaffected. I can barely think back without feeling so much anger. My ds and dd are reasonably fortunate in that they have bounced back fairly well-both socially and academically. However there are so many children in their year groups (I have one dc in primary and one dc in secondary) that are still suffering hugely from eating disorders and anxiety which were absolutely a direct result of lockdown. Interestingly the worst children affected had parents who wouldn’t allow them to see other dc at all during lockdowns when rules relaxed a little- for a walk, for a play in the park etc and were shadows of themselves when rules were eased completely. Lives ruined and for what?!

I've never understood why so many people are so keen on WW2 comparisons when it comes to covid. It's particularly strange the way people seem to set them up as either/or when there's a whole cohort who lived through both who we can actually just ask about it. My loved one who remembers WW2 disliked lockdown more, because of the erosion of community.

The mask excuse is odd. No one wore masks at home surely and neither did nursery staff.... Masks were for supermarket visits and medical settings. Babies of 0-2 aren't going to be learning speech from random strangers in the supermarket.

You genuinely can't understand why people compare a period in our very resent history (Covid), where people lost civil liberies, were thrown into unprecedented times (God I hated that phrase at the time and still do), were fearful of the unknown, and where 'normal' life was completely interrupted and altered with the other time within living memory where people's everyday normal lives were thrown into chaos in WW2?

And we are now at a time where those who lived through WW2 are VERY elderly. I find it absolutely incredible that your loved one found 6 years of war, the death of millions and the constant threat of German occupation more favourable to a few months of lockdown.

I really, really struggled with the second lockdown. I would say it was probably the lowest point in my life. But to actually say it was less favourable to living through the war... I mean I wasn't there so I can't, but that's just unimaginable to me.

Yes. I have three children of various ages and I work in a primary school. There are definitely still so many after effects both developmentally and academically and not enough funding in place to provide sufficient staff to support. Schools are at breaking point and staff retention is awful.

My kids are 4 & 7 and are fine. Eldest missed about 3 months of nursery due to lockdowns, it was a warm spring and he didnt care, we had loads of fun in the garden. I was on mat leave with youngest and they developed a lovely bond with dad while he was wfh.

Screens probably saved people from isolation. We often had a screen going where kids could dip in and out of to chat to their friends. We used them properly. Used the online academy, used twinkl etc. Dh and I were anxious over the deaths on the news and our elderly relatives but our children were protected from it.

It’s not Covid anymore. Unless something terrible happened in that time it’s the environment we’re in now. Or I’m just really lucky and have super resilient kids.

Thank you, that is really interesting especially the part about being unable to play. I don’t see this with my DC or their friends/peers - though I’m not looking at it through the lens of someone who really knows what to look for.

I wonder how this would happen on a large scale with children who were babies when the lockdowns were most severe (obviously children missing school is totally different) if they had otherwise engaged parents. Especially as nurseries were open in 2021.

My eldest developed severe anxiety during the pandemic, she was 14 when it started. There was so much pressure on her year (the first year to take GCSE exams after the pandemic) to catch up and do well. She is doing great academically, she was always a high achiever but she felt the pressure.

My middle child not as affected, she was 11 when it started. Missed a lot of year 7, there were some issues with friends (she had some mean friends) but she has bounced back. No concerns academically or socially

My youngest would have been 4, had just started nursery before it all stopped. We had delays in getting seen by speech and language (his issues weren't caused by the pandemic, he has a stammer and was struggling to pronounce some sounds but it was hard to get seen as a result of the pandemic). By the time he was seen he had managed to pronounce sounds better. He has not been affected at all, is sociable and happy. Loves school.

I can only speak for my children but no I don't think it has had long term effects on them. One is 14 the other almost 17. The eldest has asd and loved homeschooling but equally is doing well at school now. The youngest went a little bit loopy at some points during lockdown but is now a social butterfly living her best life, she isn't a fan of school for anything other than social reasons but that's just her nothing to do with lockdowns.

Affected my kids massively and we are still seeing the effects

DS11 struggles with being away from home / us - he was never like that before

DD9 was discharged from CAMHS as the service she was receiving was stopped, as a result her phobia and anxieties increased massively and our progress to a dx for neurodivergence was halted as she wasnt in school.

@Lovelydaytomorrow

I think it's really hard to say because so many of the things mentioned above were already being seen in education before covid, so I do wonder if covid is just being blamed for quite a bit.

Decline in behaviour at all age groups, lack of resilience, increase in anxiety, etc were all being flagged with all teachers I know before Covid even came into existence.

In particular, my lecturer friends were all agast at their fresher cohorts around 2018/19 with how much more parents were becoming involved in university education, lack of commitment, interest, stamina, resilience, and so on.

I think this is part of it too. I was managing fresh graduates in 2019-20, and it was really notable that compared to previous years their cohort struggled with resilience and motivation. I think a lot of these were existing trends, but much heightened and speeded up in 2020.

Mine have been effected yrs 8 and 12 in school. The year 8 now year 12 lost out on the social skills and friendships she would have made at secondary. She basically hit year 10 with no fixed friendship group and all the year 8 friends had changed in lock down. I remember her looking at me as if I was mad when I suggested a cinema trip alone with a friend in year 11 . She thought she couldn't go alone with no adult. Her prom last year was the first the school had had since her brothers 4 years before. The year 12 missed out on being a young adult at 6th form. No a.level exams , no parties, no little job. It impacted his uni years, made him less out going and unsure. He is now just about their in his last year. The damage to thos group is so obvious and often unseen. I think the result is a very different view on what's important in life and to achieve them.

You're so angry at the Government for taking measures to keep you and your loved ones healthy and alive?

My dd is 5 and she was just under 2 at the time of the first lockdown. I worried a lot about her missing out on social interaction at the time as she had been doing toddler classes every day, and made sure we got out to parks every day, and I enrolled her in a nursery in June 2020 (once they allowed non-keyworker dcs to attend) just to allow her to have social contact and structured activities (I'm a sahm so didn't need it for childcare). Once she was in nursery she was fairly unaffected by restrictions - they stayed open even when schools and other activities were closed. I was proactive in taking her to any activities that were open on non-nursery days.

She seems fine now and doesn't remember much about it at all. She attends a prep school in an affluent part of London and all her school friends are thriving, and behaviour and concentration isn't a concern. I expect that most of the dcs there attended nursery and were fairly unaffected by lockdowns, and some families have nannies so they wouldn't have been trying to wfh and look after toddlers themselves. There are a lot of international families so many of them might have been in countries with less restrictions too.

I think a lot of parents with dcs the same age chose not to send them to nursery (even free state school nurseries) as some local nurseries which used to be heavily sought-after were advertising vacancies in the past few years. So I expect those kids missed out on the socialisation and early years education and that would show an impact on current Year 1 pupils. But there was nothing in the restrictions or policies which forced that to happen - the nurseries were open and had places available.

The government took measures to keep us "healthy and alive"????

Alive, maybe, at a stretch. Perhaps more "existing", but not living. For many, lockdown was an extremely miserable existence, especially granny whom the state seemed determined to keep alive, while she was forcibly separated from her own family. And as this thread shows, are our children now enjoying great mental and physical health?? What exactly do we have to show for the miserable months of lockdown, that made it so vital? Some people might have been spared dying of the virus (and I haven't forgotten the deliberate confusion of those who died "with covid" and "of covid"), but they are now dying of other things in massive numbers, including suicide, which the government is keeping very quiet about, when the government wiped out their thriving businesses in one day. NHS mental health services are now stretched even more than before, as a direct result of the beloved lockdowns which we were ironically gaslighted told were to "protect the NHS". The very same lockdowns which Boris Johnson and his staff thought were beneath them: perhaps they knew that something we didn't, such as the virus being nowhere near as deadly as they were telling the public.

Also, I haven't forgotten the constant government gaslighting about how long this full-frontal mental assault would last, and at times, there was no end in sight at all. "Reviewed in three weeks" became "in twelve weeks, we can send the virus packing" which became "we need to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze the brakes on reopening" (Boris Johnson in August 2020 - I ditched Radio 4 after that) which became "normalish by Christmas" which became "it would be inhumane to cancel Christmas - oops, I've just done it" which became "significant normality by Easter" which became "irreversible roadmap to freedom in June" which became "oops, July". If, instead of all this, they had admitted early on that lockdowns could not control the virus, and were causing much more harm than good, and opted for a common sense approach of protecting the vulnerable instead while everybody else carried on, I would have far more respect for the government now. It might have made them briefly unpopular, but look at where they are now.

One impact that this has had on me is that it will be decades before I can believe, respect or trust anything that any government says again, because of the constant, constant lying and covering up from those at the top, now that this government has set such a massive precedent. In a world where people can be jailed for lying about who was driving a speeding car, you would think that those who had much greater responsibilities (i.e. the Prime Minister) should be imprisoned for telling far bigger lies than that.

And if anyone says to me "you sound angry": yes I am, and I am not ashamed of that at all. And I expect millions of other people are as well. Widespread public anger is one of the many legacies of those lockdowns which some people pleaded for.

Well ypu couldn't be more wrong. I'm a medic and I see the long lasting physical consequences of covid daily.
Let's not fall into the trap of pretending it was/is a benign disease.
I've been a doctor for 30 odd years and have never see anything like it.
Just because you escaped don't be foolish enough to believe everyone did.
One of my children really was damaged by lockdown. That doesn't mean it was wrong.

So you know all their personal difficulties? Self harm? Anxiety? Sleep? Physical issues?
Don't be daft.

I’m a deputy headteacher in a secondary school. For us, and other schools locally, this year has been the worst. Mostly with the younger ones coming through. SEN that hasn’t been diagnosed - presumably because services were shut down and now waiting lists are so long. Behaviour is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my 20 years in schools.

I think we’ll be feeling the effects for many years. I remember at the time feeling really bad for our year 10s and 11s who missed out on so much in their GCSE years but I now think they’re the ones who probably were least affected.

I don't know about angry. You sound quite mad. Of course the covid conspiracies come out to play.
Ypu do know that both ca. Be correct. Covid was and is a seriously dangerous disease and lockdown at the same time was necessary and damaging.
Unless you have a particular knowledge of the initial covid modelling then you really can't comment.

I feel for secondary teachers. This September my daughter will start and her and many others in her peer group are far from ready. Just been referred to neurodevelopment pathway with a 3 year wait. Many things missed due to covid, then blamed on missing school. I'm trying to get her all the help I can before September but having to go private.

It's because it's invariably used as a way to try and relativise the negative experiences of lockdown. So actually, yeah, I suppose actually I do know exactly why it so often gets trotted out. Wartime analogies are like a reflex. This isn't the first thread where this has happened either. Yet the fact is that the experience of withdrawal of community during lockdown isn't at all like wartime. A lot of people's experiences during that period would've been more communal, if anything.

Still, I'll be sure to tell my loved one that someone on the internet says they're doing it wrong.

I would have liked more on this at the time. This site was very different. People couldn’t hear about this damage

And as pp mentioned the inquiry won’t help much either, it’s focussed on the same things not the damage

The world wars were FAR worse than covid! Men being sent away to be brutally slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands, knowing a foreign enemy was looking to invade the country and likely commit mass murder/rape, evacuated children staying with families they barely (or didn’t) know, rationing of food, entire towns and cities absolutely levelled by aerial bombings campaigns.

Literally no comparison AT ALL.