Children these days don't know how to behave

[DoYouWantMeToBeTheCat]

AIBU to wonder why?

image descriptions for visually impaired

1. Photo of socially distanced lunch tables in primary school with taped areas for seating
2. Photo of socially distanced classroom in secondary school with children sat in masks
3. Photo of child cycling past a play area taped up with signs advising it's closed
4. Front page of the Sunday People with headline that says "Death is all around us.. so follow the rules"
5. Photograph of toddler at window with an old lady at the other side - both putting their hands up to each other.

that article written August

2020!!

op, do you work? social life? enjoy life?

I honestly don't think children are any worse behaved than when I was a child in the 80s. There definitely seem to be less fights at dcs school than there was at mine! I suspect it is one of the things that goes together with aging, 'things were better in my day', and then looking for reasons.

All is back to normal now, (excluding signage still up in an enormous number of places asking people to wear masks!)

My point is - we can't expect children to act as they did pre-2020.

The taped off tables in primary school might have helped children behave better as it gives a clear indication of where they shouldn't be annoying their neighbour. The seats are a fixed distance apart and attached to the table anyway so that hadn't changed.

My point is - we can't expect children to act as they did pre-2020

Of course we can.

You never took him to a shop in 2 years? Had the news on? He didn't see posters in windows, or adverts on busses?

Kent. People were choosing not to use the village playgrounds much for a bit and the bigger one in town had the one removed swing thing but not actually locked out.

DC1 started school September 2020 so after the first lockdown and before the second. They did the bubble thing but it didn't seem to mean anything other than the infants and juniors staying in their separate playgrounds as they do anyway. And they all mixed at after school club
anyway. It was all pretty relaxed really.

Especially if your parents drone on about it.
My Mum was born in the middle of a war zone and spent the first 4 years of her life in the middle of a city that was being bombed. Then the next 20 years in a country where the government actively encouraged children to spy and rat out their parents. Two of her uncles died in concentration camps, 2 were murdered by the government. Her mother was incredibly mentally ill so my mum's upbringing was tough.
She is now 80 and taught us to not let the past engulf your future.
She has led a wonderful life. Yes she had her demons but she lives it to the full. I see some of her relatives who are bitter about the past and it has not been pretty.

Yes lockdown was shite (I am married to someone who worked frontline at the hospital so it was fucking awful). COVID was horrible we lost family. But it's over now. Lessons have been learnt. But time to move on or waste life.

This really is just lazy thinking and naking excuses yes there 2as an impact but it really isn't responsible for all society's ills.

I agree. Children went through a massive and prolonged trauma. Trauma responses will dictate behaviour.

It's wasted on the majority of this lot though. Many on here very old fashioned in their thinking and churning out the same behaviours as their own parents and grandparents without a thought.

They don’t need any more grace and understanding than you would normally give them. The problem is lazy parenting. Stop making excuses for other people and for goodness sake move on. It’s four years since the pandemic.

But we have had a good 3 years since that time to get them to socialise. And to be honest the worst of it for primary school children was between March 2020-March 2021. By September 2022 a lot of schools opened as normal?
And yes it’s a long time but even for a chunk of that schools were open.

🙄

The usual lazy insults.

Children went through a massive and prolonged trauma.

Did they? Really? Unless they lost parents/friends/family then no, I don't think they did go through "massive and prolonged trauma"

Haven't you read any news? There is little - no support for mental health services. Centres are shutting down, waitlists are extensive etc.

https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/government-can-no-longer-bury-its-head-in-the-sand-on-mental-health/

What if your child wasn't primary school age though, but younger?

Sub 5 years old we know is a very important time in a child's life. They'll make the most neural connections in their brain at that time.

What if they didn't have older siblings to bounce off of?

Plenty of parents still had to work during the pandemic, whether at home or not.

No, that's the job of lazy teachers now, isn't it!!

yes this navel gazing is actually stopping you from moving on

which will impact your children more than anything else

so i suggest you stop focussing on other children

and start focussing on you and your children

It was an image search I did on lockdown. I'm not saying the articles are relevant - just posting the links for info to the poster who disputed that the photos reflected life in the UK at the time of lockdowns.

and my question…. work? social life?

That is the fault of the current government and their continuing efforts to conflate their dismal failure with Covid should be dismissed.

The last one, of secondary pupils absolutely does not reflect life in England at least. You'll be able to find plenty of photos in the press of children socially distanced in masks in school classrooms, but they were fake. It was discussed at the time.

In England, the only times where secondary children were required to wear masks in school, there was absolutely no social distancing. Kids were crammed 30+ into classrooms as normal.

The children in Gaza are going through trauma. Kids here, no.

Here are two photos: one where a bus stop was infiltrated with a plea for children, and another shop’s shrine to Saint Boris, the patron Saint of truth and masking.

@GoodnightAdeline that's not right. Yes the horrific things experienced by children in Gaza, Aleppo, Ukraine are awful and traumatic on a different scale. That doesn't mean that our children can't experience trauma.

Going through an emergency / disaster situations such as pandemic, fire, flood and bereavement all cause trauma. Whilst I don't agree with the OPs POV you shouldn't brush off the substantial impact that going through these things and not knowing why, or not having any control over what happens has on you particularly as a child . I had children I taught whose parents worked in the nearby hospital sent to live with (young) grandparents or worrying that their parents might die - particularly at the very beginning when there were so many unknowns, children from single parent families where the resident parent was hospitalised, children who lost close family members, children who become all consumed and obsessed by germs and worrying about taking them home to family members.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Very well said.