What have we done to our children?

[Flossflower]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/sep/09/covid-lockdowns-prematurely-aged-girls-brains-more-than-boys-study-finds

I think we should never do this again even if it means killing off the oldies ( me included)!

I am very sceptical about these studies. Children can survive isolation better than adults.
The next pandemic might hit children more than oldies.

Well according to the published results there was minimal effect on male teens's brains - only 2 regions in the occipital cortex (largely for visual processing) affected - so do you conclude that lockdown had a major effect on girls and minimal effect on boys? I would take this with a massive pinch of salt - we have no idea if these changes have a significant effect on health, behaviour or intellect, we can't say of they are specific to this cohort or not, and for all we know they might be beneficial. Imaging studies are very difficult to analyse and this would need to be replicated (ie compare their findings with a different cohort). I would also remind people that at the start of lockdown we didn't know what groups were most vulnerable and what the death rate would be - the flu pandemic after WW1 preferentially killed young people. We could easily have had a scenario where Covid mostly killed young children.

Can’t say I agree. Covid didn’t/doesn’t just kill the “oldies”. It kills the medically vulnerable too. My husband is medically vulnerable. His life is worth a lot to those who know and love him including his children. I can’t imagine, and don’t want to, the damage it could do to our children if they lost their wonderful dad/stepdad. A family member of mine who is a child is very sick from undergoing chemotherapy at the moment. Covid could finish them off I expect. Everyone who knows them, many of them children including mine, would be devastated to lose them and it would damage them I’m sure.

Anyway, old, young, vulnerable, not vulnerable, people’s lives matter. So do their deaths and many people died terrible, lonely deaths of covid. I wouldn’t want that for anyone, and one of my children suffered terribly with their mental health during and after lockdowns.

We did have the advantage of parents being able to work from home - my grandchildren were able to see much more of dad (no commute, joining family for lunch, no "just popped into to see random person on way home" that my children had) and we're able to go into school part time as mum essential worker.
Agree it was the government who made a complete balls up of everything like they did with many things

Unless these sorts of studies are done regularly then they cannot say whether this is due to the lockdown, catching covid or any other reason.

The brain not maturing as fast is not a bad thing, in fact you could argue it’s a good thing as we want to slow the effects of an aging brain, especially as we get older.
So these children may me mentally much more healthy in old age than most of us will be.

Oh god is it time for the weekly "let's shit stir about Covid" thread
we haven't had one for at least ooh about five minutes
<hands op a bigger spoon to whip up hysteria with>

It hasn't taken the impact of covid infections on these kids, even though it's well documented that covid can cause brain changes?

No they started a study pre covid to look at who kids brains developed in teenage years - got interrupted due to covid and noticed when they could get back to do research that part of the girls brains had matured faster than usual but boys also thinned faster but less fast than the girls.

Though it does look like another group in USA has found similar changes - they say this when quoting an expert commenting on this study later in article.

Essentially they've noticed this change in their study unexpectedly and need to do more research as to long term affects if any.

They speculated as to why girls were worse - teen girls and socialisation - but don't know what it means cognitively and they don't know if it will self correct by not aging as fast in next few years.

Also study was in USA - doesn't say anything about social economic status of kids - but employment security, housing security and access to medical care are all less secure than here and there was way more polarisation about mask wearing and everything - and not sure how they handle their schooling situation.

I doubt this group will be able to do more than speculate on causes - and other research work might have to be looked to for any answers if even possible.

I think it is widely accepted that we completely screwed over a significant proportion of children during covid. I say proportion because impact was far greater for those with ineffectual parents. I don't think we will know the full ramifications for quite some time.

I’d say my children are better for it. I hate so many have suffered but for us, we spent a lot of wonderful time together, they grew in the way they do in the holidays. I think less school time is far more beneficial for those who can make it work.
I realise I am very fortunate and privileged and I suspect those who home school by choice are often in the same demographic.
i can fully see how it could have a detrimental effect on those less fortunate.

I didn't see a particular impact on girls coming, but the rest of the effects were bleeding obvious in 2020 and nothing to do with hindsight. This article from yesterday set a few out.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/sep/09/impact-of-covid-lockdowns-to-disrupt-englands-schools-into-the-2030s-report-says

It is what it is, we made our choices, and now we get to deal with the consequences.

Look when the lockdown was going on I wasn't supporting it used to go out all day and to the beach (live near the beach and had a 2 year old DC in a small apartment) but its getting a bit ridiculous how mumsnet blames every thing on the lockdown, it was four years ago now.

Also I find it interesting you say "I can't believe we done this to girls" I just can't imagine the average mumsnetter having the same sympathy for boys.
It's not like boys were allowed out in lockdown but girls weren't

I'm not sure to what extent the two can be separated, since lockdown and the general policy response shifted so much online. When we have a situation where the childcare provision for some kids for months was basically electronic babysitter, as happened in the first lockdown, that's not a genie that will easily go back in the jar.

We did what had to be done in the situation we were in. It could have been avoided had the government at the time had a plan and started at the beginning but it had already gone too far once they finally intervened. Of course there's going to be consequences for children. They lived through a massive and catastrophic world event, it was always going to be a case of trying to work out the least-worst scenario whilst knowing that any choice was going to have an impact. There is no decade in which children somewhere did not suffer because of natural disasters or adult decisions, just look at what's happening in Gaza right now, or Northern Ireland in the 90s, or London during the Blitz. We just have to do the best for them and give them some grace now we're on the other side of it.

It also knock of effect post covid in NHS services delays in speech theory - diagnosis delayed - support cut to bone.

Then you have cost of living crisis - parents who been fine pre-covid suddenly struggling with cost of everything going up and up.

As usual families with most social economic resources are best able to weather any storms - even if it takes some years to mitigate any effects.

We all know that lockdowns were a huge mistake, but especially for the young. It's normal for older people to die, but "we" just didn't get it. I'm nearly 60 - my life is far less important than that of a child, so if I have to die in the next pandemic, then so be it. That's the normal way for things to work.

I read this and it was a brief article with not much detail about the sampling and all the other factors that would surely have come into play. I would also be interested to know if these young people are going to have follow up scans to see if the changes are progressive.

Of course lockdown has had an effect on children, it has an effect on everyone but the young in particular and anyone who says otherwise is definitely in denial.

Children I think were especially hit - lack of socialisation/isolation and the realisation that life isn’t all Disney and play far younger they should has caused them to grow up far earlier than they should or needed to - DS started year 7 and his year 11 sister was so shocked as to how much older the girls in particular seemed and that is in part due to covid

2 things can be true at the same time lockdown particularly the first one was a necessary and unavoidable step in fighting Covid (the second not so much but still on balance an approach) and that it caused damage and harm to the younger generation in particular.

trying to deny the harm is no different from denying the harm Covid caused

it is how it needs to be handled that should be discussed - and the current attendance rules are certainly not the way!

Also I find it interesting you say "I can't believe we done this to girls" I just can't imagine the average mumsnetter having the same sympathy for boys.It's not like boys were allowed out in lockdown but girls weren't

The study and article states that girls brains were much worse affect by a huge factor - not that boys were unaffected they were but much less so .

Think it's a commenting on that rather than saying boys don't matter or that they were unaffected in other ways- just these brain scans show much more effect on girls in study.

I think that why it's got so much attention - not just because there seem to be affects on teenagers brains but that it is so disproportionately affects teenage girls.

I'd have suspected social economic status then family set up and then age would have played a huge role in how much children were affected - so sex based difference are a surprise - though no idea if UK would be the same as USA.

I follow the Covid Inquiry on and off and what is becoming abundantly clear is that the government of the time is going to come out of it very badly.

Yes and grandchildren. As the grandchildren were preschool at the time maybe it didn’t hurt them too much but I do worry about the children who were school age at the time.

It killed a colleague of mine, she was 52, another who is only in her 30's has been left with damaged lungs after repeated infections which she more than likely contracted while working as an HCA on the wards throughout the pandemic.

The implication is that lockdown was the cause - not sure that is clear from the data.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2403200121

I think you must have missed the point of the Lockdown, it was never about preventing deaths but about protecting the NHS so it didn't get overwhelmed.