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)!

Usual Guardian rot. But then again, somebody needs to write a PhD, so things like that appear. Poor darlings, no social interaction. Plenty of social interaction in the poorest countries, torn by war, leave the house, fetch some water, look after your siblings, milk the cow (if you are lucky to have one), and dozens of other chores. Or child soldiers - I wonder how much their brains have aged in one year, covid or not. Or, let us not go that far - my neighbour, a child carer - who for the first time was on par with his fellow pupils - via distance learning. Our children are lazy, pampered, ignorant, over-indulged, selfish. No need to whine about them.

Imagine being a child soldier and someone invoking you to come out with all this bollocks.

Quarantining is essential with any widespread disease. I’ve seen comments online from, in my opinion, stupid and selfish people, saying they’d never take precautions if another pandemic arises. Common sense seems to be lacking in a lot of people, unfortunately

I understand what the study is saying. I was talking about the ops shocked comment of "I can't believe we've done this to girls" obviously I don't know the op on a personal level so I apologise if I'm wrong but I just can't imagine most mumsnetters making a comment like "I can't believe we've done this to boys" if it had been the other way around.
My son was two in the lockdown and at the time we lived in a one bed apartment you really think if I'd obeyed the lockdown that he would of had an easier time than a girl in a house with a garden 🤔
Hate to use my family as the example but in general its the kids that didn't have a garden or had parents who were going crazy with worry over Covid that would of had a harder time not girls Vs boys. Even then it was still 4 years ago at what point do we stop blaming it for everything?

It clearly says in this article that they have no idea if the changes they saw are actually damaging or have any negative consequences.

I agree 100%.

Though I no longer have a young child I know those who do and they are absolutely fine, survived lockdown well, in fact some blossomed.

It's over, op, leave it behind.

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

The outcome of the enquiry, along with all the knowledge we have gained will (hopefully) mean that subsequent pandemics are managed in different ways.

Of course the pandemic has had far reaching consequences, not just in terms of the millions of deaths, but in many, many different ways. Some of then positive, some of them negative.

By researching the impact we can learn.

Well, the impact of both the disease itself and the policy response to it are both going to go on a lot longer than 4 years. So I'd say buckle down for the next few decades!

Agree I'd have assumed the biggest differences would be in relation to essentially how privileged a lockdown the child had. Ability to attend school or childcare, outside space access, availability of parents, supervision, whether parents coping etc.

What a stupid comment..killing off the oldies! I was touched by the affection shown towards older parents and grandparents during the pandemic. I think the extensive closure of schools was unwise as were a lot of other actions by what I considered to be an inept and corrupt government. The constant current use of social media needs addressing for our youngsters in many respects.

Any major disaster that children witness will leave a mark.
Teaching them to cope is far more important than dwelling on what could have been if...

The problem with basing major disaster planning decision on Covid is that we don't know what or when the next pandemic will be. It might be a new flu type with a very high death rate in children - would you still ignore lockdown restrictions then? What if Russia have some smallpox and use it for biological warfare? The government need to anticipate and plan for ALL possibilities in a competent fashion, and react urgent if a new situation arises not faff about for weeks before shutting the borders.

“Ineffectual parents”? Did Covid lockdown cause you to become so condescending or did it simply compound a problem that already existed for you?

Many highly effective parents were unable to mitigate the impact of Covid on their kids, for a whole host of reasons. Negative impacts are not always visible, either.

My mum lived through the blitz and I know it affected her for the duration of her entire life - for a number of complex reasons. It wasn’t my gran’s fault. They were poor and it made it harder to recover.

Blaming parents is absolutely unfair.

At the time they were faced with a situation where people were dying if they came in contact with others. So easy to analyse it now but they were extraordinary circumstances. I find these kind of articles so inflammatory

That's great but it's not all about you, you know.

Can anyone knowledgeable comment on the sample sizes used in the tables of the report? The numbers of people examined look very small.

So here’s my brain thinking and I may be wrong so you can shoot me down. What about homeschooled kids even before covid and after those that don’t get to meet up with loads of friends like soem do in school. Do they age then? Because so many kids this study says need social environment to mix well I can’t see isolated homeschool kids doing that . I mean as a child I remember watching about kids in very rural Australia whe they did their schooling remotely from cb radio etc. so were they older then

My son (11) was talking the other day about how brilliant a certain day was during lockdown.

And before I get jumped on for having an easy time, I had a very best full time job, a key worker husband out all day and a two year old to look after as well.

For me it was hell and this day is because Smyths toys reopened for home delivery and I thought sod it and ordered a play set they wanted. I was on the verge of a breakdown but he sees it as a lovely day (well it was kind of).

But what I'm trying to say is that the impact on kids is far from universal. I don't really think mine suffered. Of course a bit educationally but not really mentally or emotionally. And there must be as many like this as there are those that found it hard.

I found it incredibly tough but hybrid working has really improved my life since.

It was a complex issue. Mistakes were made but I don't think you can say we just shouldn't have bothered with any measures. Really public fear drove some. Boris was on the lax side but people practically demanded lockdown.

There'd have been an impact going round in fear of people too.

I suspect we'd probably be buggered in either of those scenarios, particularly in the fairly near future. Can't see the public having enough trust in any one body at this point. And I don't think either of these would fall into the sweet spot of people being scared enough to want restrictions but not so scared that the ones who we need to work out of home just stop turning up for work. Maybe it'll be easier to pull off again when memories from this time round have faded a bit.

I don’t for one minute think this is all to do with Covid, mostly shit parenting.

Kids where I am are overwhelmingly fine. Most generations have some sort of trauma but they don’t bleat on about it. If you stop treating them as “victims” they will build some resilience.

Of course it isn’t over - it was a pretty huge event and the ripple effects will be seen for a long long while.

accepting that is as important as accepting for the most part decisions that were made at the time were then without the benefit of hindsight the right thing to do

My Grandchildren ranging from 18 downwards haven't shown any sign of struggling socially. They have friends, the ones that are old enough have Saturday jobs, they and their friends go to the cinema, travel on public transport to other towns for activities. They have all done well in their A levels and have all moved on to higher education or Apprenticeships.
The younger ones still do Cubs, Brownies etc, take part in sports/dancing. During lockdown they were not allowed to disappear to their rooms for hours on end, they took part in family life. They could facetime friends for an hour each night and for a short time after lunch. Too many children were left without routine and were allowed to retreat to their caves whilst the parents scrolled instagram,, made childish videos or got pissed in the garden.
Some parents did not support their children and many of those children suffered as did many of the children that are ND due to their routine being disrupted. Covid is being used as an excuse for many parents failings.

The comparison group is those who didn't experience Covid/lockdown.

For your conclusion to be valid, the comparison group should be kids who experienced an uncontrolled pandemic - watching their grandparents die, being unable to get routine medical treatment themselves, feeling guilt that they might have given it to grandma, seeing vulnerable disabled people as different and isolated etc.

The pandemic happened, there are effects from that as well, you can't just pick nonsense like this and say "it would have been better if there was no pandemic, so I'm right."

TBH, as a lecturer at university I wouldn't be that upset at students being a little more mature than they currently are, the article doesn't even say it's necessarily bad.

Thanks. I can’t even find the numbers in that, gave it a scan a couple of times and it’s been a while since I’ve read one of these but it doesn’t seem to be clear how many participants of each sex were in the stuff and at what ages.

160? That's crazy.

No-one has said your son didn't have it hard.

I have two teen girls and a teen boy - I worry about all of them.

I do agree MN can be biased against boys but if you understood OP was commenting on an article looking at research that found girls brains worse affect why then choose to get offended by comment about it affecting girls worse.

I wouldn't have expected sex base differences but this research appear to have found some - I like to know what that means if anything and why for any future situations to try and prevent or mitigate in future. Plus any insights into normal development - a lot of brain understanding comes from rare cases where the brain isn't standard.

Also finding sex based differences doesn't mean that social economic factor weren't more important - it's just something else to be potential aware of and perhaps take into account with future research.

Plus covid being 4 year ago and thus not having any lasting affects that doesn't match with anecdotes from teachers and people working with young children - and indeed some initial research.

Honestly understanding if there are problems - what they are and throwing any needed resources at situation so the problems are mitigated and don't persist into adulthood - it probably best for the whole society rather than denying any problems because it's politically inconvenient or doesn't fit with what individuals want to hear.

We may have flu or even ebola outbreaks in future and may have to lock down again understanding what was done right and wrong is part of working out if we need to do it again how to do it better.