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 agree that lockdown as bad for kids. But tbh, all the scientific evidence points to our REALLY messing up when we let them have smartphones, so a large amount of the damage was already done from that.

This.

Wow OP, the shyte you have received in response to your post takes me right back to peak-pandemic mumsnet! The posters arguing that milk was not an essential item to leave the house for, that a dying child shouldn't be automatically saved over a dying 99 year old, that the difficulties our kids were suffering was because we hadn't been correctly teaching them resilience.

I agree that the study is concerning. I saw my kids mental health deteriorate through the lockdowns and beyond. I'm not the slightest bit surprised that there is a neuro-physiological basis for those changes. I know parents still dealing with the mental health damage that Covid measures caused.

I for one regret complying with keeping them apart from other kids - I could have wangled key worker status. I also saw different rules in Wales and NI where extended families could mix. Post pandemic I heard of loads of people letting their kids hang out with the kids next door or cousins down the road.

Covid appears to be an excuse to be particularly vindictive and lacking in empathy for anyone with concerns - particularly about mental health. Mumsnet staying true to form in this regard.

I'd rather have a DD with tiny changes to the brain only visible on MRI than a DD disabled by long COVID or dead from COVID or dead from something else because hospitals were overloaded by COVID or a DD growing up with no mum as they died of COVID.

Same here.

I doubt it is anything anyway. Kids I know have not been adversely affected quite the contrary.

I am surprised at the Guardian scaremongering, frankly. What next?

Exactly! This must be one of the worst health related articles I have ever read. It really is scaremongering at its absolute worst.

given that we still understand the best part of fuck all about how the brain really works there is literally nothing to be taken away from this at the moment.

“Killing off the oldies” What a bloody awful thing to say.

As others have already pointed out the study was only done on 160 children. Another thing to consider is haven't young girls ALWAYS been more mature than young boys in general?

Anyway I was made to feel bad for going out to the beach in the lockdown with my toddler while living in a one bed apartment so excuse me if I don't have time to feed into the Mumsnet mindset of how boys always have it easy girls always have it hard etc etc while most of these people had homes way bigger than me and gardens in the lockdown.
Plus people on these threads always mention how new reception kids are coming through more delayed every year apparently because of COVID but this years cohort would of been new Born's when it happened maybe it's time to look at them iPads instead

Maybe if we’d locked down earlier it wouldn’t have had to be for as long

It's nonsense don't believe everything you read

I think covid was our (i hope our only!) massive lifetime global event. Each generation has one. They impact on the fabric of society and make changes in how we live our lives. It's up to us to decide if we want to carry on on that path (e.g. increased screens; extra hand washing etc) or not.
My children know no different. This is the world they have grown up in. Just like my parents grew up post WW2. They are a new generation shaped by the world around them. How is this any different to what has gone before?

I also agree with PP- new/adapted diseases usually take the young as well as the old. I'm not risking my kids or my parents for the sake of having to change how we function for a year or so. But I also acknowledge I didn't have it as bad as some. Hindsight is 20/20. There could have been better rules for dealing with family and isolation. No one got it perfect or completely wrong. (Except for Cheltenham Races... not closing that was bloody selfish ffs)

Boris parties was selfish too while he was telling us to isolate. Dominic Cummings going for a drive to check his eye sight. Didn't Boris attend a party on the day of Philips funeral. Bloody selfish the lot of them that's why they are not in power now they abused our trust.

It's astounding people are still defending lockdown. Even the obligatory "should have locked down sooner" has appeared on this thread.

There is literally no evidence that lockdown did any good at all, anywhere.

Yet, there is lots about the harm it has left behind. Check your household bills for starters after the government printed billions of pounds to pay for it all.

But not the disabled ones…

There is this total fantasy that lockdown was a choice to sacrifice the old to protect the young. It shows a total misunderstanding of how viruses and society works.

If there had been no lockdown the Covid peak would have been shorter but much steeper (same area under curve). At the peak society would have shut, regardless. Too many teachers would have been sick to keep schools open and, in addition, oxygen would have run out, meaning that many more young people, including children, would have died.

I don’t think children’s mental health would have been better if they had witnessed their parents suffocating to death at home as there was no healthcare available at all, and them having to watch the bodies for days as there was no one to take them away.

Covid was awful and some of the response was wrong but, regardless of the response, it was always going to impact all of the population.

Medical, scientific and virology specialists have stated that starting lockdown a couple of weeks earlier could have made a significant difference to the early transmission spread and ultimately the number of deaths. The less people needing hospital treatment the better.

I was broadly anti such draconian lock downs. But I'm finding it a bit ridiculous how we blame everything on covid lock downs these day. Yesterday, it was the reception class of September 2025 not being potty trained. My daughter is in that cohort and hand on heart I can say she suffered nothing from lock downs. She was a babe in arms with her Dad, brother and me with her a lot of the time. She started nursery at the planned time. The only thing she missed out on was extended family in the very early months. Can we give it a rest now.

Every generation has something, this was theirs. Still better than a world war.

I was sick because of covid for 2.5 years, and I still consider myself lucky in comparison to many, it's not just old people that were affected. There are also lots of long covid kids, that would have been far worse numbers without lockdowns.

And lockdowns would have worked had people actually stuck to the rules and the government hadn't been bloody stupid about some things.

Being in the Grauniad makes it no more valid than being in the much-maligned DM, they both have a clear agenda!

I thought this at the time which is why I didn't follow the rules and kept my child socialising throughout as best as I could.

You're surprised at the Grauniad scare mongering???? I'm surprised at that!

I have literally no idea why you are so determined to take a small research study and an internet discussion so personally acting like some kind of comment on your life.

160 doesn't sound large - and I have no data as to what a normal sizes study should be - or as I said earlier how they accounted for social economic factors - but if they were getting them in MRI - well don't know about USA but here I though it was a scare resource plus you have to get all the kids back to do it. I've also seen research following million shouted down as not enough people.

Personally I don't think it's a ground breaking research - it's a interim study paper which is adding to information out there and found something suggest sex may be another factor and is more likely a call for more funding and research - it would need replicating in many other studies to be taken as proven as with all research.

If we want to lockdown who had it worst - I'm in wales - the lockdown rules were were at times absurd here - often harsher than England and went on longer. We had police standing on canal bridges in local area asking why people were out and about in later lockdowns despite it being legal. Also meant I didn't get to see my Dad before he died. I'm still not the worse affected by any means by my social group.

Interesting I also read about ipad and kids being on-line and impacts and sometime comment on here on articles and research about it- I don't think it's mutually exclusive to research on covid impacts.

And lockdowns would have worked had people actually stuck to the rules and the government hadn't been bloody stupid about some things.

What do you mean by worked? Lockdowns worked in that they reduced contacts and therefore the spread during the times when they happened, but it sounds like that isn't what you're thinking of here.

Would hope someone does research looking at teenage boy/girls brain in countries that didn't lock or locked down differently to USA would be interesting - do they see similar effect or not.

As long as your children are ok, I guess no other children matter.

For children abused at home, school is often the only safe place. For many children on free school meals, the only place where they can get a decent meal.

But let’s not allow facts to interfere with feeling good about oneself, shall we?