To not understand why people go on about the impact of Covid lockdown on children

[PrunellaModularis]

It comes up all the time on MN and I don't get it.

They had several months off school, couldn"t see their friends or grandparents or do clubs. Then lockdown ended, back to school, friends, grandparents and clubs.

How come people say "because Covid" to explain young people's behaviour.

Disclaimer: I'm not talking abouy kids in abusive families.

Ignore poll - don't know how to disable it!

according to reports the mental health in children was low before the pandemic

Just before lockdown my then 5yr old watched her parents marriage implode, then her mum go off to work on the front lines at an acute hospital (im a nurse), then her Uncle died. So yep, in our situation my child and my then 12yr old Neice were left totally traumatised. In fact writing this down im realising how their actually doing quite well

Nobody says this!

Why do you want to ignore the reality, as understood through research?

Your denial of any COVID impact is a psychological phenomenon too.

Absolutely the same. One of my children was in year 2 and refused to engage completely with the virtual lessons. Could not understand why their teacher was on a screen and not face to face. I couldn’t help as I was trying to keep working full time and look after two of their younger siblings. I don’t think they learnt a single thing in the time they were in lockdown and spent months if not years trying to catch up.

Yes, it was awful for them. I interviewed some of that year group for a school magazine. One started a graduate job, dialling from a laptop in her childhood bedroom and not meeting colleagues in the flesh for another year. Another (a dual national) couldn't start her planned degree in America so had to get up in the night for a whole year to attend classes online.

It was also awful for the teachers who had to do the CAGs and TAGs. So many ethical issues! For the TAGs my school at the time basically made us run GCSEs and A-levels ourselves internally, mark them, moderate them, with little, confusing and contradictory guidance from civil servants who frankly did not know what they were doing!

Lot of hatred to unpick here!

I care we were one year away from that. Some dc were hit harder due to year group. In primary years too given the summer some were kept out.

My son was 8 when Covid hit.

He now lives with a completely irrational fear of germs, sneezing, coughing etc. He won’t sit in our living room because too many people go in there and he considers it unhygienic. He washes his hands multiple times a day, monitors other people’s hand washing, sneezing etc. And he won’t do certain activities that he feels will expose him to germs.

He’s had counselling for it which has partly helped, but it is still a daily issue. I worry this will affect his life forever.

We didn’t do anything radical in Covid - just broadly adhered to the government advice.

None of this was a problem prior to Covid. So I squarely put it down to the incessant brainwashing and scaremongering by the government, SAGE and other related groups.

Thats interesting, I was wondering about that the other day because we were watching the Good Doctor series and got to the COVID bit and I realised I just couldn't watch it. It felt distressing and I had to turn it off. And I wondered if people who lived through wars would feel that way

I love this idea for volunteering, once the children are older I shall look into it

Saying 'I don't mean to be insensitive' doesn't make it ok to be insensitive.

The point is people died alone, which is upsetting for all concerned.

I was listening to something on radio 4 a while back on this topic and the general consensus from the people they discussed with was these patterns were already existed pre Covid and are heavily connected to smart phones.

That said within my friendship group we’ve definitely seen an impact for our current Y5/6 kids (the ones that missed big chunks of reception) vs our older and younger ones. They seem to be getting out of it now but it was noticeable

I feel like a lot of things are blamed on covid. Sure, a lot of things might have initially been due to covid and some collateral damage due to some things not being picked back up due to covid. But I feel like several years later we can't blame every social challenge on covid

During covid the secondary school I worked at shifted to online work for the first lockdown. It was a large rural catchment with a high level of deprivation. So a huge number of children couldn't access the work. Even those who had IT at home were competing with parents who were also trying to work at home for the one computer or battling with appalling Internet connections. As a result, large numbers of teenagers disengaged from work and our school was too busy setting itself up as a testing centre to do anything meaningful to keep them engaged. For many of those students in deprived areas they had no structure or discipline for months. Many of there parents with fragile coping strategies had deteriorating mental health and increasing substance abuse. None of this is good news for child development.

When they returned to school they were placed in pods by year group. At my school, which was challenging for behaviour prior to covid, had previously relied oj behaviour management protocols like a 'reset room' manned by slt for all year groups. Due to mixing restrictions and doing all the testing they decided they couldn't staff this so just had nothing. The combination of the classes remaining put and teachers having to leave them unsupervised to move about the site to teach different year groups led to a huge deterioration in behaviour. Classes became literally unteachable. No one learnt anything. Then came the second lock down, we did a bit better that time, school had purchased some addional laptops to give out to those who needed them. And lessons went live. The problem was the damage was already done. No one was turning up to lessons or engaging. Or they would sign in but had their cameras off and would just disappear to do something else. Essentially, huge numbers of kids spent far too much time not learning, disengaging and being on tiktok on their own. These behaviour patterns have been very challenging to break.

Not to mention the implosion of mental health in both kids and parents. Huge increases in anxiety (not just the kids, in fact when you dig down a little you realise often it's a parents issue) school refusal, cultural shifts, ongoing economic crisis of covid, brevity, Ukraine.

Not to mention the chronic underfunding.

It's not all covid but that is still having a massive knock on effect. My own kids were largely unscathed and doing well but they are still being impacted by the behaviour in their classrooms and the drain on school resources.

Year 7 this year are a very different ballgame to our previous cohorts (and we’re a selective school in a very affluent catchment). They are not really ready for secondary school in the way that we are used to - so obviously we have to adapt to meet them in the middle and help them get there, but there’s a reason I teach secondary school not primary so I’m not really enjoying it! I’m steeling myself for the next few years, but I’m reassured by a PP who says the 21/22 cohort are a bit more ‘back to normal’! However, I do think it’s not just Covid: far too much screen time (especially bitesize YouTube and TikTok), more permissive parenting and an unrealistically challenging curriculum also don’t help.

People die alone all the time

What about people who die in their sleep?

Covid or no Covid, people still died alone in care homes.

But how was he exposed to such information from the Government and SAGE etc?

How was an 8 year old brainwashed by the Government, how?

People don't 'catch up'. If they are meant to develop x skills at 2, y skills at 3, z skills at 4.... How are they meant to do x and y in one year? Y builds on x, so if you haven't got x, you can't be learning y. So now you're even further behind.

Even when schools went back we were sent a letter asking us to consider if we could keep our children home. We had to make a binding decision. So we agreed. We weren't told that the teachers would stop giving our children feedback on their work because they would be busy with the children who went back to school. My youngest daughter essentially didn't have a teacher for months. She was hearing about her classmates having fun in their 'bubbles' because a lot of parents had decided that they fancied sending their children back to school regardless.

One of my DDs was at a special school. The teachers went against government guidance and wore scrubs and visors to school. Incredibly frightening for a child with learning disability. My DD developed an eating disorder but paeds and CAMHS were both relieved that the other was found to see her and both discharged her. It took 6 months before I could get anyone to take me seriously and she was hospitalised. Her mental health has never recovered.

It’s only really now I can totally understand how it must have been for some young people. My daughter was 9 in lockdown. She genuinely enjoyed that time and remembers it fondly. She was still at an age where she enjoyed spending time with us and her dad was furloughed so was able to dedicate a lot of time to her home schooling as well as taking her outdoors to play and exercise , doing arts and crafts and baking and all the things she loved (I was working full time from home so he took on most of the parenting /home education during the day.) This was quality time that her and dad would never be able to have on this scale due to work so she found it very special and they really bonded.

We were lucky enough to have a nice comfortable house and a garden to play in and and live next to a large nature park. We are far from rich but get by ok and our home is calm and safe. So all good for us in terms of lockdown.

HOWEVER she is now 15. She’s a party girl, out all weekend with her big group of friends. Parties, days out, sleepovers, we barely see her other than when she pops in for a shower and to grab some food, or accompanied by a gag of friends. If lockdown happened now I think she would find it very hard to cope, as would we. She don’t want to be with us 24/7 like when she was 9. She’s would miss school, her friends, her boyfriend, her social life, her freedom. She would view it as her teenage years passing by and she would old enough to understand the stuff she is missing out of and the terrible impact Covid is having on people and the economy. she would fall behind with GCSE work, relying on home learning which we as parents are not equipped to help with, as we did in primary school. she would see her cohort as at a disadvantage and fell less prepared for higher education.

so it massively depends on the child’s family situation, age and personality, some will sail through it with no impact like my 9 year old daughter did, looking back on it as a happy time. But some, especially teenagers or those with an unhappy family background, may well have been damaged by it. I would be terrified about how it would affect my daughter and family dynamic should it happen again now.

It was the best part of a year here in Glasgow. Every time they got back to school they would be sent home again within a week or two. For young people a year is a larger percentage of their life.

The concept that children just went back and all fine is the complete opposite to what the research has shown.

I had a toddler we were fed the line they are resilient etc but it was a cohort which was badly effected. The referral level for speech and language went up 4 fold in my area.

Lockdown in Scotland wasn't a few months either. In total schools and nurseries were shut for 10 months that's an entire academic year.

How can you catch up if you are at the end of school? There is no rewind option

Yes, they managed it, just as people managed through, and after, COVID. 'Managing' is not the same as 'had no impact', though, is it?

My grandparents hoarded food as a direct result of living through rationing. They continued this behaviour until they could no longer care for themselves in their own home. We found 20 year old tins in their cupboards.

Of course they managed. And went on, post war, to live long and productive lives. But their lives weren't without impact, just because they were the generation who didn't talk about it much.

I've got a still living relative who remembers her childhood as an evacuee. Just because she doesn't say, 'it had an impact on my life', just because she 'got on with it', doesn't mean there was no impact.

It's possible to move on from an event, but still be impacted by it.

Define end of school - GCSE - A Levels?

"People die alone all the time
What about people who die in their sleep?
Covid or no Covid, people still died alone in care homes."

Let's apply this argument to a related issue:-

Kids develop mental health issues, anxiety and developmental problems all the time.

What about kids who had these issues before COVID?

COVID or no kids still have mental health issues, anxiety and developmental problems.