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!

What I seem to have obseved directly is that most people who were had social/mental health damage linked to Covid were already vulnerable, already fragile. Some were already mentally unwell but they were masking well until the pandemic.

That doesn't make their current struggles ok or inevitable if Covid hadn't happened. An eminent psychiatrist explained to me many years ago that many people are on the edge of losing their ability to cope. Wouldn't take a lot for them to lose stability and then sttruggle to get back to being 'ok'. A little compassion goes a long way, when you reckon native vulnerability varied a lot.

If you genuinely believe Covid was just ‘a few months of inconvenience’ I’m not sure anyone here can explain things to you!

I work with young people and we still see the impact on a daily basis.

You are very unreasonable and very oblivious.
Its taken different effect on different people and families but it taken a toll on everyone, even the ones who dont think is has. Around here /European city/ people behave in a different way in public, are less considerate, for example, or find that they more oftern have trouble communicating. People are feeling the world in a different way. More anxiety, more health concerns.

I can answer that - I was in secondary but zu had colleagues in primary.

the children were told that there were new school rules and they had to stick to them. They were told that things had changed and the old rules did not apply.

depending on whether your kid was in school throughout, they had a desk in a 2m box that was drawn on with either chalk or tape and they were told they were not allowed out if the box.

The teacher stayed at the front of the classroom and did not move around the classroom at all.

schools were obviously visibly different and contained scared children and scared adults. The adults did their best to hide their fear but the other children were not able to.

It did.

What happened is that we repositioned school attendance as a nice to have. Something that could be withdrawn and opted out of when there was a good enough reason.

I notice this a lot when it comes to people discussing covid and lockdown related behaviours they disapprove of. As though their dismissal of someone for being selfish, stupid or whatever is all that needs to be said. Even if we were to all agree the change in the school attendance social contract is driven entirely by, say, laziness, it's still extremely significant!

I'm speechless.

I had COVID in pregnancy, I gave birth alone. I nearly died my baby was intubated for 2 weeks and tube fed. I sat there, alone.

I lost a parent who died alone.

We were stuck live streaming a socially distanced funeral in a tiny flat with no garden while Boris fucking Johnson got married again and had parties with his BS Tory playmates while my nurse colleagues had no PPE and worked with the dying putting themselves at massive risk daily. And it was literally no PPE because it was community nursing and the resources went to acute units, not begrudging acute of resources simply stating a fact.

I had a toddler whose first words were "mama", "mask" and "handgel" I wish I was kidding. Their daycare was just cancelled for a year, then the pingdemic, where the nursery would be closed at a moments notice.

We were allowed out 1 hour in 24, that leaves TWENTY THREE hours inside with no garden.

I'm going to stop now I could go on but if you can't imagine why children might have found it hard you are fortunate beyond all belief and you need to read the covid inquiry and find some compassion.

They do, exactly.

Kids had issues before covid.

Kids have issues post covid.

I still maintain that some people have used Covid as an excuse for not moving on with their life, for accepting the status quo, for poor parenting, for poor behaviour.

I had to go into work during lockdown and I said to a GP I work with that this is going to cause a lot of mental health issues in the future. I'm not medically trained and I could see it happening.

Could it also be that children were with their parents 24/7 and if that parent had their own mental health issues it could have been projected to their children?

My sister is a TA and she went into work as children of key workers went to school. Her then primary school aged daughter would come to me on my days off with her laptop to do lessons online. She kept in touch with classmates online and Whatsapp and she's fine doing her GCSEs now. I expect it depends on the individual and lifestyle scenario at the time.

My two sons were 10 and 12 when lockdown began, 1.5terms into new school, new town 2 hours from where we used to live. It took the younger one a couple of years to recover ground socially but fine he was young enough the mums could all help by arranging stuff to get them together. My older one however it hit quite hard. Not the lockdowns per se but the fact distancing/ masks went on until he was 14, during the two key years for making friends etc. He’s fine, but it was hard. I can only imagine the OP doesn’t have kids and found the post lacking in empathy/borderline goady.

Great point.

And the same principle also applies to parenting. There were already a lot of parents whose ability to look after their children properly was reliant on the collective. Other people, routines, the general rhythm of life. When we kept withdrawing that on and off for a couple of years, people who were already/would previously have been on the edge of coping and doing an adequate job fell off the side.

Covid was like a storm at sea. We all went through the storm but some people had large secure safe boats with a fully fit and well crew and they sailed through with no damage, some had smaller boats or disabled, elderly or weaker crew and suffered storm damage, some had no crew and old and inadequate boats that were smashed to pieces and some people were alone on rafts and drowned. Same storm, 100s of different outcomes.

Rubbish, all the school children I knew regarded it as an extra holiday and had no issues, which was reflected in the lower exam results.
The most sad thing I heard was the uni student who was in halls and tested +ve, not ill, stayed in his room for however long we were told, couldn’t hack it and committed suicide. Now that’s a tragedy.

Could it also be that children were with their parents 24/7 and if that parent had their own mental health issues it could have been projected to their children?

You will find that a lot of mental health issues are learnt, copied etc, if you grew up in a family with mental health issues, its the norm for you.

This is of course anecdotal evidence, but it is something I have come across time and time again.

It had a huge impact during important developmental stages for some children.

it’s wasn’t just lockdown - it was the prolonged period of social distancing and mask wearing and the inability to go to and do normal things.

all children were different.

one of mine wasn’t impacted at all.

the other became profoundly introverted and has remained so

I’ve shared this before, and I’ll share it again. We had PPE made for us by schoolchildren because there wasn’t enough available from the government. A box of visors made by the children of key workers who had to be in school, all bright colours with little notes from the kids in the box. That is not a normal thing for children to have to do. It sounds trivial, but what a pressure to place on children.

I didn’t have my own child until 2024, but of course I see the impact Covid had on kids, how could you not?

This! I was furloughed 2 weeks after coming back from maternity leave and my husband was at home most of the time too. I have very good memories, literally lived at the garden and local parks, no impact. But if I would be with few kids in flat + WFH, I'm pretty sure outcome would be different...

One of the kids I taught died.

like to explain to me how that kid regarded it as a holiday and had no issues?

I think being dead is a pretty big issue. Maybe you don’t

Is it any different for them sending food parcels to Africa?

Agreed, but I think the OP’s post is goady, not compassionate. Just because we say we can see Covid caused certain difficulties doesn’t mean we’ve all given up trying to overcome those difficulties, but understanding the cause helps.

But prior to covid had you never had to deal with a child death?
Post covid have you?

It was literally all over the news and all over the radio. Daily government briefings. And all over every day life (rules in schools, shops etc). And people talked about it around them (yes including us as parents talking about it to each other around them). We also explained why they couldn’t see friends, grandparents, have people round for Christmas etc.

People banging on about the war are pretending that everyone was fine. They managed. They were fine. What? Every single one of them? No trauma, no PTSD, no alcoholism, mental health issues, homelessness, domestic abuse, generational trauma etc.?

There’s none as blind as those that don’t want to see.

You , OP, don’t want to see. It isn’t lack of understanding, it’s wilful ignorance.

I’m a teacher in Scotland and I remember looking at my class of 12 year olds all in masks and feeling like I was in a horror film. Some would have to go outside to breathe. How can that not have had had an impact? I feel sick at the memory.

Covid affected everyone differently

If you believed everything in the news and followed the rules to a T then I think that fear could have been passed onto the kids and I would think would have more of an effect on them than just schools closing

So you didn't turn the TV or radio off?

You didn't put music on?

You didn't control what he was exposed to?