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!

I agree with this to a large extent. How parents were able to parent during this time varied hugely depending on their financial resources, living circimstances, work situation and their own personalities and mental health situation.

I was fortunate to be living in a house with a garden, late primary aged kids, 2 parents who could work from home. But I nearly broke from the struggle to parent those 2 kids, support them to continue some learning, not be online 24/7, figure out how to move my work online, queue at supermarkets, provide emotional support to my sibling who worked in healthcare... My SIL meanwhile wafted about doing crafts and gardening with her infant school aged DC didn't have to juggle work and continues to reminisce about that wonderful time full of family bonding

Good thing you aren’t anymore. Your comprehension and critical thinking skills are not up to par, even for EYFS.

I could not come close to providing everything my toddler needed during lockdown. I'm only one person, I need the support of peers, downtime and appropriate distraction in order to parent well. I did not have access to any of these things at the worst of the lockdown.

I echo other posters in that schools were not just closed for a few months. Anyone who suggests that they were has got a very selective memory.

I live in a part of England that had a reasonably low infection and death rate. So not one that was involved in enhanced restrictions.

My dc were off school for 6 months initially. When they returned, it was all class bubbles, hand sanitisers and social distancing. We then went into another lockdown after the Xmas and had another 2 months off school. When they returned, we were still in class bubbles that could close at the drop of the hat. Both my dc’s classes and year groups closed multiple times.

My dc both had Covid in the October of 2021. The rules then in their schools were that they were expected to stay at home and self isolate even if the didn’t have symptoms. These restrictions were in place in my dc’s schools until the February 2022 when the Govt removed the self isolating requirements after a positive test.

So my dc’s schooling was impacted by Covid in one way or another for nearly 2 years. I would say that’s a rather significant duration of time in a child’s life.

Oh and don’t forget the woefully under funded Covid catch up programs that were meant to plug the gap for so many. Remember those?

I would love to see robust, independent research into the impact of these.

Children were shafted time and time again because of Covid.

@DarkForces and @shuffleofftobuffalo Good use of the word “experiment”.

While I don’t believe the conspiracy theories of “plandemic”, “Covid was a hoax” etc, I don’t think there was something extremely experimental about lockdown. The government desperately tried to avoid it at first, but when they decided it was inevitable, it was as if someone said “let’s seize the opportunity to experiment with exactly how much we can bully, bribe, coerce, frighten and control the public, for future reference”, hence the ever-changing and frankly nonsensical roolz, the calculated campaign of fear, and constantly hinting to the press what was around the corner, to test the public response. “Masks might become compulsory. We might cancel Christmas. We might kill your cats and dogs.” (And they did seriously consider that.) It felt like we were being toyed with, and taken for fools. (Which we were, with Partygate.)

I think it would have been very different if the government had been more “sensible” with the messaging, instead of Saint Boris trying to make it funny “we have to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze the brakes on reopening”, not deliberately spread fear, and instead of grovelling about death figures, admitting to and grovelling about the damage caused by lockdown, and promising to keep them as short as possible. So far, the government (and the so-called opposition, now in government) have steadfastly refused to admit lockdowns caused any damage at all. Instead, they kept throwing “Death! Death! Death!” at us, making it the only thing that mattered.

“No child will be left behind”, quoth Nick Gibb.

I took part in providing tuition in one of these schemes, until the funding ran out, and it stopped dead.

“No child will be left behind”, quoth Nick Gibb.

I took part in providing tuition in one of these schemes, until the funding ran out, and it stopped dead.

I for one was absolutely astounded that the catch up programmes were inadequately funded.

I think we assume the adaptability and resilience of children too much. Let's face it, at the time, they don't have much choice, do they? It's often later that we see the consequences of what happened in childhood, when they have the least control over their surroundings.

Parents can 'model' all they like, but even in lockdown-type situations, parents get to call the shots, from a child's point of view. Their situation would not be viewed by a child as the same, particularly a child not old enough to understand the restrictions.

Look at it from the child's point of view for a moment. However short a few months (even if it was a few months, others have pointed out the reality in terms of disruption was longer) may seem to you, to a four year old, it's a very long time. If your four year old has been used to being in a busy nursery, or seeing Grandma every day, or going to playgroup, whatever, suddenly that's changed. They don't fully understand why, they haven't enough concept of time to view this as a short interruption.

In addition, Mum and Dad may well be behaving differently, however hard they try not to. In the short lives of children, consistency matters. Change is, actually, a much bigger deal when you are young because your experience of it is limited and you can't control any of it.

It's not the child being at home that is the problem, necessarily. It's the change. From a small child's point of view, they've spent their whole life having this unchanged routine, seeing these people, going to that place, etc. Now, their world has shrunk considerably. Adults understand this isn't permanent, etc. Small children don't, not in the same way.

"I echo other posters in that schools were not just closed for a few months"

"My dc were off school for 6 months initially."

Schools closed to most pupils ( keyworker children excepted) from near the end of march and the entire summer term initially, so a round 4 months of term time. It's only 6 months if you include Easter may half term and summer holidays as being off school which would have happened anyway.

They were kept open the next term but disrupted by infections and bubble systems or sometimes by staff infections meaning classes had to be sent home due unsafe staffing levels.

In the winter the government kept schools open including taking London schools to court to keep them open for 1 day. but then had to close again from 8? January until 8 march due to the alpha variant.

Schools were officially closed due to lockdown for 6 months total; but disrupted much longer due to the virus spreading in them, and the infection control measures needed as a consequence

Of course there were choices. He could have chosen to allow socialising outside. The 2m distances were made up and made everyone take far longer in shops than needed. He could have prioritised reopening education. There were a lot of ways that children could have been supported with very little risk. Emptying hospitals into care homes was the biggest killer decision and it was obvious at the time it was a terrible call.
Lockdown prioritised the middle class and middle aged. Ones who could hunker down and get people to take risks delivering stuff to their door, with gardens and WiFi. It cost the actual vulnerable - people crowded in poor living conditions, the elderly who lived alone, people who died scared and alone. A viral pandemic was entirely predictable and planned for. Locking down the whole population was never the plan

Which is why Partygate wrecked public trust so effectively.
Although Partygate was a very bad thing to happen, I think that it's a very good thing that we got so rightly and furiously angry about it. It laid bare the contempt the government had for the public, and it killed the possibility of further lockdowns dead (for a while). The public now has less time for snake oil salesmen, disguised as smiling politicians who promise miracles and the moon on a stick.

Let's just imagine how it would have been if the parties had remained secret, and nobody found out about them. Even when the last restrictions were finally lifted, the government was still dropping hints that there could be winter restrictions in future, such as mask mandates. We might still be having "protect the NHS" mini-lockdowns in winter even now, with monthly briefings to keep us fearful. It's also notable that Boris Johnson never got to have his big moment of saying "it is with great pleasure that I announce the end of all restrictions", and he would probably have added "never to return", while scientists facepalmed. Instead, the news was full of Ukraine, and "pleeeeeeeeease take refugees into your homes, moments after we criminalised you for having your own families as guests".

Thinking about previous government scandals, such as the expenses scandal, and Blair's lies about weapons of mass destruction, I think we should have been much angrier about them. But we shrugged, and said "it's what politicians do". We need to be much less trusting of politicians, and we need to hold their feet to the fire.

Also, because Boris Johnson did the whole routine of "we will do whatever it takes to protect you from the virus", some people will now expect that kind of emergency response, and the that government can save you from that nasty virus: "With twelve weeks of lockdown, we can send the virus packing," quoth Boris; and basically said "lockdown until the virus is eliminated", and the very frightened public swallowed this message whole, so lockdown dragged on for months and months, and people were too terrified to even consider schools being open. Even with a lockdown, I think it would have been better if the message had instead been "we cannot protect you from the virus; we can only lessen the harms, and lockdown is extremely harmful in itself".

Yep, entirely agree. Scientists have admitted that the "two metres" figure was made up on the spot. Ditto "you are only allowed out for an hour a day": Michael Gove improvised that that during an interview, and it became gospel. The government failed to correct the record. Someone on this thread quoted it, saying "we had to stay in for 23 hours a day". This was never true. By promising to "keep us safe" from the virus, and frightening the pants off the public (their words, not mine), the government painted themselves into a corner.

It should have been protect the vulnerable, while everybody else carries on.

I think the saddest thing of all is the power it gave abusers. Suddenly they were locked in with their victims by government decree. It must have been horrific for their families

How was it possible of the parents were working full time from home and had multiple children of different ages?

One of my dc developed severe anxiety relating to germs, washed his hands so much his skin started peeling. It has taken him years to get better. He doesn’t get that from me, I have a very un-MN attitude to germs.

Good thing you aren’t anymore. Your comprehension and critical thinking skills are not up to par, even for EYFS

This is an interesting thread. Contribute if you are able but don't stoop to personal insults.

As I said upthread - ask teachers of Year 7s at the moment (and I am sure more at primary). In 25 years I have never taught anything like it. They have no resilience and find concentration nigh on impossible. Social media is awash with the same comments.

You’re happy to dismiss parents who said their children struggled, or worse , blame them. What’s good for the goose…

@scalt

It should have been protect the vulnerable, while everybody else carries on.

Nail on the head. Utterly awful how the economy was thrashed, children's education was thrashed and ill people couldn't get healthcare. It can't be beyond the ability of all the so-called experts to find ways of protecting the vulnerable and let everyone else carry on with a less disruptive set of measures.

Which utter pillocks thought it was acceptable to discharge patients who they know were covid positive into care homes. Utter stupidity. I've heard some doctors and NHS managers claim they did it because they weren't told not to!! One of our family friends owns a care home - he's proud he had no covid cases in his care home (staff nor residents) because he simply refused to accept any new people into the home, so he "isolated" it himself without needing to be told! He had a few spare rooms, so let his staff stay in them rather than going home to potentially catch it. He and his family already lived in an adjacent building, so they "isolated" themselves too. Fair enough, it was only a small care home, but he didn't need telling what to do to protect his residents - he just did what he thought he needed to do, and luckily, he had long standing staff who were also very cautious in work and at home and never brought covid into the home. I suppose that's the difference between profit driven corporates and the old fashioned kind of family firm.

"As I said upthread - ask teachers of Year 7s at the moment (and I am sure more at primary)."

How much should be attributed to lockdowns and how much to the overwhelming prevalence of smart devices, tik toks and Instagram etc?

Denial of the impact of lockdown on children and blaming parents for not modelling resilience? Have we time-travelled back to May 2020?

If you had a school child, particularly above ks2 , you couldn’t have done lockdown (at least the homeschooling part) and the online schooling without devices and hours and hours online. A lot of schools also kept a lot of the online stuff, because in normal times it equated to less workload and they had already invested the money in it.

DD had 3 bouts of online learning at home, 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Homeschooling was watch these videos , go on this app, then the other app, then this link, then that app , watch some more videos, upload a video, drawing, picture . Her school never went back to traditional homework.

A bit hard to put the genie back in the bottle after all that.

All we need is cheese in coffee and potato bread.

The coronavirus itself has had, and continues to have a serious impact on childrens lives. Many children lost parents or grandparents from covid, many children now have disabled parents due to covid, and many children are suffering from long covid themselves.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(25)00496-7/fulltext