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!

Here’s my addition to the bingo card: remember that many of the woes on this thread were not caused by Covid. They were caused by LOCKDOWNS, which dragged on for months on end. It’s a vital distinction.

Don't be so bloody ridiculous.

We talked to DS about it. He was 5. It was such a huge part of life it was impossible to just avoid talking about or never watch TV ever.

He was absolutely fine because we made it age appropriate and reassured him it was fine.

He wasn't affected that much by the lockdown himself. I could home school him, we did plenty of things and actually had loads of quality family time we otherwise wouldn't have had as DH worked from home.

The problem was how it impacted all his peers and how struggled and how there were massive delays to getting kids who needed a diagnosis through the system leading to masses of disruption in class when he did get back. A child who probably would have been put into the system and diagnosed by the time he was 6 didn't get that diagnosis until he was 8. It meant two years of significant disruption and a child who had pretty much reached crisis. So the issues were still very much going on well into 2023 from this alone.

The behaviour and learning issues were not restricted to him either. They missed key foundations and skills in reception and year 1. By yr2 they were being expected to do work which relied on being able to read basic instructions. So many couldn't do this it created a problem and they fell even further behind. The lost learning meant staff were trying to teach kids out of key stage by year 4 - which naturally impacted the kids who were doing well if only by taking so much of the teachers time managing poor behaviour from kids who didn't understand what they were supposed to be doing and trying to help them catch up.

By yr6 some of these kids are now totally adrift. There is an absolutely huge range of ability between the highest achieving and lowest achieving kids. My friend who teaches yr6 says she's never had to deal with the range.

The levels of maturity of these kids who have been closeted for so long is much lower than previously too. Milestones like learning to get dressed by themselves were often much later and this had knock on effects elsewhere.

So even the kids who sailed through lockdown blissfully like DS still have been hit badly indirectly even if parents successfully navigated and did everything right.

The idea that you could shelter them from everything during lockdown or in the years afterwards is absolutely laughable.

Saying it was years ago they should have caught up is ignorant too. How? In which magical extra teaching time was this.

I’m not sure how it’s laughable, we managed to ‘shelter’ them just fine. And no, we didn’t have live tv on ‘ever’. We watched normal kid stuff, no news or current affair programmes at all, unless the kids were in bed.

obviously they know more now, but it’s not relevant to every day life anymore, so it’s not really an issue.

I volunteered to do Covid testing at DS’s school. We did bi weekly testing for the children who were attending during the lockdown whose parents were essential workers ( mainly health care professionals). I will never forget the first session I did. The children were processed according to the rules at that point. The 2m rule was applied and they filed in silence like ghosts. This was during the second lockdown so by then they had been isolating on and off for nearly 12 months.
I was so different from the normal school noise and behaviour. It has stayed with me and I have no doubt it has had long term affects and my DS has definitely been impacted by it. His best friend has also had a meltdown two years into uni. Talking to a staff member at a local uni the last few years have seen a significant increase in drop outs and deferring due to mental health issues.
DS’s year should have done work experience and had more time looking at careers. But there were no opportunities. DS had no idea what he wanted to do and no opportunity to explore the work environment. So many of them have been left stranded. DS and his best friend, quite independently as neither knew that the other was struggling, are retaking a year because they hit a brick wall. Of all their group of friends they were the “solid” ones, least expected to struggle. Both reluctant to admit they were having problems but eventually made the right decision to step away and sort out the mental health issues rather than dig themselves deeper into a hole.
I do wonder how many of their peers are struggling but have not reached out.

@Crwysmam I can imagine. Children, teenagers and young adults were so brutally shafted by the whole thing, and no politician will admit this, until they are forced to say it in a whisper by the inquiry.

I wonder if some teenagers and young adults are choosing a career based on whether it is likely to be destroyed by the government in future?

This can't be be real

I’m glad your child(ren?) weren’t affected. Mine lived every day not knowing if his parent was coming home from work and when they did if they’d brought something that would likely kill their frail GP with them.

Covid lockdown changed the thinking about school. It made kids aware that they did not have to go to school and now a huge number of children are not attending school. Very sad.

"I’m glad your child(ren?) weren’t affected. Mine lived every day not knowing if his parent was coming home from work and when they did if they’d brought something that would likely kill their frail GP with them."

But that was due to COVID itself, not the lockdown.....

Yes, it’s vital to keep the distinction between covid and lockdowns clear.

Covid was inevitable.
Lockdowns lasting months on end, and the destruction of children’s education was not.

Nail on the head.

Yes the impact was from extended periods of isolation. On the surface they seemed to love it but as time went on they realised how much they were missing.

DS was in the year whose GCSEs were cancelled. It didn’t occur to me that this would have further consequences. I picked him up after his last A level exam and asked how he felt. His answer “ relieved they didn’t cancel them” after working hard to catch up and at times still under lockdown rules, social distancing and isolation if they contracted covid, they mainly worried that the exams would be cancelled at short notice again.

External exams are never cancelled, it was an unprecedented move and in hindsight totally unnecessary. But like DS, many would have gone through sixth form with this fear at the back of their minds.

And then they surprised them with changing grade boundaries at the last minute. It’s no surprise there is a problem with anxiety with this group. Add to that the uncertainty in the job market, a direct result of the economic downturn after the pandemic.

@Crwysmam I echo the feeling of those who were saying “relieved they didn’t cancel them”. After 2020, we could be certain about precisely NOTHING ever again.

It reminds me of a line from A Night to Remember: “we were so sure that Titanic could never sink; and even though it’s happened, it’s still unbelievable. I’ll never feel sure again, not about anything.”

Get the Governor minutes from your school for the last few years and you will see the impact of covid in black and white. It affected them all greatly and kids are only just coming into Reception who weren't affected at all.

It's taken me a few years to get over the flat feeling that anything could be cancelled last minute.

I went to a wedding in 2021... just a ceremony, the couple couldn't face the uncertainty of rebooking a reception after their plans went out of the window (just as well that summer). My brain just didn't believe that I was going, and got to the time to get ready a few hours before and it just seemed like a chore. I love weddings, and it was a special one (and I had a lovely time when I got there) but so much had been cancelled and uncertain by that point that my brain couldn't muster up any more motivation and enthusiasm. Any kind of arrangement had the anticpation level of a smear test. And that lasted a couple of years before gradually fading off.

I've had the advantage of being a couple of decades into adult life. That's not my brain being wired as a youth. But that would apply to a lot of young people, especially teens at the growing independence stage.

I don't envy young people with screwed up transitions and lost rites of passage that can't be reclaimed.

My eight year-old just got back from Brownie camp - two night away without her parents. My oldest daughter (now 15) was THIRTEEN before she had the opportunity to do this with school because of all the lockdowns etc. and my middle daughter who is now 13 is yet to manage one night away from home without family. She can't even do a sleepover at a friend's house because she missed out on so many of those 'rights of passage' that come with mid-childhood.

I totally agree with you op. I’m in education and I remember challenging this get-out-of-jail-free-card and asking the same questions about ‘is it Covid or is it really something else?’

People just aren’t ready to be honest about it all yet I reckon.

Because people had to actually parent. They couldn’t offload to others.

Nope

Because children lost their peer group, which is a vital part of child development (and key for mental wellbeing too).

And many of them were at home with parents who were both still working full time. In DH and I cases our work was much busier and stressful than usual because of the pandemic, yet the children's teachers only contact them was a weekly email about what a lovely time the teachers were having baking and gardening with their children.

I love parenting , I always saw that as my job. But suddenly being the only people providing food, education and companionship to the children on top of parenting them, running a house and fitting in a 60 hour work week each nearly broke us both.

I think people sneering about "actually having to parent" don't understand that many of us were also working incredibly hard with the children at home

Oooohhh OP!

I thought like this until a few weeks ago. Lockdown was, in my eyes, idyllic. The whole family unit was together, the weather was great, we were all getting along, we knew nobody that suffered with ill-effects from COVID, and none of us were very ill when we inevitably caught it. It was like a lovely extended sabbatical - in that we were isolated from normality.

Now one DC, who moved to their own place a year ago, has come clean: they have been in deep depression since moving out, with mourning the “loss” of much of their 20’s and early 30’s, losing touch with friends and struggling with the employment situation following the pandemic. There’s lots more, too, but it came as a sucker-punch to realise how difficult they found it all.

Don’t dismiss other’s feelings - it’s easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses at something that suited you (as it suited me) and overlook the fact that one person’s experience can vary wildly from another’s - even in the apparently same situation.

In my case, I was furloughed on 90% salary for 4 months and slowly brought back into work for 2, 3, 4 then 5 days a week over several months. In DC’s case they were “let go” from their relatively new job, and struggled to find another after restrictions were lifted.

Now in their 30’s, with CoL issues and the appalling state of wages (compared with my experience at similar age in the 1990’s) they feel that there is no hope and no future for them, as every penny earned goes on rent, utilities, travel for work and food. It’s a very grim prospect for our young population at the moment, and COVID seems to be the reason why some of them are unable to feel that they will ever achieve their ambitions from before the pandemic…

A lot of people had to parent, teach them and work at the same time.

Not to mention how mentally and emotionally draining it is parenting 24/7 when you’ve got virtually zero external stimulation, social interaction or emotional support yourself. We are a social species, we evolved to to raise our children among and with the input and support of other people, not in almost complete physical and social isolation, and it is cruel and ignorant to mock people who found it difficult to find the mental energy to do their best job in those circumstances (not to even mention a lot of people were trying to work full time from home as well!)

It wasn’t just “a few months”, it was 18 months in total, which is a very long time in the life of a child. It wasn’t just the lockdowns, but social distancing, masks, quarantines, isolation measures if you caught Covid or had contact with anyone who had, some children lived with people who were shielding so it was even worse… a lot of activities and groups in our area did not start back up again when lockdown ended, so many things moved online permanently or semi-permanently, health visitor appointments turned to phone calls, families needing extra support slipped through the gaps. So many children and young adults missed out on key formative experiences.

@BogRollBOGOF

I don't envy young people with screwed up transitions and lost rites of passage that can't be reclaimed.

That's what some people don't seem to comprehend.

My son's school education abruptly ended when he was in Upper Sixth and just about to start revising for his A levels, which obviously ended up cancelled. He didn't even finish his A level courses as the school gave up any pretence of teaching when they knew they'd seen the last of their U6 cohort. So he missed out on revising and taking A levels, which meant he wasn't as prepared as he should have been for his degree (in the same subject as two of his A levels!).

He missed out on his school leaver's Prom - he hadn't gone to the year 11 one as he knew he'd be going into the sixth form, like most of his cohort, so it was always the sixth form leaving Prom that was the "biggie" at his school. School said they'd re-arrange it at a later date, but it never happened.

At Uni, he and his cohort were lied to that the teaching would be "mixed" online and in person with "as much in person as possible" according to the Uni website. He had none at all, zilch, for the first year and a half. Clubs and societies were all online for the first full year. Library by appointment only, few, if any, academic/teaching staff on campus but they refused face to face meetings anyway. That's another "rite of passage" that was completely screwed up as the first year of Uni is important in so many ways, but simply never happened beyond them trapped in their tiny bedrooms watching online lectures! He ended up not making any friends at Uni beyond his immediate flat mates as there was no chance to meet course mates and no clubs/societies/sports in person either. By the time year 2 and things were getting back to normal, his year had been forgotten and all efforts by the Uni were directed at the new intake.

Things like that are "once in a lifetime" events and you can't replicate them at a later date when things have moved on.

Nail on the head there.