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 was about to give a proper response, but then thought nah, either OP has no DC and is totally dumb and lacking a few brain cells, or OP has DC but is a shit parent.

Are you unable to engage without insulting?

Terrifying??

That was obviously a situation you created in your house

I worked in covid ICU and my kids weren't terrified

What about absence and EBSA rates, NHS concerns around both physical and mental health, and teacher-reported concerns about behaviour and mental health?

This post highlights a key issue in schools - teachers don't look at the children, just the grades.

Wow, so short sighted and ignorant.

It's telling you didn't actually answer the question...

Many of the kids affected won’t just get over it, it will be with them a long time, if not for ever.

My kids have recovered now but at the time it was terrible - and we are privileged (eg garden, secure jobs). DS1 was in year 9/10. He refused to engage with the online school and played computer games 24/7 - it affected his gcse results and mental health. dS2 was in year 5/6. No issue academically but developed mental health issues (suicide ideation) in part from the stress of hearing about death all the time and not going to school). Took years of therapy to recover from.

I don’t think you understand that impact means.

Returning to school, clubs and socialising when the various parts of society opened back up again does not mean there was no lasting impact.

Their friends died?

How many school children died?

Come on....

I worked in Covid ICU and still don't know anyone personally who died

I know several kids (and adults) who are quite anxious about germs now and sharing things with others. Young children in psychological terms have a developing inner worldview of how they relate to others in relationships. For a few years as they were just developing, they were told that other people are dangerous and need to be avoided. That the world is a dangerous place. It wasn’t just a couple of months of lockdown, what about all the bubbles and weird shit we all went through. That’s clearly having knock on effects and lasting impacts.

my son was born in 2020! He’s fine because we dealt with the effects delayed speech mainly. No baby classes, no visits to /from family. Spent 2 days in hospital on our own. Older son couldn’t meet his brother until we were discharged. Older DS was fine, but some of the kids in his class even now suffer with separation anxiety from parents.

in other things my cousin is a athlete. She is 20 now aiming for next olympics - will probably make it!! However her age group missed out all their formative training. All the experiance of junior competition - because while you say it was a few months actually for some countries it was a couple of years before then were back up and running properly. So that will have profound effect.

my niece had to do remote university they are formative years of your life and she was just stuck alone

I think if you can’t remember life 3, 4 and 5 years ago you must be pretty dense.

I don't know if it's purely lockdown or other social trends but I've been teaching since 2010 and the difference in what teenagers can do independently between then and now is astonishing. My husband is a university lecturer and has noticed the same. Ability to listen and follow instructions, reading comprehension, writing, and most of all, initiative, have all declined.

Public manners have also declined. People don't step aside to let you off the train. Drivers rarely give way. Speeding is unchallenged. Children shove their way through corridors.

I'm not sure it's all Covid but something's got damaged somewhere.

My kids were newborn and 1 1/2 at the start if lockdown. My newborn didn't get to see other people's faces or interact with anyone other than me, H and her sister. Seeing faces is important for child development. They learn social skills, emotional expression, and language skills from seeing and watching faces. My youngest doesn't like other people or animals she just didn't get the social interaction as a child.

My older child was going to 4 baby groups a week and saw family regularly. She went from that to seeing no one and having a new baby around. I imagine that was a bit traumatic for her. She also struggles with socal skills.

You have to remember not everyone's experience of covid was the same. Not even in the same household. My H is a key worker and he continued to work during covid. He saw other people. He would come home around 7 ish strip in the hallway, put his clothes in the laundry and shower before he'd come and see me and the kids. He had interaction. I was deemed extremely clinically vulnerable. I didn't have a bubble. I had a new born ans a toddler and was told it was unsafe for me to interact with others. I didn't even have the HV come over. I made my home like a nursery. I did a structured routine for the toddler, breakfast, reading, messy play, lunch, nap, craft activity, dancing, independent play, dinner, tv time, bedtime routine. All day alone. Plus looked after a newborn baby alone. I did my best but I am 1 person and I couldn't be a village for them.

But why did you allow him to plat games 24 hours a day??

OP has DC but is a shit parent

Or maybe, given the way my DD coped and subsequently thrived, I'm a pretty good parent.

However, I'm not here to take shots at other mums. I'm interested as to why Covid is given as a reason for young people's inability to socialise, hold down a job, make eye contact etc.

How many children actually were effected and how many parents say they were, there's a difference i would say

If you work in schools you can see the impact at a cohort level. So many individuals that are fine but certain year groups have more children that struggle with certain things as a result.

Child development seems to need certain building blocks to happen at the right timd. So once you leave early years for instance, the curriculumn never covers those skills again.

I also think people massively underestimate what being in school looked like around that time. There was bubbles, testing, rolling cycle of people being off for 10 days so hard for continuity of teaching, lots of collapsed classes in halls when teachers were off. It was very weird and went on a long time compared to lock down. I think 2 schools years were distrupted in this sort of way in reality.

My DD1 was 6 for the first lockdown and she found it really tough. We have a nice house, garden, I was a teacher at the time and she went to stay with my parents to alternate where she was. She still had frequent meltdowns having previously been the most regulated and easy going child. She missed her friends terribly. She missed school!

I was pregnant for the whole first lockdown and DD2 was 3mo by the time the second one happened. She missed out on socialisation as a baby, both with family and friends. She really struggled with me going back to work and leaving her with my mum.

My kids had clubs online which was great but didn’t replace the real things. They lost over a year of their childhoods. We were the lucky ones that that was all it was.

Because they are being allowed to

I worked in a secondary school through covid.

furstly, it is fucking obvious how Covid impacted mental health.

massive rise in social anxiety - teens and children told that being around other people is danderous and stay 2m apart at all thimes. They learn this so thoroughly that some can’t unlearn it afterwards hence social anxiety.

they are told germs are dangerous - some can’t unlearn it afterwards hence massive rise in ocd and handwashing obsessive cleanliness etc.

also I was teaching through COVID. If you think schools are strict now that’s nothing on what they were during covid.

strict rules about who goes where, break them and get collected by head or deputy and instantly sent home for 14 days for quarantine.

schools were serious about punishment for breaking rules during covid and being told your teenage fucking around might have killed some e has an impact.

It was a few months in their lives, that’s all and yes I agree it’s being used as an excuse for behavioural issues.

I do wonder too. There are some kids that are in bad homes but otherwise it’s really more of an excuse where parents haven’t set boundaries, in fact where medical professionals come in may be because they couldn’t seek help due to too much demand. My sil says her dc thrived because they spent so much time with their parents and my bils dd, born during the initial lockdown is fine though her mum found it hard as little support, trying to give help to breastfeed over zoom doesn’t cut it, they ended up formula feeding. Bil is critical key worker so no furlough for him! My own dc were at university, 2 out of the 3 struggled with the online learning but that was more to do with them (both are nd) than lockdown

It worst affected those children who were at key transition points - ie to school, from primary to secondary school, from school to University or key exam points - which is a lot of children. Yes, resilient children are fine, but for those children who may have found such transitions tough at the best of times, it was catastrophic.

Two examples from my immediate group:
-A colleagues child was struggling a bit at primary school but managing with extra support at home, covid happened when they were transitioning to secondary and they have never managed to cope at secondary school
-A friend's daughters borderline obsession with healthy eating and exercise became full blown anorexia in the absence of other distractions.

Even my DD, who on paper looks super successful will stellar career, own flat, friends, BF had a terrible time as she was due to graduate then travel but instead had to go straight into a graduate career working from her childhood bedroom and stayed far to long in a terrible relationship she planned to extricate herself from when she went abroad.

My DH lectures in an FE college and has students in who have never had to sit an exam and just cannot cope - they missed out on formative experiences we took for granted.

TL:DR - OP, educate yourself on the importance of transitions and milestone for children and young people. They are tracked for a reason, because missing them can have lifelong impacts.