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!

Or a parent who parents her children through covid, maintained standards and didn't allow hysteria.

I actually think a lot of kids from better off households got a raw deal. Ones with Mum and Dad glued to the laptop and under pressure to stay productive.

I read loads of threads on here from people forced to leave kids to their own devices (or on their own devices!) for the majority of the day. Knowing that it wasn't right but feeling they had no choice.

A level of neglect was almost normalized.

100 % agree with this.

People seem to revel being stuck in that era.

It sounds like your school did an excellent job with those children! Like, really excellent.

You do realise that you’re the exception, rather than the norm, don’t you?

I’m not sure what the point of this thread is, other than to start an argument.

There have been several huge major studies, in several countries, confirming that the interruption to normal childhood development that was caused by Covid has had a lasting impact on many children and young people. We know this. It’s been studied, extensively and in detail.

So we can all tell stories about how our kids or kids we know were affected, or brag about how our kids are fine, but this is all anecdotal and subjective, and while those real world experiences are important they don’t actually change the data.

Maybe be grateful that you don’t understand it. Open your mind.

Agreed, I think 6 years is milking it a bit. There's no doubt that the immediate impact was tough but many people endure sudden trauma, illness or bereavement and manage to overcome it after half a decade.

Human kind has been going through wars and tragedy since the beginning of time. Loads of perfectly functional adults you see were child refugees or came from families with historical trauma. Covid was not really unique, but it's seen as more tragic because it affected rich, white people on a massive scale. ("Rich" relatively speaking because the entire UK is wealthier than 90% of the rest of the world).

I think because it happened on a global scale, it's a convenient way to offset personal accountability onto something uncontrollable and unchangeable. The same way some people love to blame the covid vaccine for any physical ill health. Poor parenting, broken families and lack of education are far more common reasons for children to end up struggling and would have been a factor for many children, with or without the pandemic. Parenting is incredibly difficult and there's no guarantee any child will end up happy and well-adjusted.

Interestingly, a lot of wealthy families and their children don't seem to be impacted at all by covid nor ever talk about it anymore. Most just saw it as a blip and swiftly went back to giving their kids horseback riding lessons, ski trips and debutante balls. Not a single high earner seems to wallow in talking about how awful something was 6 years ago and blame it on all their problems to the present day.

I also don't even think it's fair to blame parents in some cases. We were both being put under mental strain and being given terrible advice at the same time. Things like it's ok for small children not to socialise, they only need their parents or that it's possible to WFH and look after children safely. The emphasis on regular school attendance had to go too. Not everyone can snap back from this crap.

Your perspective isn't grounded in anything but your own psychological preferences.

If you read the research, the impacts at societal level are being understood.

Arguing on here won't bring any understanding! You'll dig your heels in because you are attached to your view of the world.

I’m astonished the OP can be this naive.

Do you really think that because you thought of it as ‘a few months of inconvenience’, then everyone else had the same experience?

I was diagnosed with cancer at the start of lockdown, one of my sons had just started second year of Uni, so no vocational experience for him. Another son lives miles away so he couldn’t visit me.

We’re just an ordinary family but Covid affected us hugely, so I can’t imagine what it did to some families.

I work in a school and we can still see how some children will always carry the Covid burden.

Well I'll be honest
I have 2 children
One was at uni who got sent home, her degree score wasn't affected, she came home, could see her boyfriend on walks, moved in with them for a bit.

Son was 12, he still says it was thr best time ever, no school, playing on his computer, loads of walks with us,

We both worked full time. Husband from home. But he was working full time from home beforehand and I was a nurse,

So other than no school and which teenager wouldn't love that, his life didn't change

But it wasn't a few months. In year 7 for my child it was a full term in year 7, then another full term in year 8. When they where back at school in-between they where in class bubbles, no mixing with anyone else and no sets for subjects. No sporting activities or clubs for nearly 2 years. Ali of kids in his year group didn't settle fully into secondary untill year 9 and they where already taking their options by then. No I wasn't a few months.

Many children, who would otherwise not have been exposed, were only introduced to devices and individual screens during lockdown. Many unhealthy screen time habits formed at this time.

As primary teacher, I was working morning until night from home during lockdown, prior to 'bubbles', repurposing resources for online participation, coaching families on accessing technology, tutoring individual pupils who were finding it hard to keep up during online lessons, doing welfare checks and delivering resources to homes.

My own DC, who had not used individual screens before this time, suddenly spent a lot of time online while I worked. Their own school took a much lighter approach to online teaching than mine, and they missed huge chunks of key learning. Autistic DC1 also developed OCD -I'm sure the lock down and isolation was a contributing factor.

God you really are quite insensitive aren’t you?

My daughter was badly affected. No we are not an abusive family!

She developed agoraphobia during lock down and panic disorder. She was 15. The lockdown really helped cement the agoraphobia and now she’s 20 she’s getting her life back and is ok but it was horrendous. Would it have developed anyway, maybe. Maybe not. But Covid accelerated it, or rather Covid lockdown.

Oh goodness, Covid took a year or more out. For children with disabilities they have never caught up. The impact was devastating. Children lost access to all services. They were left at home with nothing. Parents who worked were not able to home educate during that time and kids with disabilities were not able to just do the work by themselves at home with no support. Services didn't restart in the gaps between lock downs and many of the services had disappeared by the time things 'went back to normal'. Many didn't manage to make their way back into education after Covid and were left NEET. It was an awful awful time.

We’re still seeing the impact in schools and MH services.

The educational impact is bad enough and lifelong.

The impact on MH is hugely worrying. Conditions like EDs doubled, online abuse exploded, domestic abuse and child abuse increased….MH services went to ground and are still running to catch up with the children and people whose difficulties were just left to get so much worse.

We well and trust did the dirty on the younger generations. Was just appalling.

Newsflash not everybody lives in a safe, healthy comfortable house with a garden and parent who is able to educate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250605-the-pandemic-generation-how-covid-19-has-left-a-long-term-mark-on-children

I agree with this.

My children were neglected and I still feel awful about it.

I had the most horrendous feelings of
burning out and going mad under the strain of working so hard and being expected to pivot constantly and be professional and productive.

Pretending you don't have 3 small children at home when you definitely do was very damaging.

So other than no school and which teenager wouldn't love that, his life didn't change
Many teenagers really hated missing school.

I think this has a lot to do with it. Parenting varies wildly in quality, consistency & accountability.

Parents who at the time found themselves overly anxious, panicking about masks etc will have passed that onto their children.
Some parents can’t keep up with their children’s school work themselves, so hard to home school. There are thousands of adults in this country with a reading age of less than 10.

one of the objectives of school is to provide a levelling influence over cohorts of children. Families vary so much, school sets a baseline of what “should” be achieved at each age. I think when you take that away for a couple of years, many families fall to the botttom & the children know no different, so emerge far less equipped to deal with age-appropriate peers than they would have been.

Some of the stuff blamed on covid is clearly down to poor parenting- rise on kids wearing nappies in reception for example.
Literacy should have evened out by now - I had reception & Y2 children in 2020 and their cohorts are largely fine.

Socially, I think people overplay the restrictions. It was only a few months before you could go for walks with people. Supermarkets etc stayed open. Countryside & beaches & wildlife didn’t disappear. Again I think it depends on privilege & priorities.

And how long do you need to snap back?? Or crawl back?

I agree. Is it a rage bait post

I don't know. People are only human and will take different times depending on their own limitations.

Always one rage baiting. Vile posts