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!

My Dad died of it in a care home, during the first wave. Alone.

My DH died in 2023 from it.

My DD worked on an ITU Covid ward - stress all the way. But, to this day, she’s never had Covid.

On a personal level, it’s obviously caused me a lot of strife and grief, but my grandchildren soon bounced back to normal once restrictions had lifted.

Life can be shit, as I assume it was in the last war. And that lasted 6 years, But, there’s no alternative other than to just get on with it. 🤷‍♀️

Our experience was very similar. Primary aged dc thought it was great. Homeschool in the morning, a few long walks daily. We started running and also cooking a lot together.
We are lucky to live in a village though so saw friend's, neighbours etc when walking every day and chatted across the street. We actually got to know more people as everyone stopped to chat on their walks!

For a child in Y7 when the first lockdown started their entire high-school experience was shaped by covid.

Lockdowns

Abysmal distance learning

Bubbles at school so not socialising as normal all the way to Y11

Entire classes being sent home resulting in months of lost schooling

No catchup support if they were at age expected levels, regardless of if their performance was not on track with their previous expectations

So many other kids with MH issues

School staff who were terrified and basically taught with their head stuck out the window

They were the first year to not be given consideration due to covid in GCSEs

@PrunellaModularis can you really not see how 5 years of this (because the school staff refused to relax many things due to their own fears) would have a huge impact on anybody, let alone kids?

My children were mostly fine. One was in year 6 so missed all the stuff at the end of primary as well as the transition to secondary school days, then had another lockdown in year 7. One was in year 11 so missed their GCSEs and it wasn’t a great first year at college.

Thankfully their schools and college were great, teaching continued online throughout lockdowns which we made sure they engaged fully with. They missed their friends but were fortunate to be able to stay in contact via FaceTime and gaming. We have a large house with lots of outdoor space, we have pets, we all get on well, we already worked from home so much of our children’s life remained the same or similar and was still enjoyable. We had the resources to make the best of it and actually we were all very happy.

Other kids weren’t so lucky and I’m not sure how you can have missed that. Families in smaller homes with no outdoor space had it very bad in my opinion. I think the age of kids that it had the biggest impact on as a group were those up to about 5/6. Babies and toddlers who didn’t get to socialise in a normal way and kids first important years at school were disrupted. Also vulnerable children of all ages were massively impacted. The stress on kids knowing parents were facing financial issues or struggling to work from home with not enough space etc

Obviously there will be some people that use Covid as an excuse for things that are going badly now, also people who didn’t help and support their children well at the time and afterwards, who are now facing the consequences of that. I know people who didn’t make their children attend the online lessons, a full timetable, provided by school, who then blamed Covid when their children didn’t pass their GCSEs.

Most kids will be fine, some will genuinely have struggles due to Covid and some will be the type to use Covid as an excuse forever more.

Not being goady to others as I can appreciate everyone had different experiences but my ds was similar to this and a similar age.
From lockdown his school were also slow to go online for a couple of months too.
He kept up with friends online (he's an only child), and as restrictions lifted a bit he went out when he could.
The high school leavers party never happened.
But he wasn't terrified all the time, wore his mask when told he had to and generally got on with it.
I did feel sorry for younger children, especially those at the starting school age, or starting any new phase of education, that must have been tough.
No need for anyone to have a go at me, just telling the other side of the story.

This is a bonkers take.

Babies don’t need anything other than their own home and their parents trapped inside it? For one thing, the parents mental health may not have been great. I know I really needed to see people postpartum and feel very supported by having other news mums around. Being able to share stories of the birth experience freed up a lot of my brain to be more present with my baby.

For another, babies are social creatures! My 4 month old LOVES looking at new faces and making eye contact. Some days she is just bored of me and wants a change of scene. A short walk and a few cooing old ladies later and she’s right as rain!

I have spent the last 5 years working with the children who were pre-school during the lockdowns. As cohorts, they are different. Their social skills are poor, they are more individualist, their resilience is low as they haven’t had the to and fro of socialising. The last group I had of 21/22 born were radically different. They were much more similar to the children I had in 2019.

I feel sorry for anyone (adult or child) who suffered in the pandemic and afterwards. What annoys me are the companies who are still using Covid as a reason for a shit service or long waiting periods.
I also agree Covid is blamed for people having poor mental health etc but I think it's used as an excuse too often. And why does it mean people are so rude? We had manners before Covid but rarely see it now. I go shopping every week and am always pleasant to the staff but the amount of customers who don't speak or grunt at the cashier is ridiculous. I don't even hear please and thank you often (and the ones who do are usually those in their late teens. So the ones who suffered the most are most polite now).
So I'm a little sick of hearing about everything is down to Covid. It was awful. Some people will feel the effect forever but we can't blame all our problems on Covid forever more.

Did you mean to be so rude? 🫣
People have different experiences to you. You’re 53, so weren’t working FT around small children from the kitchen table while trying to entertain them and keep them busy so you can work.
Parents literally had to shove them away, ignore them, half listen. Of course it can impact their development.

You are unbelievably rude.

On the moving on front, I dont know anyone who hasn't moved on. Even if it had a long term impact on them.

I dont really know people who are saying 'because covid' outside of the education settings where we have children who have moved on but still being impacted and its our job to try help with that.

It doesnt mean every individual has an impact but there are noticeable differences in some skills across some year groups. No-one in those groups would say they hadn't moved on or necessarily pinpoint covid and yet they are just worse on average at social skills than the year groups around them, or worse at exam stamina, or less good at sitting still..

Even people who can pin point an impact to covid like missing disability support developing anxiety have moved on in the sense of just getting on with the hand dealt. If someone hadn't asked a question about covid I doubt they'd bring it up but if thats what triggered thier anxiety, its the trigger.

I dont quite get why people equate having a measurable impact to not moving on day to day.

Because my son, now 10, has some mental health difficulties which I am confident are linked to the lack of socialization he got when he was aged 5/6, pretty formative years aren’t they

For me the lie of "Babies don’t need anything other than their own home and their parents trapped inside it?" is what's changed me. I don't feel I can fully trust anything that officials tell me after being fed a lie as big as this.

Duplicate

We all loved the by-products of lockdown. Being at home together, DH had to go down to 3 days work, due to the impact on the company. Although my work was very busy, I was WFH.

We had to end weekly family obligations, which seem crazy to us now.

The trouble has been, particularly DC3 (now 12), getting back to 'normal'. They saw a better way of life and now have be in school everyday. Anxiety around school for DD and DS2 is still an issue. DS1 is several years older, he had finished university the year before and the momentum of his life just stopped, he has not really been able progress since.

It also affected much older people and of course many people lost older family members in horrible circumstances. My mum turned 80 in 2020 and in 2019 was very fit and active, we went on a trip together and walked over 20,000 steps one day. Being told to stay home frightened her and seriously affected her mobility and independence and she never got that back. There must be so many like that and much worse, people having a profound affect on their health and developing chronic illness. She died of cancer last year, and while it's hard to say what wouldn't have happened anyway, stress and anxiety doesn't exactly help in terms of developing serious illness.

My mental health was pretty good and with the daily tirade of statistics, news, commercials and yoyoing restrictions developed persistent low level anxiety from March 2020.

This academic year's Reception intake at my school included 15 children already in possession of EHCPs. The whole process takes ages, so for 4/5 year olds to already have them in place is highly unusual.

They were all lockdown babies..

I'm not sure if the reason for the large number of EHCPs is simply greater recognition/proactive care givers/health care or if there is a direct correlation to being born during lockdown but I do know that there are some seriously extreme behavioural issues amongst those tiny people.

Haha.

I wasn't rude

You were making out your daughters weak point in maths was down to covid.

I pointed out it wasn't.

I think that raises another really good point, that being the damage the government did to public trust in authority.

I’m so sorry but this school sounds appalling. 5 years of disrupted lessons/teaching? I had a Y7, and although it was a bit crap for them, they didn’t have this experience. The school were rubbish at bringing back trips so didn’t get any, but they wouldn’t have known any different. The teaching settled back down by Y9, Y7 and 8 were obviously very disruptive.

As a mum of a dd who tried to take her life six months into lockdown when she was only eleven……I could write a long post about how/why she got to a point where she couldn’t cope. Or the three years of anxiety that hit her, her medical condition that got left untreated and has left her with permanent damage. The family members that we lost, who died alone. And the education she missed. But it’s too painful, especially today.

but fundamentally she lost out on learning to be around people. And learning to cope with anxiety. But she’s trying very hard. And I’m so proud of her. She’s bought me a mother’s day gift today. That she’s earned the money for herself in a job. That she’s went into a shop, chose and bought!. 2 years ago she wouldn’t have been able to do that. It means more to me than the gift!.

Dh and I had back to back meetings during Covid. Ds was 9. There definitely wasn't much homeschooling happening. We managed a rough daily timetable for him, things like bitesize and such, but yes, heavily dependent on screens and very little opportunity for discussion, explanation or greater depth. We did eat together though and went for a kick about outside (springtime was glorious that year). I don't kid myself though that we were relatively privileged - outdoor space, technology assisted homeschooling (however imperfect), lakes nearby to cycle around, a nice neighbourhood.

Yes, and although that generation have nearly passed, food hoarding among those who survived prison camps and other situations where food was restricted.

Random fact: Carol Voordeman only lived because her mum in occupied Holland was able to survive the famine due to the food parcels dropped by Allied Bombers.

I learnt about that at Bomber Command in Lincoln. There was a general omerta about speaking of the bombing campaign.

My own dad, born in 1938, mentioned casually and quire recently when I was asking him about his early life that their house was destroyed by a bomb and they had to move in with his aunt and uncle for 2 years.

These things were not talked about. Did it affect my dad? I think so. He struggles to show affection despite being a kind and generous person.

Are you including children with SN/medical needs? My youngest GC has been set back because ENT wasn't seeing patients. Her hearing aids etc were put back two years. At a time when a child is learning to speak, that's massive. It didn't help that her grommet operation was cancelled because of the Queen's funeral (which should never have been a working day). I know another autistic boy who's speech will never recover from the gaps in services. My youngest GC also missed out on first parties etc and I do honestly think it's made a difference in the way some children socialise/interact etc.
I'm nearly 60 and a pub goer, pubs have never recovered. There was a change in communication in adults, even older ones, after Covid.

Who was?
That wasn’t my post.
You don’t know who you are replying too.
More than one of your replies was rude and dismissive. Dont bother replying, I don’t like rude people.