To think that everyone who told those with preschool children in 2020/21 to get a puddlesuit and that lockdown wasn’t that bad needs to read this

[manysummersago]

BBC link

Reading the above has made me feel so angry and sad at what was done to the babies and toddlers of this country, and I can’t believe that we let it happen, quite honestly.

I think when people say two years they do not necessarily mean two years in their entirety.

However, there was certainly one full year of disruption, from March 2020 to March/April 2021.

I am someone who likes the great outdoors. I love a nature walk, love the sea and lakes and the rivers and ponds. But with the best will in the world you cannot run around a wood all day long.

There are countless factors at play when it comes to speech acquisition. Children need to watch lips move, observe facial expressions, have chances to observe reciprocal speech interaction - screens can never replace that and a child won't learn language from a screen. It’s something that relies upon a variety of human interactions.

Some posters are insistent that it’s poor parenting causing the problems linked to in that news article. In a way, I’ve no excuse as I only have one baby, but I also have a DH WFH so I couldn’t really spend all lockdown chatting and singing to that baby. And certainly nobody who is WFH with other kids would be able to do that.

Then you take away the groups (and we know they didn’t have them circa 1940s, but take a look at outcomes for children then) the shopping trips, the visits to family, the library, the museum, and you replace that with one walk a day then back home, like the start of lockdown. Even the best parenting is not going to replace the myriad of social interactions.

Children also need to practice using speech on non family members - was anyone else encouraged to give the lady in the shop the money and say thank you? And handling cash … why else might that be a problem?

@RiverFlowers could it be that your two year old is just a later talker than your first child? It's hard to believe that attending baby groups would make a whole lot of difference tbh, except to your mh.

That’s what some are desperate to believe, that these groups are completely, utterly pointless other than for bored mummies.

I don’t think that in and of themselves groups are the be all and end all but I do know that children who spend their formative years not going anywhere or doing anything don’t tend to have particularly great outcomes.

Surely by being at home with a parent interacting with them with no mask on would not affect speech? While being in nursery where staff are wearing masks might? I don't know, my kids are now just 5(not yet in school), almost 3 and 8 months, apart from the baby they can both talk the hind leg off a donkey. The use of phones, iPads and tv to fill the gap when soft play, libraries, clubs and days out were off the cards may be the issue. I live so rurally that we have none of the above ...well a tiny library and a play park, kids have 1 hour max screen time a day. Lockdown, no lockdown. Why are folk always looking to others to blame for what they don't do/ don't do well/can't be arsed doing. No, it's not easy being little people's constant source of entertainment or just the daily grind of clothing, feeding and cleaning up but screens are not the answer!

Surely that was a choice you made though, to isolate him for 2 years? You chose not to send him to nursery or anywhere for 2 years or do you live somewhere where they were? It wasn't illegal to meet people outside for the vast majority of the past 2 years.
I don’t have any way to offer my child social interaction other than nursery. I don’t have any friends. There are no children living in our street. Who would I go and meet outside? I have nobody to even ask if they would meet me.

Nursery was closed for quite some time in 2020 and I’m clinically vulnerable so I continued to avoid people (and nursery) until I was double vaccinated in May 2021. At which point I tried to send my child to nursery but both local nurseries said they were full. Finally a space opened up in January 2022 and my son was able to start attending. So it was almost two years from the start of the pandemic.

Yes @birdglasspen2

Yes, it does.

Honestly I'm quite confused by the article, perhaps someone can explain it to me.

It says that Ofsted is highlighting concerns with the development of babies and toddlers, social and physical. In particular it mentions "children turning two".

What have these little ones missed out on, exactly, that would cause this?

My son was born in January 2020. He has stayed home with me (a SAHP) throughout the pandemic (i.e. he hasn't gone to nursery or similar yet - he's starting in a few weeks). I think his development is good.

@Ireallycantthinkofagoodone

And for those posters who think schools/nurseries etc should have remained open for their children, who exactly would have been caring for them/teaching them, if all the staff caught Covid?

What a ridiculous post! No doubt you can all blame the government, and insist you would have done a better job of running the country and making extremely difficult decisions about an unknown virus.

I suggest you try.

Completely agree. Many, many groups have been badly affected not just toddlers. No one should have been expected to put themselves at risk when we knew absolutely nothing about the virus. School and nursery staff have families who need and love them too. It is just a job!

Then you take away the groups (and we know they didn’t have them circa 1940s, but take a look at outcomes for children then)

How were outcomes for children born in the 1940s (and before) bad? I'm not sure what you mean.

So you’re confused by the fact that not all children had the same experience as your son?

You don’t think that no face to face breastfeeding support, help for mothers struggling with their mental health, loneliness, isolation, no HV visits, no real support from the GP, kept apart from family, lots of economic uncertainty for many families, no groups, homeschooling older children, WFH spouses, not able to do anything other than one walk a day - you are confused by the fact this may have had a negative impact on some children?

You are either very stupid or very selfish.

@Whatalovelydaffodil

Here is a starting point.

I make a point of not hanging around on threads where the people trumpeting about schools still being disrupted appear - we can all live with disruption, it is better than closure - so I will bow out and leave you all insisting that it’s poor parenting that’s the source of the problem.

@birdglasspen2

Surely by being at home with a parent interacting with them with no mask on would not affect speech? While being in nursery where staff are wearing masks might? I don't know, my kids are now just 5(not yet in school), almost 3 and 8 months, apart from the baby they can both talk the hind leg off a donkey. The use of phones, iPads and tv to fill the gap when soft play, libraries, clubs and days out were off the cards may be the issue. I live so rurally that we have none of the above ...well a tiny library and a play park, kids have 1 hour max screen time a day. Lockdown, no lockdown. Why are folk always looking to others to blame for what they don't do/ don't do well/can't be arsed doing. No, it's not easy being little people's constant source of entertainment or just the daily grind of clothing, feeding and cleaning up but screens are not the answer!

You don't work, do you?

Have you tried being your little people's constant source of entertainment while simultaneously hosting a 2 hour Zoom meeting in a half-professional manner?

@manysummersago

So you’re confused by the fact that not all children had the same experience as your son?

You don’t think that no face to face breastfeeding support, help for mothers struggling with their mental health, loneliness, isolation, no HV visits, no real support from the GP, kept apart from family, lots of economic uncertainty for many families, no groups, homeschooling older children, WFH spouses, not able to do anything other than one walk a day - you are confused by the fact this may have had a negative impact on some children?

You are either very stupid or very selfish.

But most of those things were unavoidable whether we locked down or not. Because even if we had tried to keep going on as normal, it wouldn't have been normal. Lots of services disrupted, people getting sick, people dying, people mourning loved ones.

[quote Porcupineintherough]@RiverFlowers could it be that your two year old is just a later talker than your first child? It's hard to believe that attending baby groups would make a whole lot of difference tbh, except to your mh.[/quote]
It could be he is just a late talker but he is now coming up to 2.5 and he still isn't talking. The doctors and health visitors have all said to me they are seeing it more and more with children his age and they believe lockdown and lack of social interaction has played a big part.

We have literally done everything suggested by SALT, health visitors and the nursery workers for the last 18 months. Nothing has helped.

I am really shocked that so many on here are blaming things like this on lazy parenting - it's insulting. People need to realise just because your child "thrived" doesn't mean that a child who hasn't - had lazy parents.....

A lot of children who arrived in year R at my (leafy, affluent) school had never been sung nursery rhymes, couldn't hold books and tried to swipe at them like they were tablets, had dummies, pushchairs and very limited speech. Many cried all day, were constantly tired, had no core strength, no concentration. I think a combination of lockdown, no sure start centres, poverty, distracted parents, working from home parents unavailable because of work commitments, and mental health issues has contributed to this. The results are scary

[quote manysummersago]@Whatalovelydaffodil

Here is a starting point.[/quote]
Not sure the Ofsted report ois focusing on infant mortality or that mother and toddler groups make a lot of difference to infant mortality.

@Dailyfailcanfeckoff

Lol at the idea parents in the forties actively parenting their dc. Dm was a child of the forties - played out unsupervised from the age of 3 . Her db was saved from drowning in the canal by a 9 yr old. They weren’t unusual. They played out with whole street.

As a child of the 70s I went to playgroup. And played out unsupervised from the age of 5 with the rest of the street. Play dates were going unheard of. We knocked on doors to see if anyone was playing out.

There is no comparison to todays kids &childrearing where mothers are expected to know where their dc are and supervise them. Any of the above today would result in social service being involved.

For those who wfh with young dc I genuinely don’t know how you did it.

Your experiences aren't the same for everyone. I was born in the early 50s, DH late 40s. We didn't play out at 3, probably 5 or 6 but not earlier.

My kids were born in the 70s, they didn't play out unsupervised at 5 and they definitely had playdates.

@LittleBearPad Yes which is why I said children didn’t go near a school for almost six months And why I said they wouldn't have been in school for all of those six months anyway. Why not say they missed three and a half months? Well we know why, it isn't such a good headline is it.

@manysummersago

I think when people say two years they do not necessarily mean two years in their entirety.

However, there was certainly one full year of disruption, from March 2020 to March/April 2021.

I am someone who likes the great outdoors. I love a nature walk, love the sea and lakes and the rivers and ponds. But with the best will in the world you cannot run around a wood all day long.

There are countless factors at play when it comes to speech acquisition. Children need to watch lips move, observe facial expressions, have chances to observe reciprocal speech interaction - screens can never replace that and a child won't learn language from a screen. It’s something that relies upon a variety of human interactions.

Some posters are insistent that it’s poor parenting causing the problems linked to in that news article. In a way, I’ve no excuse as I only have one baby, but I also have a DH WFH so I couldn’t really spend all lockdown chatting and singing to that baby. And certainly nobody who is WFH with other kids would be able to do that.

Then you take away the groups (and we know they didn’t have them circa 1940s, but take a look at outcomes for children then) the shopping trips, the visits to family, the library, the museum, and you replace that with one walk a day then back home, like the start of lockdown. Even the best parenting is not going to replace the myriad of social interactions.

Children also need to practice using speech on non family members - was anyone else encouraged to give the lady in the shop the money and say thank you? And handling cash … why else might that be a problem?

You talk so much sense in every single one of your posts.

Tbh I feel bloody lucky that I work for the NHS and managed to keep DS in nursery for all but the first six weeks of lockdown.

My frustration lies with everything being blamed on lockdown/covid. He has some difficulties that I am 99.999% sure can be attributed to high functioning autism. He’s super bright (basic reading and writing, counting, addition, subtraction and some times tables, incredible visual memory, very artistically talented etc. without any effort on our part whatsoever), but terrified of loud noises, new situations, and large groups of people, struggles to play with other children, is very easily overwhelmed etc. My dad is definitely autistic, and I score very highly on screening tests. However trying to get anyone to listen or have an assessment is a nightmare because ‘this is common in lockdown toddlers’.

@ancientgran

And why I said they wouldn't have been in school for all of those six months anyway. Why not say they missed three and a half months? Well we know why, it isn't such a good headline is it

Across the various lockdowns In Scotland my eldest child missed a total of 7 months of school.

Mid March to end June 2020
January to mid April 2021

I think it rather depends on the demographic, it’s not caused much of an issue here. DD and friends are 2 and all well ahead of milestones, but we had the resources to mitigate eg I and friends extended our mat leaves so we wouldn’t have to juggle work without childcare.

I think school aged children had it worse. I’m not convinced my DD missed anything, she’s confident and well adjusted. My family missed out on her but not the other way around.

Cirelle I knew you were going to say one of you was CEV. People forget about that like they forget about regional differences in restrictions. I hope he’s enjoying nursery now.
Your other point is a good one that as world reopened there weren’t the places there for children to just be able to jump back into activities. A poster recently couldn’t get her 7 year old into any local football team or beavers. Our brownies has a big waiting list.

@manysummersago

So you’re confused by the fact that not all children had the same experience as your son?

You don’t think that no face to face breastfeeding support, help for mothers struggling with their mental health, loneliness, isolation, no HV visits, no real support from the GP, kept apart from family, lots of economic uncertainty for many families, no groups, homeschooling older children, WFH spouses, not able to do anything other than one walk a day - you are confused by the fact this may have had a negative impact on some children?

You are either very stupid or very selfish.

I think this was for me. I'm neither stupid nor selfish, thanks.

Almost ALL of those things you've listed affected me and my son.

• No F2F BF support - How does this ultimately impact a 2 year old's physical or social development?! It's irrelevant. FF babies develop just fine.

• No help for mothers struggling with MH / no GP support / loneliness and isolation - My MH crashed and burned in the pandemic. I'm still in therapy, I have experienced severe anxiety and depression and am clawing my way out, although I doubt I'll be the same ever again. I'm sure this has negatively impacted my son in some ways. But MH issues for parents are extremely common. People live with these problems covid or no covid. Babies still learn to crawl and understand social cues when their parents have mental health issues.

• Economic uncertainty - Again, erm, this exists. It's not COVID specific.

• Kept apart from family / no groups / nothing to do but one walk a day - This had a huge and direct impact on me and my son, socially. I did as much as was possible for us legally and that my mental and physical health would allow. Like I said, he's fine. Nobody locked us into a box for two years - we had some opportunities when things improved/ lockdowns lifted, etc. I did my best and it was enough, and I imagine that the vast majority of people could have done the same or better than me.

• WFH spouses - This was a nightmare for me, stuck in a small flat. Not sure how it could have negatively impacted my son's social or physical development.

I think my main point is - sure, there weren't as many opportunities as there might have been without covid, and yes there were some additional challenges. But to suggest that the pandemic has created a wave of socially and physically stunted two year olds - I just don't see the causal link.

Children missing long periods of school - I can absolutely see how that would obviously negatively impact their development and progress, even though I don't have experience of it myself.