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'm afraid if parents are working from home, it's totally unrealistic also to expect them both to set up and supervise online lessons and leave younger children unattended in a different room. So yes, I do think teachers overstepped the mark there. Our neighbours actually gave up engaging with online learning because the demands were so ridiculous.

@vickyc90

Pointed it out at the time and was called a COVID minimiser or granny killer. The elderly and everyone in a house with someone vulnerable should have been in mandatory isolation the rest of us should have been getting on with it. Sweden is the only country who can be proud of the way they protected their kids education

So children with a CEV parent or who were CEV themselves wouldn't have been able to attend school even when they were open?

Kids in overcrowded houses including elderly grand parents shouldn't have been able to access key worker places if their parents were retail staff or HCP?

There are all sorts of reasons why that wouldn't have worked and even this government wasn't insane enough to try to implement it.

Not least of which is that many young, healthy people died of covid, or are still living with the long-term effects.

@vickyc90 The elderly and everyone in a house with someone vulnerable should have been in mandatory isolation the rest of us should have been getting on with it. abs you decided to repost your ableist shitty comment? Why should my children have been on house arrest due to immune compromised family member so yours can have life as normal?

*and why did ( you decide ….)

@Goldbar a lot of the rules re remote provision came from Government guidance and safeguarding.

@WouldBeGood does that paper explain why Sweden, who didn't lockdown in the same way many other countries did, have many more deaths than Norway and Denmark that did? As I assume they are reasonably similar in demographic, health and genes of the population

They actually didn’t @toomuchlaundry, take a look at it

@toomuchlaundry. This is a good example of the government/schools expecting too much from parents. Parents weren't the only ones with unrealistic expectations.

So, @Goldbar, you still think that teachers following government-advised protocols were deserving of vitriol?

Is there any chance we can stop this being another thread where teachers air their woes about someone from MN being nasty about them in 2020?

More of an issue is the poster(s) being nasty about teachers right here and now, actually. When this isn't even meant to be a thread about them.
Yes, the chance to let it go would be lovely.

@RaleighDurham

So, *@Goldbar*, you still think that teachers following government-advised protocols were deserving of vitriol?

Well, I certainly don't think expecting families to do the impossible merited much respect. It just caused more unnecessary stress. Working parents were looking at the demands of schools and thinking "wtf! How do we do that?" A lot of homeschooling was totally ridiculous.

[quote Porcupineintherough]@Swayingpalmtrees where are you getting your suicide data from? Suicides were down in England, Scotland and Wales in 2020 compared to 2019. The group with the highest rates of suicide was middle aged men, not teenagers.

I'd also like to see some science you are quoting g about missed neurological pathways because I think you are making far greater claims than the science supports (you need to link COVID restrictions to neurological damage, the only thing I can find is research linking COVID itself to neurological damage).[/quote]
Don't bring facts and figures into this, doesn't fit the hyperbole.

Then stop responding

For months before and during the lockdowns those of us with babies and toddlers were told we were horribly entitled, that all babies needed were cuddles and milk, baby classes and toddler groups were stuff and nonsense and didn’t exist once and build some resilience. Over and over and over.

Now it seems that just maybe being stuck at home with mum wasn’t for the best, but some posters persist in blaming the parents. And I get that is how the thread moved on but seriously can we give it a rest.

Give what a rest?
I haven't blamed any parents for anything.
You began the thread, so must surely expect people to debate? Or can we only follow the party line?

Thank you so much, @JesusInTheCabbageVan, I really appreciate that! I’m not replying to Choice as she clearly is an idiot, possibly a troll, and not worth my time...

I think roughly sticking to the thread topic is a given I mean, do feel free to talk about something different if you must but there are ample threads where teachers share their woes.

I don't care anymore about sharing woes on Mumsnet - it's long been a place that's very anti-teacher so any thread that even mentions them ends the same way. Many teachers have been hounded off here since Covid, particularly thanks to the likes of Us4Them members. But I will not stand by and ignore blatant bashing such as there has been in evidence on this thread.

Fine. You haven’t stood by. Any chance we could get back to the effects on preschool children now rather than how hard teachers have had it?

I have read the full thread. The parent blaming has come from other parents.
Re: unreasonable expectations - it was an impossible situation. Many, many parents on here wanted live lessons (our parents didn’t) but with the best will in the world it was never going to be like normal. What could have been done differently, apart from opening schools in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic?

@manysummersago

Fine. You haven’t stood by. Any chance we could get back to the effects on preschool children now rather than how hard teachers have had it?

I have taught every age group from Nursery to Year 6. We have always had children in Nursery and Reception who have not been school ready. Schools have long been expected to pick up the slack and help with things like toilet training, social skills. Identify speech and language needs etc. For a while this was mitigated by Sure Start etc identifying needs and providing community based services. This was quickly jettisoned when the coalition came in in 2010. It has taken this pandemic to show just how poor services are for very young children and their families.

It's likely both teachers and parents had unrealistic expectations of each other, hardly surprising in such bizarre times when everyone was shocked, traumatised and living in uncertainty. I was never scared of covid, myself and my family are low risk so have always been "safe". We wanted to do the morally responsible thing and help protect those who were genuinely vulnerable until there was more data and treatment.
There's no doubt the lockdowns went on too long and caused much harm after the initial knee jerk response. I have no ill will to teachers, I have a lot of ill will towards teaching unions who did not acknowledge the harm to children and young people by shutting society down. Numerous teachers I know have left the unions due to their dubious harmful stance.

I will no longer associate with any lockdown screechers. The majority of my social circle many of whom are in health and social care, academia etc agree that the lockdown policy was flawed and harmful.

@Frenziedandfurious

It's likely both teachers and parents had unrealistic expectations of each other, hardly surprising in such bizarre times when everyone was shocked, traumatised and living in uncertainty. I was never scared of covid, myself and my family are low risk so have always been "safe". We wanted to do the morally responsible thing and help protect those who were genuinely vulnerable until there was more data and treatment. There's no doubt the lockdowns went on too long and caused much harm after the initial knee jerk response. I have no ill will to teachers, I have a lot of ill will towards teaching unions who did not acknowledge the harm to children and young people by shutting society down. Numerous teachers I know have left the unions due to their dubious harmful stance.

I will no longer associate with any lockdown screechers. The majority of my social circle many of whom are in health and social care, academia etc agree that the lockdown policy was flawed and harmful.

Where is the idea coming from that this was caused by teaching unions? It’s nonsense. Our union was acting in our best interests whilst trying to balance this with the needs of families and children. Remember, nobody knew what the effects in the general population were going to be and children WERE shown to be vectors of infection - as they still are. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Still, some people just hate the idea of workers organising and having strength in numbers.

@peachgreen

The fact of the matter is that nobody can ever say for sure if it was worth it or not because we didn't take the path of no lockdowns. If we had, I have no doubt those of us who lost loved ones or were struggling with Long Covid would be on here being as militant as the Us4Them lot, only the other way around. We'll never know how many lives lockdown saved, and we'll never agree on an estimate. Arguing about it now is pointless. All we can do is try to mitigate the impact. And be grateful if you didn't lose anyone, or have your life changed by Long Covid.

I agree with you 100%.

The first lockdown didn't go on long enough, nor was sufficiently enforced.

Those of us who have had covid and some who have lost loved ones because of the pandemic, never mind the economic problems it has caused, feel vastly differently to those who have been able to survive quite well, sometimes even better, because of it.

There is absolutely no point in raking it over now with hindsight. We have to move forward. Children will adapt fairly quickly, they always do, so will we eventually.

I was wondering this about the unions, since when did this Government ever listen to unions

@toomuchlaundry

I was wondering this about the unions, since when did this Government ever listen to unions

Exactly. Convenient whipping boys for the right wing press though.