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.

Timeline of some of the 2020 restrictions: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019423/Follow_up_study_2020_Appendix_B_Timeline_of_COVID-19_restrictions.pdf

@LittleBearPad going by @GoldenOmber link it was 13rd June before they were allowed to bubble FFS.
So 3 months - that's horrific.😢

They should have thought about single people sooner.

But now I see it makes sense I got furloughed after 6 weeks it was only then I had headspace to do anything about DSs communication with friends, tried Zoom before getting him Xbox and my poor mum - got her a smart phone with Whats App

@manysummersago
But it is not just about money, @toomuchlaundry, and as an aside I really hate this meaning yet another thing to whack parents around the head with. They should have been complaining about lack of funding while homeschooling and entertaining toddlers and in some cases working?

I think this is pushing the ‘poor parents’ card a bit much to be honest. It isn’t about what you could do in lockdown but what you can do now if you really care about dealing with the issues caused by Covid - presumably your children are back at school/nursery and you are no longer working from home? Ultimately, if you want your children to make progress because your children suffered in lockdown (and this thread is quite clear that some children thrived or coped just fine), you will need to put your children first, even if you don’t feel you have time or think you should have to do anything. No one else will push it you don’t (apart from those pesky teaching unions).

Reading your comments last night you seem to think I have derailed your thread. Your thread is 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. I did read the article. I agree some (but not all) children have struggled. I think lockdown was still needed to save lives and would support it again.. Perhaps you should have added the caveat ’…but you are only allowed to comment if you agree that lockdown shouldn’t have happened.’

As you clearly want an echo chamber, make it very clear from the start.

But it isn’t just about money. And I have said, and will say again, that proper funding for catch-up services and standard services and ambitious national programmes to support the needs of children and their families are essential (good sodding luck with that with a Tory government I suppose but those of us in the other UK nations might have a chance.)

But it is still not just about money. It is also about what led to these decisions being made in the first place and what we can learn from that about future decisions involving children. That is important. If you think it isn’t or don’t care about it, then that’s your call, but alas this is a big world where not everyone is going to agree with you. Sorry!

[quote Dinoteeth]**@LittleBearPad* going by @GoldenOmber* link it was 13rd June before they were allowed to bubble FFS.
So 3 months - that's horrific.😢

They should have thought about single people sooner.[/quote]
Yes, New Zealand for example had an explicit 'form a bubble with another person' policy for single people from the start.

Re: playgrounds. In hindsight, taping off playgrounds probably didn't restrict transmission of the virus much, although how it would have worked if they'd have been open is hard to imagine.

One child at a time? A mob of children (which there would have been as the only thing open) would have meant a mob of adults too.

But at that point, there was much less knowledge about how the virus was spreading. People were wiping down their shopping and avoiding touching anything when they were outside for example.

I was never working from home.

I don’t think it’s wanting an echo chamber either and it’s frustrating that some posters are determined to have an argument. Just try to see this from my (and others) points of view for a minute.

You have a baby and for the first few months of that baby’s life, you are majorly restricted - the supermarket or walks. Mine was a winter baby so trudging round a muddy park was the highlight! In January and February there was no end in sight either - we couldn’t say it would be all right because it would be over by , for all we knew it could drag on until June/July.

I was on threads with others with babies and toddlers and we were all feeling similar. Isolated and depressed, no support with things like breastfeeding or help from wider family or able to see friends. I do actually think my own child is young enough not to have been impacted (I was, though.)

But every time we said this - every time - we got pounced on.

‘Just get a puddlesuit and get out.’
‘There weren’t toddler groups forty years ago.’
‘Babies don’t need classes anyway. It’s just for the mums.’
‘NCT is just for middle class mummies anyway.’
‘All babies need is cuddles and milk.’

We even had people saying they wished they’d had their babies in lockdown because their DHs would have been home. The threads took a really unpleasant tone because any worries anyone might have over their toddlers development was told in no uncertain terms that they were selfish and foolish and downright dangerous.

And you do remember so when I saw that news article I thought I’d post it as a little reminder.

There are hundreds of threads about teachers. I am not trying to open old wounds here but there are honestly, literally, loads of them. They all point out much the same: that teachers are at risk from covid, that mitigation should be in place and should have been in place, that teachers are at risk of being very ill and even dying. If that sounds sarcastic at all it isn’t. I’m just pointing out that it is much-discussed on here.

What hasn’t been discussed (much) are the very young and their parents. Of course there will be individual exceptions but as a rule I honestly don’t know how anyone can say that effectively removing under 5s from circulation for months can not have had an effect. And when you try to talk about that - I don’t necessarily have solutions here - to be told you are wrong to do so, that it should only be about the future (and by the way it is your fault because you didn’t write to your MP about funding for EY in 2019) and now someone said something about teachers - that does grate.

I do think a lot of the time it comes across very much as ‘we don’t want to talk about that.’ And I know why.

how it would have worked if they'd have been open is hard to imagine.

Not really? They did reopen eventually when much else was closed, and stayed open through the other restrictions and lockdowns and levels system, so we know how it worked.

I appreciate there was more worry about surface transmission at the time (although this was more about ultra-caution than many serious suggestions that the virus could live for a long time on surfaces in daylight, outdoors). But I don’t think everyone would have agreed at the time that it was worth doing anything, shutting anything, as long as it reduced any transmission. We took a very Covid-over-all approach to many decisions in the last two years and we should have done more to at least discuss the costs and benefits.

It is also about what led to these decisions being made in the first place and what we can learn from that about future decisions involving children.

This is key imo. I always felt that impacting dc to the extent we did with the idea it could be dealt with afterwards was flawed.

So now I’d like a new approach - where the system we use to make decisions is updated so children’s needs are a higher priority.

I mean: where I live, tips and garden centres reopened well before playgrounds. So all the furloughed middle-aged homeowners who’d had lots of time to redo their gardens could keep on with that, but children couldn’t play in playgrounds.

Because all we cared about was how close together people might get? Because we thought gardening was more important than play? Because we paid more attention to things we could financially count than things we couldn’t? Because adults shouted louder than kids? It’s worth at least asking wtf we were thinking there.

We even had people saying they wished they’d had their babies in lockdown hmm because their DHs would have been home.

God. I had DS long before any of this, and I remember thanking my lucky stars for that during lockdown. He was an extremely grumpy, high maintenance baby and the only thing that worked was getting out and about. Not saying that to rub people's noses in it, sorry; I just cannot fathom why anyone would think it was a good thing!

I’ve posted before about the playground near us being open in the January lock down but police stood watching the children play. It was terrifying for my kids. They were convinced we were doing something wrong and I was going to get arrested for taking them. They didn’t want to go again after that but I made them as there was nothing else to do.

@JesusInTheCabbageVan I was just about to say that outings, however mundane, and my baby groups kept me sane when mine were wee. Even the horrors of soft play!

And yes, @GoldenOmber, looking back on why decisions were made is so important.

Lockdown has exacerbated poor parenting, it didn't cause these issues per se.

@Dumbledoressister did you have to look after more then two children during lock down while working? I’m a good parent, very engaged no screens dinner round the table every night, bed time stories and homework. A proper middle class mum. Still my kids left lock down struggling and are both catching up now. To say that the effects of lock down are just poor parenting is ridiculous. Would you allow a parent to bring three children into the work place while the parent taught them all day? All at different levels? Would you let a parent bring a toddler into the office and expect them to excel at working in their role and helping that child meet all developmental milestones while that child has no contact with the outside world. Lock down lovers will never own how destructive and pointless lock downs were for young children.

And well said, manysummersago. Many people were downright dismissive and sneery and blinkered when parents of young children expressed any concern or complaint at all about any of it.

Early on in the first lockdown I was ill myself (Covid got a real foothold in my town early), and DH was ill too, and my entire team at work got moved to emergency covid response stuff, all leave got cancelled and they were begging us to work as much as we could and also telling us we did not count as key workers for childcare purposes (I had a baby and primary age DC) because we could work from home.

So of course we did what we could. It was a crisis, we all wanted to help. But I have a really clear memory of one point early on where I was trying to get the (feverish, coughing) baby down for a nap and answering work emails on my phone, and I could hear the 5 year old sobbing and yelling at DH about worksheets, and it was 11am on a Saturday, and my chest felt like it was being crushed, and suddenly I just wanted to burst out laughing at how insane this all was.

With a bit of distance from it now, I find it equally laughable when people tut and lecture about how really all impact on children and their families was because parents just couldn’t be arsed. It is so widely divorced from the reality of what things were actually like that it’s just bizarre. Defensiveness and cluelessness I expect. But it stung at the time.

@Dumbledoressister

Lockdown has exacerbated poor parenting, it didn't cause these issues per se.

@Dumbledoressister

Please could you tell us about how you managed working full time and parenting children of different ages and developmental stages, including home schooling?

Perhaps a better parent than me would have managed to combine parenting and work in some more creative way. “Gather round for singing time, children and colleagues! The wheels on the spreadsheet about the rising number of covid admissions go ROUND AND ROUND, round and round, round and round…”

Sometimes I think people just come on these threads to upset others. Surely it’s rare to have zero empathy?

It’s a very low level of awareness

I hear on here constantly - happy mum - happy baby.

And of course it isn’t totally true, if mum is happy partying while the baby screams in his pram, but as a rule, the more relaxed, happy and mentally stable you feel the better you parent.

The challenges I had with lockdown (even with a tiny baby) were -

isolation, being unable to meet other mums and share ups and downs and so on.

Little or no structure to the day. It was difficult being at home all the time because DH was working. It was impossible to be out all the time too. So much of the day felt totally aimless.

Has anyone tried singing nursery rhymes when their DH is in a Teams meeting?

We did go out loads. We went to different parks, walking with the pram, but the difference between the first part of my maternity leave and the second was very marked.

With a bit of distance from it now, I find it equally laughable when people tut and lecture about how really all impact on children and their families was because parents just couldn’t be arsed. It is so widely divorced from the reality of what things were actually like that it’s just bizarre. Defensiveness and cluelessness I expect. But it stung at the time.

This. It was deeply upsetting to be told in May 2020 that my then four-year-old’s unhappiness was my fault and nothing to do with the fact that her life had been upended and she’d been isolated from all other children for weeks. I can be dispassionate about it now that she’s broadly fine again (astonishingly her mood and behaviour improved dramatically when she was able to return to school! Who would have thought it!), but at the time it really impacted my own mental health. I don’t understand how people can be so cruel.

@WouldBeGood

Sometimes I think people just come on these threads to upset others. Surely it’s rare to have zero empathy?

That’s pretty par for the course on here gevrrslly

@MarshaBradyo

It’s a very low level of awareness

Yes, I quite agree. Very lacking in empathy and lots about ‘me, me, me’ without thinking about the impact on others and their families.

Perhaps we just agree to disagree on how some aspects of the pandemic was dealt with? Lots of us feel very strongly about how ‘me’ and ‘mine’ were treated at the time. I do think the key is to deal with now rather than creating a misery thread two years later but if the purpose of the thread was to swap stories with like-minded folk, I’ll stop posting on it. I really do think that lockdowns saved lives, despite the problems which inevitably arise because of them.

There’s an excellent story in The Times today by James Kirkup - link which I know is behind a paywall sorry

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/after-the-disaster-of-lockdown-children-are-being-failed-again-zcp9jjs0t

But I’ve screenshotted a key section.