This is why I won't be sending my children back to school

[softjellycell]

1 primary school teacher tests positive for corona virus
18 children have come into contact with the virus
18 key workers have to stop work
30 teaching colleagues have to stop work and self isolate.
Key worker children no longer have any provision at that school.
Bristol May 14th 2020.

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/live-coronavirus-updates-bristol-teacher-4135096

@LadyWithLapdog lack of supervision for one thing. We have young children whose parent(s) are needing to wfh, including on video calls. It is easy to envisage how a child could easily fall off something, while not being supervised.

Prior to this crisis if people suggested they were thinking to wfh to save on childcare costs they were rightly told it was impossible and also the risks to the child. Now parents are expected to just manage.

Thanks for replying. That’s obviously a situation where the parent can’t WFH if the child is so young they need constant supervision. But schooling in this case is primarily for the benefit of the parent, not child.

How is avoiding injury to the child solely for the parents benefit?

No, WFH with child around. If you can’t do it safely then you shouldn’t be doing it. I can see how this can cause financial hardship. But of itself doesn’t mean school is better for kids.

I think avoiding injury is probably a benefit to children...

What other reasons would a child be safer in school than at home? I’m not being goady and it’s probably something very obvious but I don’t know what.

One good, square, hot meal a day, plus snacks, plus being in a heated school 6 hours a day. Many families will struggle this winter to heat their homes not just for a couple of hours in the evening (then wrap in blankets, with hot water bottles for bed) - but for whole days at home.

Many homes will simply be unheated and will be absolutely freezing. In some inadequate accommodation, inside can even be colder than outside. Many families would have struggled to provide 3 meals a day before, with less income, they could be pushed over the financial edge.

So fed and warm = safer, even where the parents are otherwise loving and competent.

Tbh as soon as schools open the online education will stop. Schools wont be normal in September so u could always just home school permanently

Well if the parents give up their jobs, to supervise their children, and can no longer afford their rent or mortgage, being homeless is also not going to help that child.

LadyWithLapdog

Financial hardship goes to the very heart of lack of safety in underprivileged children.

Well, mine are going back as soon as school want them, and even a bit before then if DH gets recalled to work sooner.

We foster.
6 weeks ago we took in some kids that we’ve had before.
They’re lovely and we’re hapoy to have them, but we cannot and actually will not give up our businesses to look after them.

We are keeping them safe and loved while their mother cannot. But we need them in school. It’s that stark.

And I’m quickly getting the sense that many people don’t give a shit about kids like these.

@HelloMissus
Please don’t feel like that, I give a shit. You sound amazing

@HelloMissus Thank you for being a foster parent.

some people do care a great deal about kids like these and I think it mostly isn’t that others don’t care but that they don’t understand. It is easy for people whose children are doing fine at home, to not understand why so many others are suffering and desperately need the schools to reopen for them.

My husband is a key worker in a child protection related area and him and his colleagues are working non stop to do what is best for all the children. Please don’t give up hope.

HelloMissus

Some people have such limited and priviledged histories they have no ability to see the perspective of the truly less privileged. They've never experienced or really witnessed it, so they can't imagine it. Like trying to describe "purple" to someone who's never seen purple. They just have zero concept.

💐💐

A child may be safer at school because the risk to that child's mental health of removing the routine of school is greater than the risk of the virus. These will usually be children in specialist schools rather than those going to hubs.( before anyone says there won't be usual routines). Some children will become very anxious leading to self injurious and aggressive behaviour. A parent needing hospital treatment isn't going to benefit the child. Neither is a child needing inpatient psychiatric treatment or going into residential care.
Some children's level of care is so great that it cannot be done long-term by parents without outside support and school may be the only outside support available.

Being at risk has more than one meaning.

This thread is worth a read: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3912936-AMA-my-child-s-been-back-at-Dutch-school-for-one-week

Has anyone else been made to feel guilty or ashamed for their decision to send their child back to school or nursery on 1 June? Feels like parent-shaming levels are particularly high at the moment...