"Parents should control their teenagers"

[differentname]

Says Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer.
I'm so pissed off about this, children and young people are already sacrificing so much to protect the old!

Yes well, they've had enough. This a totally unnatural way for them to live and their risk of catching Covid is vanishingly small. Are we really going to lock them up forever?

And those parroting " until we get a vaccine" need to put some research into the odds of getting one anytime soon!

@BillywilliamV

And those parroting " until we get a vaccine" need to put some research into the odds of getting one anytime soon!

Harries is a disgrace, but this is so far from the worst thing she’s come out with. It probably doesn’t make the top 10.

^accidental quote

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect parents to ensure their children are behaving appropriately given current circumstances.

Parents should do this anyway.

They're not children!

But their parents are still responsible for them!

I think the teens have been bloody brilliant putting up with this, they’ve sacrificed an awful lot.

My dc have all followed lockdown rules. We’ve stayed home, had no one over. My mother on the other hand just doesn’t get it. My brother dumped his child on her and my dad as soon as the concept of the bubble for one parent families arose. Since he’s lived there, his own other mother visited last week and took him camping Overnight with her new boyfriend. My brother visited them and took him out with his girlfriend and 3 kids. My mother has just had a go at me for not visiting for my dads birthday today. I live an hour away. It’s rained all day and I’m not permitted in her house so I’m unsure what she was expecting of me and my children. She’s vulnerable because of her physical health, my dad is main carer for his brother with dementia so they’re all vulnerable. I’m sick of telling them. Brother doesn’t think covid is real so thinks I’m being petty and pedantic about it...So it’s not necessarily children.

@KnobChops

I think the teens have been bloody brilliant putting up with this, they’ve sacrificed an awful lot.

Couldn't agree more.

That woman is a fucking arsehole. My kids are abiding by the rules but our teenagers and kids have done enough, no school, all hobbies and activities cancelled for months, for a virus that barely affects them, meantime she’s the one that said it was OK for Cheltenham to go ahead, how many infections did that cause? She can fuck off.

@FizzFan

That woman is a fucking arsehole. My kids are abiding by the rules but our teenagers and kids have done enough, no school, all hobbies and activities cancelled for months, for a virus that barely affects them, meantime she’s the one that said it was OK for Cheltenham to go ahead, how many infections did that cause? She can fuck off.

The Cheltenham point is a good one, and another example of how the government, and in this case Harries, have been quite bewilderingly inconsistent during all this.

She was saying it in the context that it is better to have schools back than teenagers roaming around in large and changing groups - because this isn’t sustainable for that age group anymore.

We’ve had a police letter about this so it is an issue.

I have a preteen so is at home but I’m sure if I’d been 15/16 I would have been off and out so it’s not a blame game at all. Lots are complying but I wouldn’t have (I am now !)

I'm not sure it's angry teens we have to worry
about. It's some of the angry parents here who appear like they won't even try and control them.

She is right. They are returning to school. They need to then go home and not all be cross mixing in other households.

They are not the only group to have sacrificed everything during this time. I say that as a year 11 parent of a high level sport competitor.

Everyone has had to sacrifice and we will all have to continue to be careful.

My mum who has cancer is going to have to resign from her teaching job as it's not safe for her to return.

As for Cheltenham. It was a mistake. They didn't know community transmission was as high as they didn't have a testing facility set up. It's cost lives. It was handled appallingly. But it's irresponsibly idiotic right keep saying "I'm not now doing this to keep people safe because they made mistakes". Because now we have the knowledge we need to make things better moving forward.

I have to agree with her. We had a group of teens so bored in the local area they've been breaking into houses, cars and intimidating people. I agree parents should have their teens under control at a time like this. The rest of us are sacrificing a lot too, that's the point, so I don't agree with the argument that teens have given up so much, we all bloody have.

Cheltenham wasn't a mistake, it was a decision. It came at a time when other places were cancelling big events and the UK govt was trying to carry on.

If by controlling your teenager, she means driving him to play football outside with his mate, well yes I've been doing that for the past couple of weeks.

I'm in Scotland, he will be outside where there is less risk of infection- not that the risk of infection is shockingly high anyway. He was getting flabby and pale from lack of exercise - strangely unkeen to walk each day with parents.

Obesity, diabetes,depression are all ailments as well - most exacerbated by not being able to meet friends or socialise. if she thinks teens are going to go to school then nicely home to sit in doing homework without playing football or meeting their mates for another 6 months , then she is deluded.

If your teenagers have been great at sticking to guidelines, then she isn't referring to them or you.

I found it interesting how she said social distancing could be enforced in school. Yes we can generally get the students to do as we ask. But I can't change the dimensions of my classroom. 30 students in a classroom are going to be close together and the guidance says they can change groups for educational reasons. So large and changing groups is a description of a secondary school...

The teenagers around me have met up as normal since the start of lockdown and are continuing to do it. That is who she is referring too and I wish the parents of these teens would control the idiots.

Rookiemere I'm fairly sure she didn't mean that.

Last Saturday there were a gang of about 40 teenagers in the local park. As winter comes they might move inside,

I think that's what she was referring to. Simply sticking to guidelines.

Cheltenham wasn't a mistake, it was a decision.

As a local, i completely agree with this. So many of my lifelong tory-voting neighbours and friends in town will be choosing differently next time around based on the negligence of the government. We have a huge elderly population and a hospital with a very small ICU. I know numerous people who died of Covid-19 following the races.

@Icecreamsandthebeach so how long can teenagers be expected to sit at home alone? Through next winter? Another 18 months?

Currently meeting up outside to play football in a group is outside the guidelines icecream certainly in Scotland.

Covid-19 is not the only factor in all of this and it infuriates me the way it's still treated as if it is.

Ban young people from meeting together, close all the places they used to hang out like arcades, cinemas, eating indoors at fast food places and most organised outdoor sports. Keep the restrictions going for longer than they absolutely have to and focus on opening up activities that seem to be of most interest to the over 60s e.g. garden centres, golf, bowling.

It's an absolute powder keg of a situation and I believe the time has past when we can tell off those feckless parents ( who are most likely trying ti work and get their DC to do school work) for not getting teenagers to comply with increasingly arbitrary and inconsistent rules.

It would be rather better if the government and medical profession acknowledged that young people cannot continue to survive in a bubble and thought about what could be done to help them meet safely and what sports etc could be allowed.