How can you do this to your children (and yourselves)?

[endoftheworldaoife]

It has been six months and it's now very clear that covid won't be doing away in our lifetimes. A vaccine won't eradicate it (just as a vaccine didn't eradicate flu).

Most of you seem to be willing to accept social distancing and masks for the foreseeable. And I don't get it. We are a tribal species. We literally die without contact and get sick without communication. Kids are learning arrange, stilted ways of being that will just worsen their digital reliance. OCD is being normalised. Dating will be neurotic and masked. Freshers won't make new loves or lifelong friends like we did. As for their working lives...

I wouldn't mind catching covid (indeed I'm sure we all will sooner or later) so can someone explain to me what on earth is happening in their heads to tip the balance? If it only affected us, I could understand (well, I couldn't but this feels like child abuse on a giant scale).

IMO it’s a disrupted year out of my family’s life, but as we’re all in the same boat, I will put up with it and get on with it. We’re all still working/studying and communicating with wider family and friends.
It’s not ideal but we’re trying to make the best of it.

Changing the guidance around seeing certain vulnerable people, and prioritising certain non covid medical treatment etc, is very different from abandoning all restrictions. In fact the need to keep those things going should be one of the reasons we are having restrictions. We need to hold the govt to account on the details of what is prioritised, not just throw up our hands and say that because something isn't happening we might as well give up.

@Toobe

The new 6 person rule has been introduced precisely because people have been ignoring the rules on SD and the R rate has gone up.

Rather ironic to be bleating about ignoring the rules and giving DC a chance at normality, when the effect has been the exact opposite and resulted in tighter restrictions.

Especially disappointing for those who HAVE been following the rules but now have further restrictions imposed.

Exactly this. Just suggesting people follow guidelines “if they want” is not going to help. I’m guessing the OP would prefer to go with personal choice resulting in survival of the fittest.

For myself, I’m back at the gym now, gotten used to wearing a mask in shops (though still struggle with misted glasses sometimes 😎), doing OLD and had a couple of meet ups, and looking forward to seeing 5 close friends for a meal at mine this week. I’d like to travel more and know I can, yet feel it’s a bit too soon.

It’s all been a matter of adapting but there are ways, it’s just some are more resistant to change/rules than others. Mental health support would perhaps be useful to help in addressing this.

So what should happen to families with vulnerable members? They should be told to crack on and Covid be damned? It’s not going away, so either they take a level of responsibility or they shrug and say “what will be will be”. If it’s someone you love, would you not want to do what you could to prevent them dying?

They should do what they would normally do during a normal flu season ....

...but Cocopops they can’t do that because what they and their vulnerable loved one would do to avoid dying of flu is have a flu vaccination...

A responsible community would not shut down in the face of a disease most people don't even know they have. What sort of community causes massive harm to their own children? The sort that tries to balance harm to ALL individuals against the harm to commerce.

No matter how unpleasant you really do have to look beyond your own front door and do your best to come to terms with what is happening, including anything and everything to ammeliorate the MH issues undubtedly being caused.

Ignore the stupidity of the sacremongers. Reach out and find your local Covid support groups. From your posting it seems you need to find ways of dialling down your stress levels.

Best of luck.

I didn't make life long friends at freshers - my first year university experience was hell.

I have had Covid - I am overweight but young, it wasn't pleasant but I am still standing.

Technology is here to stay too - and our children will grow up with it and use all the knowledge accessible to them that we could only have dreamt of previously.

Things will return to normal, once a vaccine has been developed and once we understand more about this new virus and how it behaves. There have been pandemics before and there will be again, but we adapt.

No point tying yourself in knots over something you can't control. To be honest, I am more worried about climate change affecting my kids futures rather than "masked dating".

My dc are living full and happy lives now they are at school. They are playing and learning with their friends, which is what young children need. We will be complying with the rule of 6, this is a small sacrifice to make if it can help protect vulnerable people.

OP maybe if you stopping being so negative and woe is me about it all you'd be better able to cope with the changes.

We're currently being asked to make really small changes to normal life.

My DD goes to school, she's happy, learning and having fun with her friends.

I work full time, yes from home now but still have contact with colleagues multiple times every day.

I can meet up with friends and family, just in smaller groups.

I can shop for anything I need online or in person, just have to wear a mask.

I can go to restaurants, bars, pubs, museums, libraries, gym, swimming, theme park, zoo, casino..... just have to wear a mask or get changed at home.

I like social distancing as always felt people have no concept of personal space before but that's just me.

I don't think any of the current restrictions and rules are unbearable or significantly disruptive to family life. More than happy to follow the rules if it stops other people and my family getting seriously ill.

I hope you're not passing this catastrophising on your kids OP! Chill out.

The OP seems to think everyone should feel the same way she does and any difference of opinion means the other person is wrong.

Some children will be negatively impacted by not attending school but some children are not cut out for school, hate every minute of it and will thrive at home. And as for uni students not making friends or falling in love - what nonsense. Young adults find their tribes and loves in concentration camps and war zones, having to wear a mask and stand a metre away won’t change that biological imperative. They’ll find a way. Their experience will be different to ours but it will be uniquely theirs and not necessarily worse than ours.

Covid will undoubtedly change things for the next few years and maybe forever but human beings are resilient and we will adapt. Sitting round bemoaning that things are not like the good old days will only stop you enjoying the many good things that are still available to us.

Testing shows us that before this Gen Z (16-25yr olds) are the most isolated they’ve ever been. They don’t socialise as much, live life on a screen, prefer to interact with bots for services so as not to speak to a person and have increasing mental health issues. I work in a field where we have totally changed our marketing to adapt to this.

That was before Covid.

Adding to that a fear of others and a normalising of staying away, we are storing up untold horrors for the future. Poverty and mental health related deaths are just as deadly as covid if not as obvious and immediate. The balance isn’t being considered.

We are going for testing again today, the 6yr old has a temperature. It’s fairly obviously a cold gained from being chucked back into school but it’s the “right” thing to do.

But my eldest child due to an ear infection has been in her new school 1 day, then pulled back out again, then in 1 day, now pulled back out again as we all have to isolated. She’s devastated. She was already in the midst of violent angry anxiety before she went back doe to the length of time off. Then she settled back in. Then she stressed as she was back out. Then she had one happy day. Now she’s back to angry and stressed as she’s scared she’ll fall behind again next week and the one friend she had started to make will move onto others because she’s off again.

It’s fucking awful to watch her struggle, so I just can’t downplay the effects this is having.

Do you feel that people in Brazil and the republican states in the US are happier????

"Quoting reasonable concern Artesia
*@endoftheworldaoife**

So what should happen to families with vulnerable members? They should be told to crack on and Covid be damned? It’s not going away, so either they take a level of responsibility or they shrug and say “what will be will be”. If it’s someone you love, would you not want to do what you could to prevent them dying?""

Reply by PP- They should do what they would normally do during a normal flu season ....

It's not the same as normal flu season. (Do you think all the nations across the world were wrong? Maybe you should speak at WHO!! ) Vulnerable people are vaccinated each year in U.K. against the latest flu virus precisely because that too can kill but at a lower rate compared to infection levels in community. This was a lethal pandemic virus at a level we hadn't seen since Spanish flu outbreak which needlessly killed millions

They’d be much more disturbed by a dead grandparent than by washing their hands more than usual.

Yes, this. My father is my adopted daughters best friend in the world. When this started she spent night after night in tears at the thought of him dying. Her mother died a few years ago, her father wouldn't know her if he passed her in the street and her other set of grandparents are psychopaths. She lost enough before covid -like many children have. She wants, needs to cling to the family that she has left now. That's far more important to her than temporary restrictions on her life.

I believe it’s affecting my children but I’m not sure what the answer is.

My dd has just started reception and is constantly washing and sanitising her hands. She talks about catching covid and how she might not be ill but adults are. She was delighted when things reopened because she said it meant covid was going. She struggled the first time of lockdown, I think she will find a second one much harder and I do believe she will be affected by it longer term.

My son has just started secondary. He is ok on the surface but has started biting his nails and fingers over lockdown. He found actual lockdown extremely hard. He is very close to my dad who he wasn’t able to see for a long time and all his favourite things like sports stopped. He is on the spectrum though, with elements of adhd, so he may have found it harder than NT children in some ways. Basically on the surface he seems ok, but actually it’s heightened his anxiety quite a lot.

We’ve made the best of it but I certainly believe my children have been affected. However I don’t know what the answer is.

[quote SteeperThanHell]@cocopops in a normal flu season we would all be vaccinated - this is not flu.[/quote]
Well, we wouldn't all be vaccinated against flu.

I do think you're experiencing excessive anxiety around this OP. Nothing wrong with that, this has been hard on all of us including myself. But please consider that you might be catastrophizing as relates to the future.

Why anyone would want to catch Covid is beyond me. It’s a new virus and people are still suffering weeks/months after getting it. I know a few people who had it very bad and a few that died. People of all ages seem to react to it in a different way. Of course we don’t know what will happen if you get the virus, it’s just down to luck. But it’s about not overwhelming the system. I know if it get very ill from it or a family member, the hospital will be able to look after me better now than at the beginning. Before they were so overwhelmed, that only those on their death bed would be admitted. I work for nhs 111, and I can’t tell you how difficult and overwhelming the service was at the start. We just couldn’t cope. If you don’t put measures in place then it will spread like crazy. I know of someone in their mid 60s that died, leaving behind a son in his early 30s. He is an only child and his dad died when young. He now has no one, had mental breakdowns and tried to kill him self a few times. His mum caught it in a hospital, now if she had caught the virus now She may possibly still be alive.

I don’t know why you’re sorry for children OP, they’ve had it the easiest. Things are running back up as well, you can go to the cinema, zoo, attractions, restaurants, shopping, soft play etc.

Op imagine you had a child with health complications, you’d be thinking about this very differently. I really don’t know why you want this virus to spread?

I spent a lot of the pandemic in a place with much tougher corona restrictions and enforcement.

But due to this I felt much more freedom to go out and meet people (because I was less concerned about getting it and passing it onto my parents or other people of higher risk). Schools went back earlier than here. Kids had to wear masks but their education was not as affected.

I personally prefer this to what we have in UK, where the well-being of many immuno compromised people is reduced - due to higher risk of infection/death and mental health issues from isolating.

Humans have lived in small tribes with mainly their own extended family for many years before the modern era. Rule of 6 can work - by seeing people individually - eg just one parent and kids seeing grandparents/friend or seeing each grandparent separately.

Hell's Bell.

Your Username is apt.

Do you have regular input from MH services? If not, I think you need to contact your GP or IAPT services in your area urgently.

Do you know what we had a chance to stop this - wear masks, socially distance but many people blew it and have made it worse for everyone - and based on some of the responses on here will continue to do so

What makes you think you know better than Chris witty or other infectious disease experts?

It’s not the end of the bloody world if our children are lacking in resilience so much they can’t adjust to living there lives around the restrictions then we are failing as parents

Are you always such a drama queen? My children are coping brilliantly & won’t be scarred for life. Previous generations of children have been through much worse. You’re being ridiculous.

I think the comparison to people’s lives returning to normality following previous pandemics is not a helpful one; those generations did not have access to mass produced masks available for a couple of pounds, nor to portable hand sanitisers etc. They did not have the mass communication channels ramming messages down their throats of “Stay away from
other people!!”. These things are becoming utterly normalised and accepted and it really is terrifying.

If infection and death rates were published every single day for all other illnesses, no one would ever leave the house.

Why, of all the things you could do with your Sunday morning, have you chosen to come on here and be rude to total strangers?

Such weird behaviour.

Obviously it’s shit, do you think you’re the only one to feel that way? yeah, the rest of us are just LOVING it.

What’s your alternative at this point? Just go and socialise with loads of people while cases are increasing? Let it just get really bad again so we have to go into full lockdown? You might not care about other people getting unwell because it probably won’t affect you badly.

Personally I don’t actually have a choice, along with millions of people in the country, I can’t hide away from it (nor do I want to). I’m at work all week with loads of people. Are you?

Honestly I don’t get why people think they’re somehow unique in finding this difficult. Of course it’s shit. Of course schools must not close. Of COURSE we need to have absolutely everything open as much as we can. It’s just so rich for you to come on here and accuse people of “doing this to their children”.

@Sparticuscaticus
No one stopped people from going out for walks and video chatting
Actually, my dgm has been stopped from going out for walks. For the first month of the pandemic, her care home made the decision that all residents who could stay in their rooms should be left there, to protect them. After a while, this was relaxed slightly and they were allowed back in the communal areas, but they don’t have enough staff to take residents out in to the garden for walks. Because family are not allowed in, their is no one to do this. Once a week they take her in to the garden for a short socially distanced visit with one family member, who must be the same each week. (No idea how that is gong to work as it gets cooler, everyone knows the elderly can not be in cold spaces for any length of time).
As for video chatting, dgm has no verbal communication left anymore and has no capacity to understand video calling, so we don’t have that either with her, although we do try.

It’s a bit crap for both her and for us, imagining how she is living at the moment. I have every faith in the care home staff, they are lovely people, but it is absolutely not the same As having your family around you.