Making isolating 13 yr old not leave her room for 10 days!!

[novaparty12]

My niece is 13 and on Friday she was told to isolate by her school as the girl she sits next to tested positive. She lives in London where transmission is really high. I spoke to MIL today who said that my SIL has told her she is not allowed out of her room apart from going to the toilet or having a shower. All meals are left outside her door for her to collect and my SIL went shopping and spend £50 on snacks and drinks so she doesn't have to leave her room. MIL is really worried about her she keeps phoning her in tears. My SIL is autistic and takes everything very very seriously but surely confining a 13 yr old to her room for 10 days is going a bit far isn't it??

I am a single parent but not with blood cancer. If I had clinical vulnerabilities I would have made a plan months ago as soon as return to school was apparent. People with clinical vulnerabilities live with with and mitigate for these risks even pre Covid - seasonal diseases such as Noro can decimate the vulnerable. I've nursed loads of people with co-morbidities pushed into severe dehydration/acute renal failure caused by a bout of Noro for example.

@DreadingSeason2020sFinale

I agree, leaving a child crying in a bedroom is completely unacceptable.

If my daughter wants me at any point, I am there. That said, mine doesn't want me in there. Rolls her eyes if I ever want a cuddle. A parent isolating a child like described in the OP is awful. In that case I would be isolating with her. Our way is working because it's okay with DD. If it weren't we would have to rethink.

You don't know what she's really thinking though do you? I would just be aware of that.

And she loved her birthday. I even baked her cupcakes

Oh wow. Cupcakes. That’s a normal weekend, not a child’s birthday.
Poor kid.

Sometimes these kids don’t mind staying in their bedrooms because they have no family life to speak of and have been conditioned to watch tv and tiktok all day.
😰

Talk about selfish. I would nurse my child through any illness.
That is something I haven't really covered here. IF DD was poorly then the method would also differ. A poorly child needs their parents. DD is positive but not experiencing symptoms. Leaving an ill child would be upsetting and unnecessary so another workaround would be needed.

@DreadingSeason2020sFinale

Talk about selfish. I would nurse my child through any illness. That is something I haven't really covered here. IF DD was poorly then the method would also differ. A poorly child needs their parents. DD is positive but not experiencing symptoms. Leaving an ill child would be upsetting and unnecessary so another workaround would be needed.

But you said above that she was anxious so you got a test and that the test didn't reassure her. So she's obviously worried yet she's been put in her room. I honestly think if you live in a tiny flat then the measures you are taking are not the reason nobody else has caught it. She probably just isn't very contagious. Presumably you took her to her test and probably administered it! Tbh after Ive been close enough to rummage around my kids tonsils and nostrils with a swab I see little point in isolating from them.

Meh. Cupcakes was a pretty big achievement to say we couldn't get birthday supplies in time. Not an easy task creating anything out of an in stocked kitchen. There was only a day between us getting her tested and being told by track and trace not to leave the house under any circumstances.

If she's asymptomatic a false positive is also possible - the PCR tests in the UK run up to 45 cycles thus detecting dead Rna (she may already have had it and be over it!).

Other countries run far less cycles on the PCR tests think the the standard is about 30, there's a lot of scientific controversy about it, and there was a very good thread on it from a pathologist on Mumsnet a few months back.

Still obviously to isolate in the house - but in one room?

@OliveTree75 We took the test more so we could reassure her she wasn't going to infect anyone. And Covid can sound scary with all these people dying. She was obviously shocked to find out she had it but happier she knew and then more so when she realised you can have Covid and not get sick.

Incidentally this thread and the fact that today is whats laughingly referred to as "Freeeeeedoooomm" (Braveheart style) day has prompted me to ask her about some of the points made by people in this thread. She snorted when I asked her if she had been bothered being in her room. She said, "Err naw! It's just like normal!" And rolled her eyes at me. (I can see the teen in her growing already)

@TempsPerdu

I’m just aghast reading some of these replies. We seem to have reached a point where parents are terrified of their own kids, while the media reports on an entire generation of people (school children/students) as though they’re nothing more than disease vectors out to kill grandma.

Agreed. We see it on the teachers/schools posts on here too. What a way to treat the young people who are our future.

Well if you are happy for your 10 year old to spend 2 weeks in her room with unlimited screen time and she prefers doing that to being with her family then there isn’t much else to say, is there?

@Vintagevixen If she's asymptomatic a false positive is also possible - the PCR tests in the UK run up to 45 cycles thus detecting dead Rna (she may already have had it and be over it!).

We've been talking about that a lot. There absolutely must be false positives that are being kept quiet (and understandably so, given that many people could and would use that as an excuse to ignore track and trace).

We said quite often to her that we wonder if she didn't just get a false positive. She was still happy to stay in her room because she herself said that we wouldn't know. We obviously agreed. If she had felt that she wanted out then we would have changed tactics.

@MistletoeandGin

Well if you are happy for your 10 year old to spend 2 weeks in her room with unlimited screen time and she prefers doing that to being with her family then there isn’t much else to say, is there?

Not just screen time to be fair. She's got quite the art studio going and is a couple of songs up on her guitar playing seeing her lessons are over for the year.

Spotify or Amazon music is on all sodding day though. She seems to have rediscovered One Direction... ew. No accounting for taste with that kid.

Those who think that isolating children is in any way desirable should probably read this.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55304974
Admittedly the more extreme fourteen day isolation refers to children’s homes, but the point is that depriving any child of normal human contact is likely to make them more anxious than they are already.

[quote DreadingSeason2020sFinale]**@Vintagevixen* If she's asymptomatic a false positive is also possible - the PCR tests in the UK run up to 45 cycles thus detecting dead Rna (she may already have had it and be over it!).*

We've been talking about that a lot. There absolutely must be false positives that are being kept quiet (and understandably so, given that many people could and would use that as an excuse to ignore track and trace).

We said quite often to her that we wonder if she didn't just get a false positive. She was still happy to stay in her room because she herself said that we wouldn't know. We obviously agreed. If she had felt that she wanted out then we would have changed tactics.[/quote]
Talking through it is always good!

Yes there is quite a bit of evidence re. false positives, wish I could find that thread to link to it was very informative. But lots of articles from people like Carl Heneghan, Francois Balloiux and some other medics/epidemiologists out there. All reputable sources and easy to find with a quick search.

Not new - these articles are from the summer /British government have access to these too but choose not to take action - eg reducing the PCR cycles down to the standard of other European countries.

Sigh....

So sad to see that the Stately Homes thread still has decades of life in it.

@DameFanny

Oh just read the sodding guidance and stop trying to tweeze apart the words so you can find an excuse to pretend the measures necessary in a pandemic are torture under the human rights act

In your infinite wisdom, what should those of who are unable to isolate from other household members supposed to do? Not everyone has the space. Should one of us move to the shed or maybe the garage?

She snorted when I asked her if she had been bothered being in her room. She said, "Err naw! It's just like normal!"

Wow. 🙄

Poor child.

My kid would eat sweets all day if I let him. He would game all day. Just because they say it’s ok doesn’t mean it is. It’s awful for mental health to be stuck in one room all day with no human interaction. There’s a reason it’s used on prisoners. We’re the adults here. Use some common sense!

@SpnBaby1967

Good god, that is awful !

Pre-covid we would call that child abuse. Now people are too scared to admit that this is it.

This.

I think you need to gently intervene.

Exactly. Pre covid we would all have been rightly horrified. Now it seems the mental health of the youngest generation is being sacrificed.

People’s responses to this pandemic will provide future social scientists with so much batshit crazy behaviour to study and how seemingly rational people did crazy things to each other. Both the covid deniers and the lock them all up, bleach their shopping and isolate an 11yo child on their birthday types.

Now it seems the mental health of the youngest generation is being sacrificed.

For a disease that barely impacts them. It’s horrifying stuff.

@DreadingSeason2020sFinale So presumably your daughter spent all her time in her bedroom pre COVID and it’s no different to now?

Because with the amount of back tracking you are doing that must be the case.

@TheKeatingFive

Now it seems the mental health of the youngest generation is being sacrificed.

For a disease that barely impacts them. It’s horrifying stuff.

And in most cases when they’re isolating, a disease that the child doesn’t even have.

@LittleTiger007

And she loved her birthday. I even baked her cupcakes

Oh wow. Cupcakes. That’s a normal weekend, not a child’s birthday.
Poor kid.

Sometimes these kids don’t mind staying in their bedrooms because they have no family life to speak of and have been conditioned to watch tv and tiktok all day.
😰

When all you've got is insults, you're really losing the argument.

And not every family stuffs cake and sweets on a normal weekend.