A thought experiment about children

[Chessie678]

Imagine that pre-covid there is a mother with a 6 year old son.

She becomes very scared of the child getting or spreading “diseases”. For this reason she keeps the child inside most of the time and does not let him play with other children. She tells him to stay away from others in case he infects them and makes him change his clothes and scrub his hands whenever he has been outside. She doesn’t take him on trips and the only time they go out is to walk around their local neighbourhood. He is not allowed to attend any clubs or play sport.

The mother’s behaviour escalates and she begins to keep her son off school for long periods of time, citing the risk of “diseases”. She stops contact with the child’s grandparents and cousins, telling the child that he might murder his grandmother if they see her. If he gets ill she locks him in his room and brings food to the door.

Sometimes she will send him back to school for a period but makes him wear a mask and tells him not to touch anything or get too near another child.

Having worked with vulnerable children in the past, I think this scenario would far exceed the threshold for social services intervention and suggests severe mental health issues in the mother.

Clearly the rationale for how we are treating children at the moment is different in that the threat from covid is much more severe than the threat from the “diseases” which the mother is concerned about but the treatment of the child is essentially the same in either case.

People on here often say that children are resilient and adaptable and I agree that they can be. But the idea that subjecting a child to this sort of treatment could make them stronger is rose tinted at best – more often abuse in childhood leaves scars which carry through into adulthood.

My view is that the end doesn’t justify the means so far as children are concerned i.e. there are some things which you should never do to children however noble the goal is. I am very concerned that we have started to normalise the current restrictions – just today I have seen posters on here claim that it doesn’t matter if children don’t have any social interaction with other children or any education for months at a time.

I’m aware that many mothers on here will have done everything they can to mitigate the impacts of covid on their children so I’m not trying to say that all children are being abused or will be scarred by this but I do think that what we are doing to children as a society is completely unethical and will have serious long-term effects for many.

I think the difference is in what the children are told. Yes, my children are missing out on experiences but I’ve been very careful not to frighten them and provide as many alternative experiences as I can.

My children will be fine. They haven’t picked up on any covid anxiety from us, and they know why they cannot currently see their grandparents. We have mitigated any potential risk factors.

However, there will absolutely be kids who fit the OP’s description. Reminds me of one day in the summer at the park with my kids. There were two young girls squealing with delight at the swings (they were ridiculously excited). It was short lived though as after two minutes the dad shouted over with his head in his hands “we have to go, we have to go NOW!!.... there’s too many people, too many germs”. (Que dad sprinting and waving his arms around everywhere)

It was an absolute scene!

Poor kids. It was only a snapshot of their lives but their dads reaction was totally OTT.

I totally agree OP. This is all collective madness.

I agree with you. The response to the pandemic has overwhelmingly disregarded the needs of children and younger people generally for a virus that poses very little to no risk to them.

It is an interesting question.

I had similar thoughts from the first lockdown - if I had told my child's school that I was withdrawing them, wouldn't be homeschooling them and would continue to work in my job, largely ignoring them all day, wouldn't be taking them to any activities where they could interact with other children, I would rightly expect the school to have reported me to social services.

My children are old enough to understand the reasons for the actions we are taking though, when permitted have met friends in parks and have chatted to friends and played online games with them. We haven't seen older family members apart from outdoors in the summer. I haven't passed on any messages about killing granny.

So I would imagine that most parents will recognise and try to mitigate potential harm from the circumstances we find ourselves in.

For children who are too young to understand though, I don't know. I hope their primary relationships are enough and they are young enough once this is past to overcome it.

Thankyou for your post. My children are struggling. Ironically the most extrovert is struggling the least. I'm exhausted by trying to mitigate the impact, build their resilience, shore up their mental health, find fun things to do, when as teenagers their inclination is to be striking out for independence and spending time with peers.
Knowing there'll be no face to face education until at least mid Feb has broken one of my children.
Having some acknowledgment that it would be classed as abuse and in fact is an abusive situation even if it can't be avoided helps.

Thank you, I enjoyed reading this. Thought provoking.

I too work with traumatised children.

The one thing that stands out to me is that we often feel trauma retrospectively at the point we realise that our experiences are extremely different to that of others. This is far more a collective experience, that's not to say that it won't cause trauma, both collectively and on an individual level. I do not think your analogy works though.

Are you also suggesting society is sick in some way? Is this comparable to the mother's mental illness?

Have you heard of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas? The child suffers in isolation so that the citizens continue to live a happy life. As people come of age they are led to the dark dank place the child is kept and it is explained to them. Everyones happiness depends upon the suffering of this one child. Its a moral dilemma, what would you do?

In some ways we might say that for just one child's welfare and happiness to be sacraficed is tolerable, but I would argue otherwise. We must all share equally the pain and make sacrafices so that no one individual is carrying the burden. If we are all a little less happy this is better than the pain and missery that we might experience as an individual. Imagine the mental scars and long term damage caused to a child if they loose a parent. Its like that saying "a problem shared...."

Lastly have you read about children who have lived through other collective traumas such as war? I haven't but I might do a bit of research. My feeling is that the experience is quite different to your scenario where the child is an isolated victim being constantly reminded of how exceptional he is. One preliminary search throws up this link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09739-3.

I don't think many people are telling kids they'll murder their grandparents, I think even now that's very abusive.

There is no doubt that this will take some significant toll on some children. In school this year we had some very anxious kids who had thrived over lockdown no doubt some were much happier in school. I think with my children my youngest is taking it in his stride and has done throughout really. My eldest really missed sports and to be honest I'm more upset about football training being cancelled than school closure.

However the hospitals in London and south Wales are at breaking point, London has more beds per capita than anywhere else in the UK and still they're struggling. I have both kids off, even though I'm a keyworker and I'm working from home even though its easier to be in work. Things are going to get worse before they get better and we need to stay home if we possibly can.

I don't think it needed to be like this. I think the government have missed multiple opportunities to keep schools open and I'm really angry that we're here. But I'm convinced that staying home is the right thing to do at the moment.

@BigFiveMama

I agree. Every child has the right to social interaction and education.

And the need. In fact, the above are vital to healthy brain development. It's time that can never be recovered.

@Chessie678

Imagine that pre-covid there is a mother with a 6 year old son.

She becomes very scared of the child getting or spreading “diseases”. For this reason she keeps the child inside most of the time and does not let him play with other children. She tells him to stay away from others in case he infects them and makes him change his clothes and scrub his hands whenever he has been outside. She doesn’t take him on trips and the only time they go out is to walk around their local neighbourhood. He is not allowed to attend any clubs or play sport.

The mother’s behaviour escalates and she begins to keep her son off school for long periods of time, citing the risk of “diseases”. She stops contact with the child’s grandparents and cousins, telling the child that he might murder his grandmother if they see her. If he gets ill she locks him in his room and brings food to the door.

Sometimes she will send him back to school for a period but makes him wear a mask and tells him not to touch anything or get too near another child.

Having worked with vulnerable children in the past, I think this scenario would far exceed the threshold for social services intervention and suggests severe mental health issues in the mother.

Clearly the rationale for how we are treating children at the moment is different in that the threat from covid is much more severe than the threat from the “diseases” which the mother is concerned about but the treatment of the child is essentially the same in either case.

People on here often say that children are resilient and adaptable and I agree that they can be. But the idea that subjecting a child to this sort of treatment could make them stronger is rose tinted at best – more often abuse in childhood leaves scars which carry through into adulthood.

My view is that the end doesn’t justify the means so far as children are concerned i.e. there are some things which you should never do to children however noble the goal is. I am very concerned that we have started to normalise the current restrictions – just today I have seen posters on here claim that it doesn’t matter if children don’t have any social interaction with other children or any education for months at a time.

I’m aware that many mothers on here will have done everything they can to mitigate the impacts of covid on their children so I’m not trying to say that all children are being abused or will be scarred by this but I do think that what we are doing to children as a society is completely unethical and will have serious long-term effects for many.

Yes but it’s vastly different because you place this behaviour into a bigger societal picture. There are lots of things that without the context may be seen as different.

Let’s imagine taking this post but changing it from Covid and instead make it about ww2 and the blitz.

A mother (without cause) forcing children to ration food and carry a gas mask and to sit in complete silence in a darkened room sometimes even in a cage or underground bunker and telling them that if they break these (and other restrictions) they will cause a bomb to drop and kill them and their loved ones and the entire street
Or
The exact same thing but it’s also happening in every other household in the country because there is a word war happening.

While very different from each other both were global events that have over months or years caused society and not just individuals to moderate their behaviour and way of life (different changes from each other to fit the event obviously) temporarily until the thing causing the need passes at which point life reverts back to the freedoms the world had before.

Your scenario is the perceived risk by the mother. The intervention would be deemed necessary because the caution is unfounded.

Now we are living it for real so those precautions are needed.

It's a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

I totally share your concerns and you've voiced them so well. The experiment that our children are being subjected to presently would never get past an ethics committee. I'm fearful of the long term impact and try to speak out but feel helpless.

This virus has definitely brought out the nutters, I'll give you that.

For the people who say it's only for a short while, I actually think (for those who persist with wartime analogies) that like the war, many children and adults will be coming out of this with PTSD. There will be inadequate therapy/mental health support for all those that need it.

It is very difficult for children ( and adults) who do not understand what is going on and why the routines they are used to and the people they usually see, have disappeared.

@Coriandersucks

But in your scenario that behaviour isn’t necessary hence the need for concern. We are in the middle of a fucking pandemic

This

That’s why as parents we need to demonstrate good behaviours, hygiene and calm. I ensure dc keep in touch with friends and keep home time as normal as possible. I listen to their worries and hug them. When I’m stressed and snap I apologise. I know not all dc are like mine but they know they are loved and they will be fine. Our experiences shape us but the pandemic doesn’t need to turn us all into anxious crazy people.

I find what you’ve said interesting and worrying as I too think we’ve been so unfair to the younger generation. Those that say my kids will be fine, how do you know? You’ve no idea what they will say to you about it all in the future or the impact it will have. I’m fed up of the war comparisons as well, as from what I can tell a lot of people were traumatised by that as well but it doesn’t make a pandemic any less traumatising for some.

As adults we understand the concept 'pandemic.' Children can't even begin to grasp this and like Spikeyball says, don't really understand why their lives have changed so completely. Older children might understand the basics, but not in the same way as an adult (thank goodness 😟) so we shouldn't minimise the effect on them.

I’ve been very relaxed within the rules and guidelines and as a key worker I have worked throughout both lockdowns with my now 6 year old going to school for childcare. Despite my best efforts to ensure she doesn’t pick up on anxiety she has become very introverted and developed agoraphobia to a degree. Such a joyful, sociable child who loved hugging her grandma and seeing her friends now I see glimpses of who she should be and the rest of the time she’s kept at home and scared to go out, doesn’t want to go to school as it is without her friends.

Chessie678

“Imagine that pre-covid there is a mother with a 6 year old son”

We’re not pre-Covid.

Yes the current situation is not ideal

Imagine this as a thought experiment:

Children didnt go to school, they had the pressures of school, conflicts, suffocating structure reduced. They did PE with Joe Wicks instead of being picked last for the school team. They weren't shipped to 18 different activities per week. They got to spend time with mum and dad, and their siblings.

They read books, and played imaginative games, and built complex worlds on animal crossing and Minecraft. They baked, and did crafts. They got really good at jigsaws.

They became experts at using technologies, to learn, play and connect with their friends and family. They went for lots of walks. They dropped care packages for their neighbours and applauded key workers from their doorsteps.

They didnt see their grandparents, but dad explained that was important to keep granny safe. They wore masks if they were over the age of 11, and they were old enough to understand that the masks helped to reduce transmission of the virus that noone could see, but everyone knew about.

They washed their hands. To be fair, they should have been washing their hands anyway, but still. They knew that all of the changes in their lives were part of a national effort to keep them, and their communities safe.

This thought experiment is just as true as the OP, and just as false.

Umbongoumbongo999 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I suppose the difference is all
Kids are in the same boat mainly and there is a reason for having to do it and it will go back to normal