My 5 year olds future

[JuneMoonstone]

I'm really worried about what the future might be for my 5 Yr old daughter due to coronavirus. Is she ever going to be able to go to dance classes with more than 6 pupils allowed per class, each standing on a circle that they can't move from? Will she ever be able to go swimming without me having to book weeks on advance and without strict, complex rules? Will she be able to complete a whole year of school without school closures? Will she ever be able to go on a school trip? Will she ever be able to go to the theatre or to see a pantomime at Christmas? I'm seriously worried about what her future will be like. Life has changed beyond recognition. Is life going to be this shit from now on, or maybe not this bad but nowhere near like it was pre covid?

All our children are suffering. My 14 year old dd is crying with headaches from online learning, won’t stop eating, has put on about a stone and just wants to meet her mates and hang out down town line 14 year olds do. She’s spent most of her teens so far in lockdown. It’s shit for everyone.

But we do it because we must. End of story

My daughter hasn’t left the house since before Christmas, she only see’s her friends and her boyfriend on her phone, school classes online, she does stage school class on a Sunday online, this is her life, when I think what I was doing at 15, the freedom I had, it’s so sad 😞

I regret having had my children now.

WOW!

It’s only a year or 2 out of their whole life 🙄

Thursday - you do realise lots of kids cant read by year 1! Keep working on it but most of the learning to read is done at home anyway normally the practising daily.

op i think you are over worrying. Yes. kids have missed stuff but unless yr 11/12/13 they are by no means the worst affected by all this. lots of kids never usually get todo activities or only do then at certain ages. (I never did anything as a child later did piano from 13 and d of e). I do think for some kids activities are valuable. If they have talent but some kids are just doing things to be doing stuff). Swimming is likely best taught on holiday became 30 min they dont progress much.
My kids have never been to pantomine. But do miss school.

Children are missing out on lots of things they might have done and it would be odd not to feel sad about it. Theres a few things my teen has missed out on and there isnt really a next year as the school doesnt do the trip or the scheme in GCSE year groups.
But i also think that lots of children have fullfilling childhoods without dance class and pantomimes as these things are expensive and out of reach for many.

I hate to say this but whilst this is so not ideal not all dc are suffering.

Older dd suffered towards the end of first lock down with no live teaching...
She's so so so much happier now with live teaching, being busy and having something to do.

Younger dd is in her absolute element! She's doing small amount of school every day from videos then plays her favourite comp xbox games! Chats to her friends.. Games with them.. Loves it. Doesn't have to get dressed.. Can do what she wants.

Of course so many dc are missing out.. Different ages with vital times to socialise etc.... But I'm very lucky my dc are at good ages for this.

My dm was 7 running into bomb shelters.... Her dad was on the front line (lived) sharing one room with several sisters etc...

They will hopefully remember just the parts like staying at home more with their family or going for walks everyday. I know it’s hard right now, but it won’t last forever. Stay strong.

I'm upset for my kids too. One is missing the last year of nursery and one is missing out on the teen years. The other 2 are missing friends and days out and all that stuff but ffs. This place is so full of doom mongers. Of course it will end. Covid won't go but we have a vaccine that will eventually be rolled out and it will end up being just like flu that kills some people each year and people just get on with it.

The war was an awful time but it did end and the kids that were born/young during the war weren't massively impacted years later.

Really 5, 5 years old and you are taking like they will never have a childhood. What do you remember from being 5? I remember sod all really.

What has remembering got to do with it? This is about our children's experiences now; the memory is not important in comparison.

I’m pretty open (and non-name-changing) on here about my stance on covid and my support for measures to contain it, the absolute cruelness and hardship it has caused but honestly fuck anyone who thinks that you can only be sad or worried about one thing.

My 5 year old is increasingly affected by this because I simply can’t shield her like I could at the beginning and make out this is all a blip. She knows and can see it for herself. My heart breaks that everything she’s struggling with I can’t fix. All I can do is comfort her and witness her processing all these new boundaries and rules.

This is shit, even those in relatively fortunate situations are still only achieving a slightly less shit existence.

It will get better though. Hang on for spring; if Australia is anything to go by there’s a seasonal element that although won’t solve everything adds another weight in our favour.

@ThursdayLastWeek

I feel very sad for my 5yo as he simply does not learn with us the way he did at school.

I have a very real fear that he will not be able to read by the time he hits year one. That’s really fucking bad.

Please don’t worry @ThursdayLastWeek - I used to be a primary school teacher and lots of children can’t read by year one. Obviously this year is a shit show, and my son is the same age as yours so I get it, but the most important thing you can do for your son at the moment is to do your best to keep his mental health intact. If he’s happy to do home schooling then great, but if not, let him play if you can. Play with him, read to him, keep things as normal as possible, if he has questions, explain things in an age appropriate way and do your best to let him see that everything is ok and will be ok.

Teachers are trained to teach. They’re trained to identify areas of weakness and build your child up to make them areas of strength. Ks1 teachers especially are great at instigating rapid learning and don’t forget they’ll have their colleagues in reception classes to rely on for help. Schools know that with every passing week, they’ll have a bigger job on their hands when children are allowed back in. They’ll be thinking ahead. Please try not to get too worried about your sons academic future.

I can relate

My 4 soon to be 5 was quite upset because he thinks he's going to start forgetting his friends.

In the summer, you can likely have dance classes in the park or someone's garden.

It's not what we would have wanted for our DC but for children as young as 5 this will likely become just a dim and distant memory, if they remember it at all. I think it will affect young people in their late teens/early 20s more as this is the time they are trying to establish a path for themselves, to start relationships and careers. That generation are also likely to be heavily impacted by the economic effects.

I wish mine were 5. Unfortunately they're 17 and 19. And unlike activities for children, there's not been any alternatives for the type of things teens usually do since the pandemic began.
The elder at least got to sit exams and got a term and a half of normal uni life. But even by her third year she's unlikely to have the experience she should, and she'll be starting her career in a crashed economy.
The younger didn't get to sit GCSEs and it's increasingly unlikely that cohort will sit a-levels as usual, and if she's lucky her last years at uni might resemble normal, before emerging to a still struggling economy. Meanwhile she's living the life of an anti social middle aged person.

I'm just grateful we have two of a similar age, it's shit enough for mine but a million times worse for teens that are completely isolated from any peers.

@ThursdayLastWeek

My dd could barely read at five, both actually.... One got phonics and flew by age 7/8 to become pretty much the top reader in her class for ever more...
Other dd may have dyslexia and sadly doesn't read books for fun.. It's been a slog to get her to read.

Can I make some suggestions...

Whatever your school reading scheme is.. Order it from '' reading chest '', 3 different payment schemes, its the best thing I did last lock down! Got dd from a really slow... Struggling stage 6 to a flowing stage 9.

You can order your own school reading scheme or choose others...
Along side that get flash cards for the 1st 100 high frequency words... And also print out the writing stuff for them...

Just concentrate on that and maybe two times tables don't worry about anything else.

Reading is the foundation for everything else...

• reading chest send real books out via post and you send them back.

@Wingingthis

I understand- I have a 3 yo and a baby born in April 2020. I feel awful for both. And this is all my baby has ever known :( she’s never even met most of her extended family

She's a baby, you've got a good year or two before she'll even remember them.

Most melodramatic post I have seen on mumsnet today. Ffs.

@CountessFrog

I regret having had my children now.

Oh for goodness sake!

Yes, it's crap for everyone at the moment. Small kids, slightly older ones, teens & young adults. And ourselves!

Mine were in miserable form today.

But - we have no choice at present, it will pass & life will resume, to a greater extent, normally.

This kind of thinking is nuts, really it is.

Op, YANBU for how you feel but you do need to be rational about it too.

I feel similarly tonight. I'm so fed up of this now. My children aren't learning effectively. I'm hating working my arse off at home for no rewards. No personal space. Worried about my older family members. I just can't see the end of it. I'm usually optimistic. I'm feeling suffocated, depressed and drained. I have no energy and no will left today.

I want to get drunk out of my mind. Have some real fun and see my friends. Instead it's all work, school, cook, look after everyone and no rewards or peace.

I totally get how worried you are, but that’s being a parent.
The epidemic will end and children will have normal lives.

I started school in the 60s.
I hadn’t been to nursery or pre-school, none of us had.
I didn’t know anyone in my class.
I could already read. My mother had taught me; many parents did.
I couldn’t swim or ride a bike, very few of us could.
Over the next few years, these things evened out.
Those who couldn’t read, learnt to.
We all learnt to swim and ride a bike, at least by the start of secondary school.
We all made friends, or enemies, or anyway learnt the rules.
It didn’t matter that we’d started later. Many things that are considered essential now, barely existed. Dancing lessons, being driven to and fro, being given a choice of food, were not in our experience until much later.
Children under school age generally only had friends if their parents friends had children the same age. Otherwise they made do with siblings.

Your children won’t miss out. They too can learn to swim a year later. It will be normal to them.
They can still learn to read. It’s perfectly possible to teach that yourself, and will stand them in good stead when they return to school.

Why are people so nasty on threads like this! Do you know that humans are amazing & can care about more than one thing 🙄

It's devastating how many people have died, I've personally lost loved ones. I'm also extremely anxious about how it's affecting my 6 year old, he's cried every day this week because he misses friends and family. He's normally & sociable and resilient kid.

Not everything is a competition for whose worse off. I agree OP it's worrying

Why are people so nasty on threads like this!

It's not really nasty to point out that this will end & normal life will resume though? If anything, it's surely reassuring. Op & other posters are worried about long-term effects on their children.

That's an understandable fear, but it will end, life will resume again. Kids will be fine.

Yes and she has years ahead to enjoy her life unlike some. If you can still go outside and laugh and play, how is this losing a childhood. I am more concerned for older people or the terminally ill who genuinely are being robbed of years of their lives.