Exactly how much are our youngsters expected to give up?

[StayAGhost]

So after not been able to do her GCSE's, been locked down for 18 months, not able to grow and develop as a teenager should, no concerts, no Meeting with friends, no shopping or general hanging round, no holidays, no seeing grandparents the NCS have now CANCELLED their camp
For a virus that does NOT affect the young

Exactly when us enough enough??

DD sobbing in bedroom, this was what got her thru 14 assessments in 3 weeks

To take from her is cruel

And SO UNNECESSARY

@LuckyWookie

So how do you expect teens to attend with no adults present? Oh that’s right, you expect adults to take the risk in order for your kids to live normal lives. Stop being so selfish, you can’t ask others to sacrifice themselves for your kids.

Sacrifice themselves 🤣🤣 honestly listen to yourself! Any adult vulnerable to covid has been offered the vaccine probably both by now . Covid is going absolutely nowhere, do we stop doing things forever now "just in case "? Kids have had an absolutely shocking time over the past 18 months as we all have everything they have "sacrificed" has largely been to benefit the adult population, if people can't acknowledge and appreciate that then it's them that are the selfish ones.

The problem is that we’ve come to regard this peaceful luxurious life that we’ve had in western countries for the last 70 years as normal, when actually it’s extremely abnormal and it’s surprising it lasted as long as it did.
I agree with this and have often (before Covid) thought about the fragility of civilisation and how lucky we are in the UK in the 21st century-better off than most of the world through most of history. When I go to bed at night I can be pretty certain that I will wake ip on the morning and my sons not arrested at daybreak by the Gestapo (as happened to their late grandfather when he was 18); there won’t have been an earthquake, no wolves to grab the baby while I am gathering food etc…
I think it is harder for teens because they haven’t had enough life experience yet to be grateful for peace!

@elizabethdraper

Maybe your family should all read Anne's Frank's diary together and do a compare and contrast to covid

I’m sorry but that isn’t even vaguely relevant.

I feel so sorry for your DD, OP. My 12yo has had her year 7 residential at the end of June cancelled and I don’t understand why. It should be entirely possible to safely go away in her usual class/year bubble.

She also missed out on her y6 residential, SATS and all the other end of primary school activities. Like so many in the same boat. Don’t underestimate the impact of all this on children’s and teenagers’ mental health. DD has just finished a long course of counselling.

no concerts, no Meeting with friends, no shopping or general hanging round, no holidays, no seeing grandparents the NCS have now CANCELLED their camp

But surely she’s meeting friends, shopping, and hanging around now and has been for a while? And some holidays are allowed as is seeing family? Its rubbish that NCS has been cancelled but it does require lots of adults to run it, it’s not as easy as saying, this virus doesn’t affect kids.

Same boat here and Dd was totally gutted. She’s had a brutal time with GCSE’s and was just starting to get excited- the non-residential element isn’t the same ☹️

Yes it is really hard on kids and teens. It's easy for us to say that they can catch up with things later on it but it is so different saying that from the viewpoint of a 30- or 40-something parent, for whom one year is very similar to another. It's different when you are a child and each year has special events, milestones, or just general life stages that you can't go back and repeat. My child is a lot younger but has missed out on things like having a whole class birthday party, first sports day, class trip, local projects, nativity etc - these are things that won't happen again but are actually a huge deal to the kids, and it's the same for the teens in the other stages of school life.

DS missed his 2 week projects which are away from home, no mobile phones and a real formative experience. The school did the best they could with day events, but it doesn't even make a lot of sense - if they spend all day together why is overnight particularly dangerous? Does covid know it's nighttime and dark on them.

They also had a particularly rubbish Duke of Edinburgh experience where he wasn't in his chosen group because of a logistical reason and they had to pitch the tent and take it down but not stay in it.

Agreed these are first world problems and I'm so grateful he's actually receiving a face to face education, but surely I'm allowed to feel disappointed that he missed out on these experiences?

Yes, COVID creeps up on you in the dark

DD1 got to do a ‘proper’ DofE trip including sleeping in a very small tent with two other girls. Almost on top of each other. So the rules differ from school to school. No common sense involved.

I feel for the teens who are missing out on the fun and all the students who were desperate for the seasonal work to support their studies.

But MN mostly won’t care. Apparently nothing is important enough to care about except COVID.
Double points if you’re young. In fact caring about anything if you’re young is tantamount to murder.

HelloMissus

I care. But for teens, there’s a lot they can do at the moment. It’s not as good as it was but you have to try to make the most of things.

Oh yes and I'm Scotland I thank the heavens daily that DS is not in an exam year.

The decision was taken early to not do formal exams but what replaced them was never formally agreed upon until the not exams which are exactly like exams but with no study leave. Anyone I know with exam year students has said they are now beyond stressed and exhausted with studying for mocks that never happened and various other false starts.

And yes I get Covid is king but some sort of forward planning would have saved immeasurable stress for these students and their teachers.

@elizabethdraper

Maybe your family should all read Anne's Frank's diary together and do a compare and contrast to covid

Why does it always come back to World War 2?

@HelloMissus

I feel for the teens who are missing out on the fun and all the students who were desperate for the seasonal work to support their studies.

But MN mostly won’t care. Apparently nothing is important enough to care about except COVID.
Double points if you’re young. In fact caring about anything if you’re young is tantamount to murder.

I care too. There have been many tears in this house over missed experiences, life events etc. God knows what next year’s uni will be like

But funnily enough I recognise it’s a world wide event. There’s a context

But there’s a difference between things that understandably can’t happen - for example, DD2 was fine with sitting at home last summer - and things that SHOULD now be possible but are still cancelled.

Whilst noting the helpful ops about the death camps and medieval plagues were worse, I do understand your feelings. And those on the “lack of gratitude” posts. I was gibbering at the radio earlier this week when Blair came on to say that double vaccinated people ought to be able to have more freedom to travel/ associate etc. Perhaps once everyone has had that chance but how it could be fair to have constrained young people’s lives so much in order to protect the vulnerable aged, and then let the vulnerable aged Sean off on his list while 19 year olds are still gated, I really don’t know.

I understand where you are coming from OP. My teens have definitely had a hard year too, however, as things are now, it's quite bearable. They see their friends every weekend, even had sleepovers, they go out to the shops together, we took a trip to London over half term, going on UK holidays as soon as the school breaks up again. The one thing they are missing is seeing my side of the family, since they live abroad, but otherwise it's almost business as usual. Even the cinemas are open.

If you are keeping them from going to the shops, seeing their friends, hanging around, or going on holidays, like you mention in your OP, then maybe that's why the cancellation of the camp became such a big thing. Just try and have fun with what you are allowed to do. Maybe they can go wild camping with a few of their friends, or even camp in the backyard.

Why did you let her get her hopes up about a camp in the first place?

You read the news, hear of things being cancelled. Your job as a parent to help manage their expectations a bit better maybe?

However I don’t get the ‘how much are they expected to give up’ as if this has been decided by people
Obviously we should go “oh they’ve given up enough now, time to stop”. As if the decision is in our hands and we can just make the pandemic stop! Your expectations of a “normal” life are not normal in a historical context or even in the context of how most of the world lives today. We can’t just make pandemics, wars, earthquakes, political coups, climate change, meteors from space, or anything else stop just because your kids are crying about it.

things that SHOULD now be possible but are still cancelled
YOU have decided they should be possible. But maybe other people don’t want to organise those events. Maybe staff don’t want to work at those events. Maybe insurers won’t cover them. It’s very simplistic to go “in my personal opinion these events should be possible” then sit back and expect other people to take the risk in facilitating it.

@LuckyWookie

things that SHOULD now be possible but are still cancelled YOU have decided they should be possible. But maybe other people don’t want to organise those events. Maybe staff don’t want to work at those events. Maybe insurers won’t cover them. It’s very simplistic to go “in my personal opinion these events should be possible” then sit back and expect other people to take the risk in facilitating it.

Exactly this. Feet stamping and capital letters

@Purpleheadgirl

They told us was because over the weekend the government have changed the rules due to increase of delta variant.....now not allowed more than groups of 6 Inc the leader. Were never going to get that many staff to cover...

This is very worrying. My son is due to go to PGL in July. If it's cancelled he will be gutted as he's already had two residential trips cancelled.

It's very likely to do with insurance. Most aren’t offering covid-related cover, so oddly enough a lot of things aren’t going ahead even though on the face of it they look "safe".

I’m sorry it's shit, OP.

@StayAGhost - it's very sad. But the effect on young healthy teenagers is real. Long Covid is real.

LuckyWookie

I agree with you completely.

'YOU have decided they should be possible'

Nope - there is very clear guidance on what can happen and what can't. And as I have pointed out, some schools and businesses are trying harder to facilitate things within that guidance than others.