What do you think the impact of this is on children

[School25]

We had a staff meeting all about the return to school in September today and were shown a video talking about how children will be experiencing bereavement, attachment difficulties and trauma as a result of lockdown. It said that if these issues are not worked upon it will have long term impacts on the child's ability to be happy and successful.

The word bereavement was used in the context that children are facing a loss of their normal everyday experiences, not that they may have had a family member who has died.

The attachment part was explained as feeling insecure that their teacher may go away again.

For context I work in Early Years in a school in an area with pockets of deprivation but most families are well off, well educated and engaged with their children's learning.

I know that for some children this may be a front that hides other issues going on in their families that they may have experienced more intensely over the last months....

...but I can't help feel that the terms used to describe children's experience of lockdown are overly exaggerated for the majority of pupils in my school.

Surely most children just forget about their teacher as a significant person when they stop seeing them everyday just like they do when they move year group. And for children in early years they will have a very limited concept of losing out on something because they live very much in the present moment.

It feels like it's being overly sensationalised. My view is that for the most part..

The children have had a lot of time away they will take time to feel comfortable socialising again and may have some anxiety initially.

They haven't been away from parents for perhaps a long time so may find it hard to separate and may be unsettled.

They may have missed out on some learning, but as they are so young they will catch that up and may well have developed other strengths during their time at home.

What do you think?

I agree with you.

This probably won’t be a very popular view on here, but I do feel that children’s mental health and need for pastoral support is very much agenda-led by people who benefit from it, some consciously and knowingly and others not so much.

For some years now the complaint has been about too much testing and stress leading to mental health problems: now after the removal of tests and an extended break from school the same people are still insisting it is detrimental to children’s mental health.

I do think it’s so unhelpful to confuse serious issues like attachment and bereavement and trauma and applying them to events that are sad or not ideal but in no way traumatising!

My DD has had three teachers this year before lockdown, one after another. DS had 5 when he was in reception. I don’t think bereavement issues will be connected to lockdown, more due to recruitment and retention crisis in teaching. (Neither child has presented any lasting effects)

Different children have had different experiences. Obv.

My child was going loony - it was time for her to go back to school. But she's an only one, and we were working, so she was lonely. She's thriving since being back. Just her social vocab - has come on so much since 1st June.

I know other children who are loving being at home, they've got siblings, attentive parents (through luck or design), and probably are doing better.

I'm going to think carefully about PSHE this year coming, it's the first thing I'm going to plan in detail, and PE and art. But I'm only going to teach those as often as I normally do. Having said that, we're a therapeutic school anyway, so it's high on the agenda.

Non teacher parent here. Interested in the post as initially I had no concerns about DD8 or DS5 who is now back in reception and was bemused by all this stuff about MH of kids, make sure they're drawing pictures to express their sadness etc. So I agree with you, OP. This stuff about bereavement doesn't seem accurate. Overblown pretty much covers it.

What I would say is that my DD who is already quite self-conscious has become more so. We had to bribe her to do a Teams call with her teacher last week (first contact since schools closed) and a zoom with her drama teacher this morning. Once she's on, she's fine but she was hugely reluctant to do it. She also doesn't want to go into school to say goodbye to Y3 teacher and meet Y4 in two weeks' time as she says it will be 'embarrassing' (she will be going, however!). Basically her inherent shyness/ diffidence has become more pronounced as she hasn't had to deal with contact with anyone outside the fam/ the odd friend for a long time. I wouldn't class this as mental health but I'm sure she won't be the only one, might be worth sharing with your colleagues to get their view on kids whose natural tendency to be a bit shy and self-conscious may now have become more acute.

It's interesting isn't it.

I agree @ohthegoats, PSHE will definitely be high on the agenda.

And @darkcaramel I agree as well! There are events in daily life that aren't great but I don't believe they are trauma inducing.

I feel sorry for parents who read this stuff and think their child is going to have long term damage. I think there is an over emphasis on the negative. Surely we should be talking to the children about how lovely it is to have them back and thinking about what lovely things they can do now they are back.

All that blithering about awful bare classrooms for 1st June was mad. All I'd have had to have done was say 'weird huh?... anyway....' and they would have been fine. There was a waiting list to get into my child's school within 2 weeks.

Increasingly experiences are understood through the language of MH. Those children that have been at home in functional families even though those homes maybe more stressful than usual will not be damaged as a result of extra time off school. With teens, I do think isolating them from their peers is not a good thing.But we have not lived through a war or an occupation. There is a danger than many youngsters will be expected to be detrimentally affected. It’s great that we have the understanding and knowledge to support those who need emotional support through this but we have to ensure we don’t create a problem of dependency.