Lockdown children

[fourstardan]

Another article where I've just about had it with society

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/s...

My son was born Oct 2020, does he spit, bite? Er no, he isn't being brought up in the kingdom of feral.

This country is broken it really is.

[theboss]

I'm glad your kid seems fine. So does mine (born Jan 2020) generally.

However, what cannot be simply dismissed is the fact that these kids did miss out on aspects of socialisation in early years.

For us, all health visits stopped as soon as they started, so there was nobody checking on his development from about 6 weeks old.

No babys / toddler groups - they all had to shut down, and then the organisers would have found their own children had outgrown them so generally needed another cohort to get organised and re-start them a few years later.

Family visits/contact heavily curtailed for 18 months or so.

My wife was a newcomer to the country at that time and we lived in a remote rural location, new baby, absolutely no services / community groups / contact with other mums and babies or friends.

Not really surprising that four years later there's going to be an uptick in 'issues' when this cohort starts school.

To be fair my son didn't miss out entirely on health check-ups as as soon as my wife was able to fly to her home country she did so and took him for any developmental check-ups there, where she could book a paediatric consultation same-day. That's what people generally expect to be able to do, in developing countries with 1/5th of our GDP per capita.

Edited by theboss on Monday 2nd September 14:04

[ukbabz]

fourstardan said:

Another article where I've just about had it with society

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/s...

My son was born Oct 2020, does he spit, bite? Er no, he isn't being brought up in the kingdom of feral.

This country is broken it really is.

The way I see it is that the checks that normally take place in person, e.g. regular health visitors just didn't happen due to the NHS deprioritising the service 'due to covid'. The parents who look after their kids, teach them things and generally have time for them will always look at reports like this and go WTF. Sadly, children have been failed by their parents for generations and it is very unlikely to change.

Moving health visitor checks to an online tick list (ours was) allows children who are being failed by their parents to fall through the gaps. A parent always wants their child to look good to others, and is likely to game the marking of what a child can actually do.

My daughter was born April 2020, and has yet to see a health visitor. She was discharged 12 hours after birth and only saw the GP for vaccinations and a couple of checks rolled in. In our area the NHS just disappeared behind an midwife/health visitor 'helpline' which was a voicemail service who often didn't reply.

[Mr Penguin]

They had a lack of socialisation and perhaps some parents had less support available etc.

It's understandable that more children are not good with other people or have problems with language.
Some parents won't have encouraged their children to read or do homework so they would have fallen behind in that if they did not have direct access to teachers.

Covid doesn't excuse so many children not being toilet trained.

[JagLover]

Mr Penguin said:

They had a lack of socialisation and perhaps some parents had less support available etc.

It's understandable that more children are not good with other people or have problems with language.

Yes

My niece went months when the only people she saw outside of close family was her grand parents on a screen. No playing with her cousins, no meeting other children in a playground. She got through it but many other children did not.

I think if one thing sums up the Covid reaction above all else it is children's play grounds being sealed off while the Garden centres were kept open. Cynical political calculation to the point of evil.

Edited by JagLover on Monday 2nd September 14:31

[Countdown]

In my day we didn't have health visits or family/toddler groups. My parents were newcomers to the country, my mum couldn't speak a word of English. neither could i when I started primary school (at the age of 5).

I've got a few nephews/nieces who were born in the years running up to lockdown. They don't seem to have been that badly affected to be honest.

All that being said i wonder if the key factor was parents being able to spend time with their kids; if both parents were working, and the schools/nurseries weren't able to act as de facto parents, maybe that's where children's development suffered?


ETA from the various COVID threads I got the impression that most powerfully built PHers ignored lockdown restrictions, chanting "EXEMPT" when faced by the faces of the Authoritarian regime and enjoyed the empty roads,

Edited by Countdown on Monday 2nd September 14:15

[Zetec-S]

JagLover said:

I think if one thing sums up the Covid reaction above all else it is children's play grounds being sealed off while the Garden centres were kept open. Cynical political calculation to the point of evil.

Calculated or incompetence? I'd lean towards the 2nd really... the government didn't have a fking clue and just lurched about in whatever direction the breeze happened to be heading at the time.

Can't speak for young kids, but it's seriously fked up those at GCSE age. My niece was effectively handed her GCSE results based on her teacher's generous predictions. Didn't really have to put in much work and certainly no sign of any exam room. Did pretty well and was accepted on to her 1st choice A level course. But surprise surprise, her A levels suffered because she was actually expected to put in the work. Underperformed in those, but scraped into Uni (albeit not her 1st pick course) but now flunking that. From what I can gather there's a few from her year who have had the same problems.

[Mastodon2]

A lot of these 'lockdown kids' will grow up to be wrong'uns. I expect we'll be hearing about their unfortunate upbringings for years to come as they are sentenced in court for their wrongdoings.

[theboss]

Countdown said:

In my day we didn't have health visits or family/toddler groups. My parents were newcomers to the country, my mum couldn't speak a word of English. neither could i when I started primary school (at the age of 5).

Well great for you, as I explained above those things don't seem to have done too much harm to my kid either, but it stands to reason that collectively there be some effects on early years developments across the cohort that were locked down as infants.

[Roderick Spode]

Countdown said:

ETA from the various COVID threads I got the impression that most powerfully built PHers ignored lockdown restrictions, chanting "EXEMPT" when faced by the faces of the Authoritarian regime and enjoyed the empty roads,

Zetec-S said:

<Snip>... the government didn't have a fking clue and just lurched about in whatever direction the breeze happened to be heading at the time.

The insane schizophrenia of Covid regulations as handed down from on high. Sadly those who suffered most were children of pre-school and young school age.

My niece was in pre-school at the start of covid, and so missed the first two years of in-class primary school. A time when young children learn key life social and interpersonal skills. Her mother did an amazing job of home educating her in the basics, but it's very hard to teach behaviours and characteristics learned in group situations. She's normalised well since returning to school, but there are many in her class who came back to school completely unable to do anything academic, and with serious behavioural and communication issues. Those kinds of fundamental development deficiencies may never be overcome, and those children will always be playing catch-up.

[iphonedyou]

fourstardan said:

Another article where I've just about had it with society

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/s...

My son was born Oct 2020, does he spit, bite? Er no, he isn't being brought up in the kingdom of feral.

This country is broken it really is.

Your sample size of one is, axiomatically, limited. As others have indicated, it stands to reason there will be issues arising out of this. Some kids will have been impacted despite the very best efforts of a loving and supportive family.

My own son had a particularly limited range of experiences during lockdown - we had a tighter circle than many on account of his mother's cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery which ran concurrently with the lockdowns beginning just after he turned one. We're pretty sure that's had a significant compounding effect on extant (and,we think, eminently surmountable) developmental issues.

Edited by iphonedyou on Monday 2nd September 15:12

[bmwmike]

Not sure why the article only focuses on young kids - all children during transition years, e.g. from nursery to junior and junior to high school have been particularly effected too. In my experience anyway, as they missed out on the end of year stuff, transition efforts, and then the new schools were masked up, isolated, etc.

[119]

Mastodon2 said:

A lot of these 'lockdown kids' will grow up to be wrong'uns. I expect we'll be hearing about their unfortunate upbringings for years to come as they are sentenced in court for their wrongdoings.

So that can be blamed instead of, as is nearly in most cases, poor parenting.

[IanH755]

[redacted]

[Randy Winkman]

iphonedyou said:

fourstardan said:

Another article where I've just about had it with society

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/s...

My son was born Oct 2020, does he spit, bite? Er no, he isn't being brought up in the kingdom of feral.

This country is broken it really is.

Your sample size of one is, axiomatically, limited. As others have indicated, it stands to reason there will be issues arising out of this. Some kids will have been impacted despite the very best efforts of a loving and supportive family.

My own son had a particularly limited range of experiences during lockdown - we had a tighter circle than many on account of his mother's cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery which ran concurrently with the lockdowns beginning just after he turned one. We're pretty sure that's had a significant compounding effect on extant (and,we think, eminently surmountable) developmental issues.

Edited by iphonedyou on Monday 2nd September 15:12

Exactly. Does the OP really think that the country is "broken" because some people are concerned about children that were small during lockdown? Dear oh dear. Can some people really not cope and have to start internet forum topics and say they "have just about had it with society" because of things like this?

[BoRED S2upid]

theboss said:

I'm glad your kid seems fine. So does mine (born Jan 2020) generally.

However, what cannot be simply dismissed is the fact that these kids did miss out on aspects of socialisation in early years.

For us, all health visits stopped as soon as they started, so there was nobody checking on his development from about 6 weeks old.

No babys / toddler groups - they all had to shut down, and then the organisers would have found their own children had outgrown them so generally needed another cohort to get organised and re-start them a few years later.

Family visits/contact heavily curtailed for 18 months or so.

My wife was a newcomer to the country at that time and we lived in a remote rural location, new baby, absolutely no services / community groups / contact with other mums and babies or friends.

Not really surprising that four years later there's going to be an uptick in 'issues' when this cohort starts school.

To be fair my son didn't miss out entirely on health check-ups as as soon as my wife was able to fly to her home country she did so and took him for any developmental check-ups there, where she could book a paediatric consultation same-day. That's what people generally expect to be able to do, in developing countries with 1/5th of our GDP per capita.

Edited by theboss on Monday 2nd September 14:04

Family visits stopped for 18months? Why?

My kids saw grand parents throughout because we took them food. Yes parents were inside while they played outside but it certainly want 18 months.

[ScotHill]

My eldest son learned to ride a bike in lockdown, two hours in the park every day, gorgeous sunshine, fking loved it, he rides 30+ miles at the age of 7 now.

When the health visitor came to visit our youngest she said she'd had to disadvise the mother at her previous appointment from blending mince and tatties and trying to feed it to her baby through a bottle. So yes, some children will suffer without external interactions.

[Slagathore]

There's an enormous amount of evidence of the harms on children from lockdown.

Lockdowns guaranteed children and the worse off in society would have the hardest time.

It's why the majority of middle class/laptop class weren't fussed about the consequences and blindly supported them.

As it seems now, lockdowns for those people were more about self-preservation than protecting society - and why would they care about poor children and people already in poverty - as long as they are safe, that's the main thing. Just do the usual virtual signaling bullst to pretend you care and you're all covered.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.11...

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/3/1132

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/...

One on society and not children specifically:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i...

+ hundreds and hundreds more.

All sorts of problems with school attendance as well.

Mental health pandemic that is growing, lack of treatment/referrals etc.

And you don't need hindsight to know school closures were a mistake!

[NerveAgent]

Randy Winkman said:

iphonedyou said:

fourstardan said:

Another article where I've just about had it with society

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/s...

My son was born Oct 2020, does he spit, bite? Er no, he isn't being brought up in the kingdom of feral.

This country is broken it really is.

Your sample size of one is, axiomatically, limited. As others have indicated, it stands to reason there will be issues arising out of this. Some kids will have been impacted despite the very best efforts of a loving and supportive family.

My own son had a particularly limited range of experiences during lockdown - we had a tighter circle than many on account of his mother's cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery which ran concurrently with the lockdowns beginning just after he turned one. We're pretty sure that's had a significant compounding effect on extant (and,we think, eminently surmountable) developmental issues.

Edited by iphonedyou on Monday 2nd September 15:12

Exactly. Does the OP really think that the country is "broken" because some people are concerned about children that were small during lockdown? Dear oh dear. Can some people really not cope and have to start internet forum topics and say they "have just about had it with society" because of things like this?

I suspect people are only able to see things that align with there own experience of lockdown which can be vastly different depending on demographic, job, location, accommodation, support network etc etc.

[theboss]

BoRED S2upid said:

Family visits stopped for 18months? Why?

My kids saw grand parents throughout because we took them food. Yes parents were inside while they played outside but it certainly want 18 months.

I wrote heavily curtailed, not stopped entirety. We were often unable to travel to see family and they were often unable to travel to see us.

My wife saw her family in her home country because she could travel there with our child without restriction outside of the most stringent lockdown / flight ban periods, whereas as a foreign / non-resident adult I could not join her.