Children in lockdown

theworriedwell

ViceVersa

Allira

Schools didn't close
🤔

Schools did close.

Yes, they definitely did here. There was only a handful of schools which did remain open - and even then it was only for the children of keyworkers or others which fell into certain categories.

Yes they opened for key workers children and teachers worked doing on line lessons for children.

But the point I and several others have made is that things were different in various parts of the country. In my area, most of the schools were completely closed (for children and staff) and only certain ones were open to cater for the children of key workers and other vulnerable groups. Simply saying that schools weren't closed is not correct. In many places, they were.

ViceVersa

Allira

Schools didn't close
🤔

Schools did close.

Yes, they definitely did here. There was only a handful of schools which did remain open - and even then it was only for the children of keyworkers or others which fell into certain categories.

Yes they opened for key workers children and teachers worked doing on line lessons for children.

petra

Theworriedwell
Just by chance were you living on another planet in the lockdown. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Why? Because my grandchildren were OK or because I know schools weren't closed. Where do you think key workers children were?

Marydoll

ViceVersa

Allira

Schools didn't close
🤔

Schools did close.

Yes, they definitely did here. There was only a handful of schools which did remain open - and even then it was only for the children of keyworkers or others which fell into certain categories.

All our schools were closed.

I'm in England and no schools where I live were closed, nor were the schools where my children taught. Not all children were allowed to attend but they were open for key workers children and vulnerable children.

Allira

I'm not talking about your family (why would I?)
My posts are generalisations.

Lockdown didn't cause abuse, don't give abusers excuses, that's on them. Do remember that vulnerable children could go to school.
I am not giving abusers excuses, how dare you
But it was an excuse for abusers to continue without intervention as are some who "home school". Were abused children likely to be sent to the hubs? What do you think?
It may be you have little experience of such cases.

Gosh yes in my years working in a large police force I never came across any abuse, well except for the murder cases.

ViceVersa

Allira

Schools didn't close
🤔

Schools did close.

Yes, they definitely did here. There was only a handful of schools which did remain open - and even then it was only for the children of keyworkers or others which fell into certain categories.

All our schools were closed.

Theworriedwell
Just by chance were you living on another planet in the lockdown. 🤦🏼‍♀️

srn63

Mine are both fine, youngest was born 5 days before lockdown and has started school this school year. She is confident, settled well, learning well, has made friends and is very happy. Oldest grandchild is now 11 and starts secondary school in September. No problems since lockdown whatsoever. She is above expected levels, reads as well as I do, does many after school activities, very good socially and is very happy. I think the lockdowns are blamed for so much that are nothing to do with them and are used as an excuse for problems that would probably have arisen anyway.

I think the lockdowns are blamed for so much that are nothing to do with them and are used as an excuse for problems that would probably have arisen anyway

I disagree as do others.

At the time of the first lockdown, we had three dgc, age 20 months, 8 years and 10 years.

The one who was most affected was the youngest. As an only child who had just begun to settle at nursery after many months of being upset in that setting, missing out on such a huge chunk of socialisation set her back a lot.

In fact, she quickly picked up on people's fears - it was quite worrying to see her drag her parents well away from any other walkers she might see approaching while out for walks long after lockdown ended.. She was still very wary of people when she started in Reception year, but fortunately had overcome this by the start of year 1 and is doing very well now in year 2.

The older two, her cousins, seemed to cope ok (it was harder for their parents, I think!) but some of their friends / classmates less so. One friend of the eldest has refused to go to school on a regular basis ever since.

I didn’t have to work so the younger ones who are now adults played outside, went on their bikes, baked and sewed and stayed up late doing silly stuff
BUT
Nostalgia makes you forget the bad stuff

Schools varied hugely. Our village school closed at every opportunity and little on-line learning went on. My grandchildren who were pupils there already had problems and were totally disengaged from doing any school work at home.
My London grandchildren did school work every day but it was one of them who developed anorexia.

Mine are both fine, youngest was born 5 days before lockdown and has started school this school year. She is confident, settled well, learning well, has made friends and is very happy. Oldest grandchild is now 11 and starts secondary school in September. No problems since lockdown whatsoever. She is above expected levels, reads as well as I do, does many after school activities, very good socially and is very happy. I think the lockdowns are blamed for so much that are nothing to do with them and are used as an excuse for problems that would probably have arisen anyway.

It was the worst thing to do to our children schools should never have been closed. Teenage mental health is the worst it’s ever been . At the height of lockdown 21,000 teenagers were referred to CAMHS a DAY! Both my grandaughters missed most of their Yr 7 and although on line provision was excellent socially and emotionally they suffered badly .

I was the counsellor at their school and we are only now seeing a reduction slowly of poor mental health . It was handled very badly and expecting children to wear masks all day was appalling . No other adults had to do that except front line NHS . People who say children are resilient and it was no problem are living in cuckoo land

I think there were mainly full closures, and maybe some partial closures.
Someone asked earlier how many school days were lost to covid. I believe in the UK it was around 70, that's more than one third of their academic year. This was double the number compared with France, but France actually suffered fewer covid deaths than we did. France presented a strong desire to preserve educational opportunities against health outcomes, and from what I gathered at the time, the nation was behind this.
I agree mostly with saltandshake's post.

Allira

^Schools didn't close^
🤔

Schools did close.

Yes, they definitely did here. There was only a handful of schools which did remain open - and even then it was only for the children of keyworkers or others which fell into certain categories.

Schools didn't close
🤔

Schools did close.

theworriedwell

Allira

saltnshake
Good post.

For some children the safest place is in school
Yes, and those children were badly let down during lockdowns.

Places were available for vulnerable children, two of my children are teachers so I know this and I know that children who weren't engaging at their schools were given places alongside keyworkers' children.

Again I think the thing that would be really useful to investigate why the standards varied so much and is that why the results vary. Going forward that would be useful information.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case right across the country. We were lucky because our GS was given a place at nursery, but I worked with a number of families whose children were classed as vulnerable but couldn't get a place anywhere. Provision seems to have varied considerably depending on where you lived.

I'm not talking about your family (why would I?)
My posts are generalisations.

Lockdown didn't cause abuse, don't give abusers excuses, that's on them. Do remember that vulnerable children could go to school.
I am not giving abusers excuses, how dare you
But it was an excuse for abusers to continue without intervention as are some who "home school". Were abused children likely to be sent to the hubs? What do you think?
It may be you have little experience of such cases.

saltnshake

Having taught in a deprived area for many years I was very much against the closing of schools. For some children the safest place is in school. I thought some children would suffer violence or abuse and many would suffer neglect. Some people told me I was an idiot. I think I have been proven correct in my thinking.
My grandchildren did not suffer despite having two working parents. My daughter in law got up very early to do her work. My son looked after and taught the children until lunchtime. After lunch together my son worked until the early evening while my daughter in law looked after the boys; they played, built models, went to the park or walked. Both children did all the work set by the school and went back to school as fluent readers. They also spent time on screen talking to friends and family.
Many of their class mates had regressed in all areas including speaking. Some did none of the work set, perhaps because a computer was required for much of the work. Not every child had access to a computer. Some children have parents who barely talk to them, read to them or play with them.
I know most of you won't agree with me but I feel that priority workers, nurses, doctors, ambulance crew, police, delivery people should have been first to have jabs, then children and lastly the elderly. We are the ones that should have isolated instead.

Schools didn't close.

Grammaretto

My preschooler DGD was definitely affected. The isolation meant she met no-one outside the little family and her speech was delayed.
They live in a rural area with no neighbours.

I have a grandchild with speech delay. Born after lockdown. Not everything that happened in that two year period is due to lockdown, some of it will be but with 8 GC we didn't anticipate one having this issue but obviously it is nothing to do with lockdown.

Allira

saltnshake
Good post.

For some children the safest place is in school
Yes, and those children were badly let down during lockdowns.

Places were available for vulnerable children, two of my children are teachers so I know this and I know that children who weren't engaging at their schools were given places alongside keyworkers' children.

Again I think the thing that would be really useful to investigate why the standards varied so much and is that why the results vary. Going forward that would be useful information.

Allira

^Who knows what the effects would have been if people kept suggesting it was a catastrophe.^

Who do you mean by people?

If you mean families, then you are probably wrong. The message coming over the media, from the government, from medical officers, as another poster has said, was that you could kill your granny.
This was bound to worry kind, sensitive children.

Families were kept apart, how some families managed to meet is quite surprising, people going to the gym too as they were closed as far as I knew.

Perhaps restrictions were more stringent in some places than others.

As for The perpetrators are responsible for child abuse

Yes, we know that, but there were no checks, no teachers being able to notice signs of abuse. These crimes were more easily hidden during lockdowns.

Parents are responsible for getting their children to school.
You mean actually taking their children into school?
How many teenagers are left to get themselves off to school after parents have gone to work? Or start out but then bunk off?

Of course we all know that the grandchildren of Gransnetters are nothing less than perfect. Nor am I not talking about my own DGC but generally.

I mean family, hospital, school. Everyone had a positive attitude, no one made him worry and he just took it in his stride as many children have with the lockdown. As for young children getting the message about killing your granny I would ask why are children being exposed to that sort of message? Little one don't need to be watching the news and my younger GC knew nothing about killing their granny, the teenagers understood it was an issue but they knew we were all being careful so no big issues.

I saw my family on the drive, we put chairs out and they came and sat on the drive and we had the porch open and sat and chatted to them. We also used WhatsApp.

Lockdown didn't cause abuse, don't give abusers excuses, that's on them. Do remember that vulnerable children could go to school.

Parents are responsible for getting young children to school and making sure all children go, during lockdown they were responsible for making sure children did their school work, younger children needed more support, older children needed a place to work and to be told to get on with it.

Maybe the enquiry should be looking at why so many children are absolutely fine as it might be useful in another pandemic.

Funny just talking about this to a neighbour, her grandchildren did well with school work but were affected socially. My grandson was affected socially however the school's idea on providing an education was/is that it was very poor. Essentially a cop out by his teachers who felt it was just okay to put up slides no interaction indeed the teacher allowed the class to not have their screens on so who knows if any of the class were paying attention let alone actually being in the room. Every day was the same as I was the one supervising his attendance and as a retired teacher I was shocked by the teaching staff's poor quality of lessons

My GD was two during lockdown and was lucky as my daughter is a key worker so she was able to go to nursery. She developed good social and communication skills. However, I do know other children of her age who found the transition to school very difficult and suffered separation anxiety.
I do feel that a number of older children who were left to their own devices during this time, as their parents had to work, have been damaged, possibly by watching violent videos on line. Which has resulted in the number of teenagers committing stabbings.

saltnshake
Good post.

For some children the safest place is in school
Yes, and those children were badly let down during lockdowns.