pandemic babies

[Anonymous]

My 9th grader struggles a bit and it's 100% due to too much screen time during the pandemic as a 3rd/4th grader. (Not a phone but Roblox and video chats with friends instead of reading.)

[Anonymous]

This years K class was a mess, so yes. The kids have attention issues like teachers have never seen before. They were raised on ipads while parents scrambled. In some ways, the kids born in 2020 and later might be better off because day cares and stuff eventually opened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, as someone with two pandemic babies (a 2020 and a 2021) I think the pandemic was hard on PARENTS with babies, but not really bad for the kids. I mean, someone was changing their diapers and feeding them milk and all that jazz, and they were too young for excessive screens.

From talking to teachers at various levels, the hardest hit roughly in order from worst to best were 1) the kids in K/1st, as doing those grades online is impossible and they missed crucial reading skills 2) middle schoolers, who missed crucial socializing and basically arrived to high school with the maturity of 5th graders and 3) the toddlers (ages 2-3) who spent WAY more time on screens then they would have otherwise.

So those kids are now in middle school, early college, and like 3/4th grade.

Yep. I had #1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the class entering kindergarten still going to have issues with behavior and Potty training becuase of COVID? I know most kids are still straggling even though it was a few years ago.

My daughter was born on march 2020, I never heard of potty problem due to covid in her daycare or her kindergarten class. Def. most kids I know are NOT straggling.

Yeah these kids had extended time at home with parents, they actually may be ahead of kids who were shuttled to day care at 3 months (like mine!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, as someone with two pandemic babies (a 2020 and a 2021) I think the pandemic was hard on PARENTS with babies, but not really bad for the kids. I mean, someone was changing their diapers and feeding them milk and all that jazz, and they were too young for excessive screens.

From talking to teachers at various levels, the hardest hit roughly in order from worst to best were 1) the kids in K/1st, as doing those grades online is impossible and they missed crucial reading skills 2) middle schoolers, who missed crucial socializing and basically arrived to high school with the maturity of 5th graders and 3) the toddlers (ages 2-3) who spent WAY more time on screens then they would have otherwise.

So those kids are now in middle school, early college, and like 3/4th grade.

Yep. I had #1.

I had a 1 and a 3 and it really sucked. We put 1 in private school so thankfully they didn’t get behind in reading skills. For math we had to do some catchup due to the private school not emphasizing it as much plus a not so great third grade teacher nice back in public. My 3 was a little behind on speech due to a physical issue, but the time at home helped them catch up. School was normal by the time they started K, so no academic issues there. But yeah way more screen time for both at an earlier age than we would have done had there not been a pandemic. Not ideal but I think about the grand scheme of life… there are kids growing up in war torn countries with uncertain access to food, water, and shelter… I think my kids will be ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 25-26 school year had the first round of COVID babies, and this didn’t seem to be an issue. If anything, our Kindergarten team reported that this year’s class was more talkative and social than they’d seen in recent memory.

I think actually having parents at home during their formative years, and not having to go to daycare until they were 3+ has made a real difference in the pandemic babies. It's too bad there aren't more part time wfh jobs.

Apparently you had a different situation than most. Most of us were teleworking full time with no childcare access. Kids were basically abandoned while their parents tried to keep their jobs. Our daycare was high quality and my kids missed out on it.

My oldest (not a pandemic baby) was the one who missed out the most. Her school closed during her 3 year old class and she didn't have any PreK at all before starting K. I wish I'd held her back from starting K. Pre-K is such an important year. It's basically what K used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This years K class was a mess, so yes. The kids have attention issues like teachers have never seen before. They were raised on ipads while parents scrambled. In some ways, the kids born in 2020 and later might be better off because day cares and stuff eventually opened.

Yet another example of a parenting issue.

I had 2018 and 2019 babies who were 1.5 and 7 months when the pandemic began, and I worked full-time.

My kids were definitely not raised on screens. My daughter did watch around 30 minutes of TV each day, but that was the only screentime she got.

Parenting is HARD, and I understand that the pandemic made some things even harder, but giving up and having the attitude that kids should be raised on screens, or that it is too late to change screentime even if there was a little too much screentime in 2020, is lazy and negligent.

Also, it has been 5-6 years since the pandemic. If parents haven't worked to help their kids build skills over the past 5-6 years, they are failing as parents. No excuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kids hitting Kindergarten next year would mostly be post pandemic babies. My kid was just 1 when COVID hit, while his toddler year was disrupted, he was back in care at 2 and basically not impacted at all by preschool. He's entering second grade next year. I can't see the pandemic closures impacting kids two years younger, they would have mostly missed it or been tiny babies.

They're not mostly post-pandemic babies. The new kinders were born September 2020 through August 2021.

[Anonymous]

I have a 2018 baby and a spring 2020 baby. My 2018 kiddo had more screen time than we would have otherwise done with her as a toddler, because we were struggling to telework and parent at the same time. As someone else said, Covid was hard on parents, less-so on little kids. My kids were back in childcare in September of 2020, so they were really only out of their routine for 6 months. Masks and health restrictions (like "pods" for preschool classes, as if we weren't all podding with other people outside of school too) were just something my kids rolled with because they weren't old enough to know any different. None of this disrupted either of my kids' potty training or academic development. Life was back to normal by the time they were in 3s and 4s preschool.

The kids who really struggled with developmental/academic delays due to Covid were early elementary kids in 2020-2021, who were old enough to recognize the changes in their world, but weren't really old enough to be doing virtual school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a kindergarten teacher and this year was probably lease affected by Covid. Previous years had something that maybe could be tied to Covid if you looked hard enough. With the exception of the first year back in FCPS school- that group is in 4th grade now and was a hot mess in kindergarten.

I work with all grades and agree that this year’s kindergarten cohort is the best I have seen since pre-COVID. Our current 4th grades are the most chaotic group of my entire career and always have been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech problems, learned helpness and tantrums with this years group. Also hearing the word throughs them into a fit. Lots of issues w/super short attention spans.

I’m an FCPS SLP and every entering kindergarten class gets worse in terms of language developmental and attention. It’s not COVID; it’s the screen-based childhood. The children were constantly on screens and their parents were too. All kinds of missing parent/child interactions has resulted in children with language delays and the inability to sustain attention on tasks at school. Add in overly permissive millennial parenting (“gentle parenting”) and we now have classrooms fill of children who are not quite ready. They have never been given a consequence by their parents and there is no follow through at home with behavior. I agree with the learned helplessness for sure. There are also children who immediately say “I’m bored” as soon as they are made to sit at a table and learn something new. They are used to the constant entertainment and endless swipe and scroll.

Parents of children under 5: put away your screens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of speech problems, learned helpness and tantrums with this years group. Also hearing the word throughs them into a fit. Lots of issues w/super short attention spans.

I’m an FCPS SLP and every entering kindergarten class gets worse in terms of language developmental and attention. It’s not COVID; it’s the screen-based childhood. The children were constantly on screens and their parents were too. All kinds of missing parent/child interactions has resulted in children with language delays and the inability to sustain attention on tasks at school. Add in overly permissive millennial parenting (“gentle parenting”) and we now have classrooms fill of children who are not quite ready. They have never been given a consequence by their parents and there is no follow through at home with behavior. I agree with the learned helplessness for sure. There are also children who immediately say “I’m bored” as soon as they are made to sit at a table and learn something new. They are used to the constant entertainment and endless swipe and scroll.

Parents of children under 5: put away your screens.

+1 from a FCPS Special Education teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the class entering kindergarten still going to have issues with behavior and Potty training becuase of COVID? I know most kids are still straggling even though it was a few years ago.

My daughter was born on march 2020, I never heard of potty problem due to covid in her daycare or her kindergarten class. Def. most kids I know are NOT straggling.

Yeah these kids had extended time at home with parents, they actually may be ahead of kids who were shuttled to day care at 3 months (like mine!)

I wouldn't say mine is "ahead" and we started daycare at 6 months but the WFH era was amazing..shorter days in daycare because we didn't have a commute etc. There were some definite benefits to the babies born during the Covid period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 25-26 school year had the first round of COVID babies, and this didn’t seem to be an issue. If anything, our Kindergarten team reported that this year’s class was more talkative and social than they’d seen in recent memory.

I think actually having parents at home during their formative years, and not having to go to daycare until they were 3+ has made a real difference in the pandemic babies. It's too bad there aren't more part time wfh jobs.

Apparently you had a different situation than most. Most of us were teleworking full time with no childcare access. Kids were basically abandoned while their parents tried to keep their jobs. Our daycare was high quality and my kids missed out on it.

My oldest (not a pandemic baby) was the one who missed out the most. Her school closed during her 3 year old class and she didn't have any PreK at all before starting K. I wish I'd held her back from starting K. Pre-K is such an important year. It's basically what K used to be.

My oldest was also in a 3s class that closed. What I recall a bit differently is that SO MANY parents in this area were simultanenously afraid to send their kids to school. I did not share that fear so I sent my kid to a different preschool that reopened after 2 months. Even then, it was just one class with only 9 or 10 kids (not capped enrollment) as opposed to usual capacity of two 16 kid classes. I then continued there the next year for pre-k. My point being there was space if you looked around, just many weren't interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, as someone with two pandemic babies (a 2020 and a 2021) I think the pandemic was hard on PARENTS with babies, but not really bad for the kids. I mean, someone was changing their diapers and feeding them milk and all that jazz, and they were too young for excessive screens.

From talking to teachers at various levels, the hardest hit roughly in order from worst to best were 1) the kids in K/1st, as doing those grades online is impossible and they missed crucial reading skills 2) middle schoolers, who missed crucial socializing and basically arrived to high school with the maturity of 5th graders and 3) the toddlers (ages 2-3) who spent WAY more time on screens then they would have otherwise.

So those kids are now in middle school, early college, and like 3/4th grade.

Yep. I had #1.

I had a 1 and a 3 and it really sucked. We put 1 in private school so thankfully they didn’t get behind in reading skills. For math we had to do some catchup due to the private school not emphasizing it as much plus a not so great third grade teacher nice back in public. My 3 was a little behind on speech due to a physical issue, but the time at home helped them catch up. School was normal by the time they started K, so no academic issues there. But yeah way more screen time for both at an earlier age than we would have done had there not been a pandemic. Not ideal but I think about the grand scheme of life… there are kids growing up in war torn countries with uncertain access to food, water, and shelter… I think my kids will be ok.

I had #1 and other than a lifelong fear of using the Internet for education that nothing seems to quite break (but in some ways which I don't mind), she did recover. It was awful at the time, through 2nd grade when her classmates were remembering how to do school and they really didn't learn much, but with a mix of hard work at home and hard work by her 3rd grade teacher she's doing OK.

Not every kid had the skilled teachers or home with time to do extra work, though.