Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 23:54     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue is the gentle parenting epidemic. That will be make teachers' jobs so much harder those early elementary years.


Gentle parenting just means treating your kid like a person and having age-appropriate expectations of them, instead of screaming and swatting them when things aren't going well. It does not mean a lack of rules or consequences.

Possibly the term you're looking for is permissive parenting, or neglectful parenting.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 22:05     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why the current kindergartners are any class coming in after that would be affected by Covid. Those kids were babies and it wasn’t like they were in school and it shut down and they had to work from home. My daughter was in kindergarten and she still tells me to this day that one day she was a kindergarten student the next day she came in office worker I had to learn how to use a laptop and then when she went back to school a year Later, she sat in like a little cubicles. She’s talked to the kindergartners in her school and they have no recollection of Covid so I’m not sure why they would be behind even if they didn’t go to pre-K they were home with their parents. Their parents would’ve taught them all this stuff.

Not affected by COVID/the pandemic directly, but the residual effects...for sure...
What residual effects his kids were home with their parents and we always hear parents complaining about everything about school so these kids should be ahead of the curb potty trained, and have no issues. These kids didn’t lose out on anything really they weren’t in school one day and then didn’t show up for another year.

Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 14:07     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:You assume parents are like you. Bring at home made being on screens completely normal. My SIL does home visits as a social worker along with the Head Start teachers at her school. She said the homes she visits have no books, few toys, but every kid has their own device. These kids are 3 and 4 years old. Likely their parents are on their devices constantly too.

It's a class marker at this point
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 14:07     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why the current kindergartners are any class coming in after that would be affected by Covid. Those kids were babies and it wasn’t like they were in school and it shut down and they had to work from home. My daughter was in kindergarten and she still tells me to this day that one day she was a kindergarten student the next day she came in office worker I had to learn how to use a laptop and then when she went back to school a year Later, she sat in like a little cubicles. She’s talked to the kindergartners in her school and they have no recollection of Covid so I’m not sure why they would be behind even if they didn’t go to pre-K they were home with their parents. Their parents would’ve taught them all this stuff.

Not affected by COVID/the pandemic directly, but the residual effects...for sure...

Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 14:04     Subject: pandemic babies
You assume parents are like you. Bring at home made being on screens completely normal. My SIL does home visits as a social worker along with the Head Start teachers at her school. She said the homes she visits have no books, few toys, but every kid has their own device. These kids are 3 and 4 years old. Likely their parents are on their devices constantly too.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 13:48     Subject: pandemic babies
I’m not sure why the current kindergartners are any class coming in after that would be affected by Covid. Those kids were babies and it wasn’t like they were in school and it shut down and they had to work from home. My daughter was in kindergarten and she still tells me to this day that one day she was a kindergarten student the next day she came in office worker I had to learn how to use a laptop and then when she went back to school a year Later, she sat in like a little cubicles. She’s talked to the kindergartners in her school and they have no recollection of Covid so I’m not sure why they would be behind even if they didn’t go to pre-K they were home with their parents. Their parents would’ve taught them all this stuff.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 11:39     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:
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.

+1 MCPS occupational therapist...the lack of fine motor skills, or even just lack of familiarity with age-appropriate fine motor tasks, astounds me. Soo many kids are coming in having little or no experience ever using scissors, glue sticks, holding a writing utensil, turning pages in a book...it's crazy. Or the muscles in their hands/wrists are so underdeveloped due to lack of use that they become fatigued almost instantly.

Obviously there's always been kids who have disability related needs that impact their fine motor skills but these are NOT kids with IEPs.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:54     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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.


It so bad now in my kindergarten class. It’s not just screens. It the which one minute reeks that are ruining their attention span. They rush through everything just to get it done and can’t just sit and wait for a few minutes. Some struggle with making eye contact and asking and answering simple questions. Monday mornings are awful. They look strung out. They are exhausted and they tell me they were in their tablets in the middle of the night. Some parents admit that they let them take them to bed. This year was exhausting.


I'm not believing that kindergartners are taking their tablets to bed with them and using them in the middle of the night. So your whole post lost its credibility.



So because you don’t allow your kids to do this and other people you know don’t allow their kids to do this, nobody must allow this? Step out of your DCUM bubble and visit some high poverty schools. There are many in my district (Baltimore City). Parents bring tablets to parent teacher conferences for the child and when you ask the parents about the child’s fatigue in school (falling asleep in the morning), their irritability, their constant talking about inappropriate stuff online, many parents admit that they just let the kids take the phone or tablet to bed with them because they have a meltdown when they try to take it away. Nearly every kid has their own phone or tablet by Christmas. They draw and write that they got their own and they don’t need to share with a younger sibling anymore. The behaviors make sense after talking to the parents. Sometimes they ask me for advice. I tell them my kid didn’t get his own device until he was in 8th grade. He’s probably just as addicted as anyone else but at a least he grew up doing normal kid stuff.

Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:43     Subject: pandemic babies
The bigger issue is the gentle parenting epidemic. That will be make teachers' jobs so much harder those early elementary years.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:36     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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.


It so bad now in my kindergarten class. It’s not just screens. It the which one minute reeks that are ruining their attention span. They rush through everything just to get it done and can’t just sit and wait for a few minutes. Some struggle with making eye contact and asking and answering simple questions. Monday mornings are awful. They look strung out. They are exhausted and they tell me they were in their tablets in the middle of the night. Some parents admit that they let them take them to bed. This year was exhausting.


I'm not believing that kindergartners are taking their tablets to bed with them and using them in the middle of the night. So your whole post lost its credibility.


DP and when I was a classroom monitor during the pandemic one of my 2nd graders would come in talking about getting out of bed in the middle of the night, sneaking the iPad into her room, and playing Roblox. Based on the behavior and alertness I saw, I fully believed her.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:21     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:
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.


It so bad now in my kindergarten class. It’s not just screens. It the which one minute reeks that are ruining their attention span. They rush through everything just to get it done and can’t just sit and wait for a few minutes. Some struggle with making eye contact and asking and answering simple questions. Monday mornings are awful. They look strung out. They are exhausted and they tell me they were in their tablets in the middle of the night. Some parents admit that they let them take them to bed. This year was exhausting.


I'm not believing that kindergartners are taking their tablets to bed with them and using them in the middle of the night. So your whole post lost its credibility.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:17     Subject: pandemic babies
The kids who are now finishing 7th grade were really affected by Covid. Usually schools do testing and screening for reading disabilities during the spring of first grade for any kid who isn't reading fluently. Because of the shutdown all of the kids in 1st grade missed that testing. Then school was closed for 2nd grade and only virtual so there was no testing or intervention. In 3rd grade, schools were still catching up and waited to do testing because they wanted to see who was just behind and who would catch up. So a lot of the testing didn't get done until spring of 4th grade. This meant that you had kids starting 5th grade who couldn't read. Huge huge gaps. These kids missed a vital window for intervention and learning to read. There's a similar story for math gaps. And I think many parents who might have been more proactive in other circumstances were so underwater with the pandemic that they didn't get their kids resources sooner.

I think this cohort is even further impacted because before covid, many districts were using the Lucy Calkins Readers' Workshop to teach reading, so there were more kids than you'd expect who were really struggling. That whole curriculum has been disproven now and schools have added phonics. But the same kids who are impacted by Covid at the end of 1st grade also weren't taught to read before the pandemic because of the Lucy Calkins curriculum.

Our middle school even added an entire class in 6th grade called "Reading" to try to teach 6th graders who couldn't yet read fluently. The vice principal explained that the class was being added to remediate gaps from both the Lucy Calkins curriculum and the pandemic.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:03     Subject: pandemic babies
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.


So why did our kids have language disorders long before covid? We restricted screens the first few years. It was a mistake as screens helped with the language and I had my kid in daily speech therapy from ages 2-5, then a few days a week for several more years. Stop making up stuff.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 10:01     Subject: pandemic babies
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.


It so bad now in my kindergarten class. It’s not just screens. It the which one minute reeks that are ruining their attention span. They rush through everything just to get it done and can’t just sit and wait for a few minutes. Some struggle with making eye contact and asking and answering simple questions. Monday mornings are awful. They look strung out. They are exhausted and they tell me they were in their tablets in the middle of the night. Some parents admit that they let them take them to bed. This year was exhausting.
Anonymous
Post 06/17/2026 09:13     Subject: pandemic babies
Anonymous wrote:
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.


Yes, my 4 year old was in a 20 hour a week program while her sisters' public elementary was fully closed and then only 2 days a week. And it was honestly the best preschool experience any of my kids had.