Just as the dust begins to settle from the fallout of the Government’s response to the Covid pandemic, new research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that nearly half of U.K. parents report their children’s social and emotional skills seriously deteriorated during lockdowns, with young kids most affected. The Mail has the story.
Adults whose jobs were disrupted by the crisis, including those on furlough, were more likely to report that their offspring suffered development problems.
Youngsters aged between four and seven were significantly more likely (52%) to be affected than 12- to 15 year-olds (42%), the research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) reported.
Furiously responding to the findings, campaigners blamed Covid lockdowns and school closures for having a “catastrophic” impact on Britain’s young.
The IFS surveyed 6,095 parents in England with children aged four to 16 about the impact of the first year of the pandemic.
It found that nearly half (48%) reported that their sons and daughters’ social and emotional skills deteriorated.
Children whose parents were furloughed were “significantly more likely to experience a worsening in their socio-emotional skills than those whose parents had not been furloughed (51% versus 45%)”.
Researchers said the social and emotional skills of children whose parents had stable labour market experiences throughout the pandemic – whether that saw their parents employed or unemployed throughout – “held up better on average than the skills of children whose families faced more economic instability”.
But they found no evidence that children from disadvantaged families fared worse, in contrast to previous research looking at lost academic learning.
The IFS study was designed to screen for emotional or behavioural problems.
Questions focused on whether parents found their children to be “easily scared”, “constantly fidgeting or squirming”, or “generally obedient”.
Responding to the report, Arabella Skinner, of the parents’ campaign group UsForThem, said children became “collateral damage” during the pandemic.
She said: “The pandemic policies did not take into consideration the impact on children.”
Ms. Skinner added: “There were many occasions when warnings were ignored and children were in effect collateral damage.
“It is an unavoidable fact that many of our children’s development has been negatively impacted by the pandemic restrictions.”
And she insisted: “The Government must take action now – they need to support all the services which support our children and ensure that this never happens again.”
Tory MP Esther McVey added: “We must now accept and learn from the extent of the damage school closures and lockdowns have caused.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Karol Sikora in the Telegraph says that the lockdown policy was our generation’s greatest error.
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