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Comment by eob | Hacker News Reader

The longitudinal studies of the of the kids who were 0-10 during the pandemic are going to be fascinating.

As a tiny example: I've anecdotally heard that kids in the 5-10yo bracket need their parents in the bed to fall asleep at a higher rate than would typically be normal. Probably because parents cuddled their kids to sleep during the lockdowns as a stress reducer for both of them, rather than turning out the lights and leaving the room.

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People are really blowing this covid lockdown stuff out of proportion, like seriously we had to be more indoors for a while, how is that stressful? Some children are literally living in a warzone and don't know if they will survive through the week, some live in poverty, some lose one of their parents or both.

My son is 6 so it falls neatly in that bracket and if the covid lockdown is the most stressful thing to happen in his childhood I will consider us extremely lucky.

And even so, cuddling more with parents? How will they ever recover?

Evolutionarily speaking, social isolation is more stressful than violence

Soldiers develop mental health issues more often when they return home and become socially isolated than when they are at war, surrounded by their brothers

I was no "real" soldier but due to some weird circumstances I fought in a war. The difficult part of returning home is everything is so low stakes, the freedom to ride around on a Hilux living by your wits and a rifle turns into a world where you can easily survive flipping burgers and you have a toddler screaming at you because you selected the wrong color cup and the HOA has a meltdown because they decided the wrong species of plant is growing on your yard. Boring.

Sometimes you dream of the war because life is so simple and the goal is obvious, and every decision seems impactful to your survival.

My War Gone By, I Miss It So by Anthony Loyd.

There's a section of Gustav Hasford's 'The Short Timers' that describes this well. Two soldiers have recently returned from the front lines and hitch a lift to a base, or PX, or something of that nature. The gate guard - some fat fuck who's clearly never seen the enemy face to face - won't let them in because they're Marines and Marine day is Tuesday, or something of that nature, so our man just cocks his rifle and sticks it in the guy's stomach, finger on the trigger, and looks the guy in the eye.

It's a very well written book.

I don't know really whether I should recommend war stories to a guy who's been to war but if you do enjoy reading that sort of stuff, both of his novels (The Short Timers - which turned into Full Metal Jacket - and the sequel 'The Phantom Blooper' are excellent.)

> Some children are literally living in a warzone and don't know if they will survive through the week, some live in poverty, some lose one of their parents or both.

This isn't the gotcha you think it is. Yes, there are children who experience worse trauma and stress than COVID lockdowns. However, those children of war will be also be developmentally stunted, far, far, more than the children of COVID lockdowns.

This is a "yes, and" scenario. Reducing stress in all its forms during early childhood development is the goal here, and the fact that some have more than others does not mean those with less stress are worthy of casual dismissal.

Surprisingly, perhaps less effects on the youngest cohort: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

"At 4.5 years of age, pandemic kids had higher vocabulary, visual memory, and overall cognitive performance compared with pre-pandemic kids."

The authors suggest that pandemic 2-year-olds developed better problem-solving skills, accelerating the increased cognitive performance by age 4.5

Although pandemic 2-year-olds had more socio-emotional risks early on, these seem to disappear by age 4.5

> Probably because parents cuddled their kids to sleep during the lockdowns as a stress reducer for both of them, rather than turning out the lights and leaving the room.

That's a good thing. Child has a need, Parent meets that need. That is a healthy relationship. But... the parent should have worked to ween the child from this behavior back to a normal sleeping situation.

From my reading it isn't really good or needed. Cuddling is great but child should learn to sleep on their own.

A parent should not be meeting every want of a child.

Funny. You translated “need” to “want”. A parent should meet a child’s need. That is absolutely necessary for development. If a child is nervous and needs cuddling, do it.

Funny, how you are saying that somehow sleeping with your child is a need. It isn't.

It's not a negative either. Large parts of humanity sleep as a family and I'm not aware that it causes any problems.

Funny how you leave out that the child was stressed in this situation. Exceptions for helping a child through a stressful situation is meeting a need.

I think "normal" is relative here. My understanding is that it's mostly Western cultures that consider co-sleeping to be a bad thing.

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