Lois N's COVID-19 experience

Q. How has your daily parenting been affected by lockdown, and how are you coping with any changes?

Hi, I felt that this, because it was a retrospective answer, I felt that it wasn't necessarily appropriate for me to answer this but I really want to because parenting for me is alone and I don't have familial support. I am not supported by my son's dad or anybody actually. So I spend 24 hours a day more or less alone with my son. Sometimes my partner is here. But even that's become difficult. It was a new relationship around about six months before covid hit. And that's been affected. He spent quite substantial amount of time here during the first lockdowns and the uncertainty, because his mum was shielding and because I'm asthmatic. So that put a huge strain on both my parenting and my personal life. My son has additional needs and these are commonly met with great schooling which I had to fight for and I mean I had to fight for. My son had to go through a terrible time in mainstream school in order for us to get this provision. And he has had a total of around 12 months in two separate year groups, which was one of the things in is EHCP is change is a huge barrier to learning for my son. And unfortunately, the disruption has really impacted him. He's had thoughts of, he's 11 years old, he's had thoughts of wishing not to be here. He feels isolated which was very difficult. Anyway, he had to be supported with friendships because he's autistic and has sensory processing disorder amongst other comorbidities and so support with friendships is essential for him. And unfortunately that has disappeared. He doesn't have friends who play with him online, which I think you know, I was against him being online so much initially, but the social element of it is really essential. So that's quite a balance as well. You know, we're able to go out but it took a long time for my son to be okay with going out again. He doesn't want to go in to shops. He's quite frightened. He's really struggling and I'm struggling. I cry a lot and I worry all the time. There's no diversion. There's no dilution of being a full-time parent and having to build in therapies to balance your child. Everything from deep compression to resistance exercises because he's got food issues so he will only eat certain food. So he won't eat depending on how stressed he is. He has medication to sleep which took again a long time. So at the moment really we're coping with an awful lot and in terms of affecting my parenting there has been some significantly positive effects in terms of I've taken more time to look at my son's development. I've taken much more of an interest in it because I've had to. School have provided fantastic digital learning which is great and great support, amazing support. And luckily, you know, this vested interest means that we have become a lot closer, but it's only one step away from becoming a bit of a co-dependent relationship because we just don't have any other real input that's significant. That worries me in particular with my son's social development. Again, another thing that worries me with his EHCP is that he needs his constant social development input from adults around him and his peer groups and support with that and that's not there. So some concerns, but also some amazing breakthroughs.

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