Why Every Court Needs A Fool

Anyone who knows anything about Shakespeare’s plays will know one of the starring roles often belongs to the fool.

He is the person who tells it like it is. He’s the one who advises the monarch not to do what he’s about to and who foresees what might happen if he does. (His other role is to keep both the monarch and the audience amused in the more tedious parts of the play but that is for another time.)

Usually, the monarch ignores him and the result is a tragedy that we the audience can predict because it’s so clearly obvious to anyone and everyone. Except, of course, the king.

I give you King Lear and poor Tom (other fools are available). Lear, against advice, gives his kingdom away to his daughters and, after a very long and miserable tale, ends up being homeless, going mad and dying of grief. It would be an unwise fool to say: “I told you so” after that.

The fashion for jesters within the seats of power began in the Middle Ages but gradually died out. I’m wondering if it’s time we brought them back; not just for royals but for all those in positions of power and who have some control over our lives.

In the world of the ordinary person - us - we usually have at least one person who’s quick to tell us when we’re in danger of making a wrong decision. If we choose not to listen to them, we also have our inner voice which sometimes irritatingly questions whether we should really do what we’ve set our heart on.

But what about if you have no-one who feels about to say that to you. What if your future is in their all-powerful hands? In that case, I’m not sure I’d dare to make an observation. 

I’ve been thinking more about this after reading of some of the seemingly unfortunate errors of judgment made by our own monarch-in-waiting in his quest to raise money for his charities. 

It seems there are some ethical concerns about who has been giving to charity and what they may have been looking for in return. The idea, surely, is that you give money to charity so you feel like you’re doing something good for society. That in turn leaves you feeling happy inside - and that’s your reward.

Except it doesn’t seem to be. Such an idea seems a little naïve. These people who give substantial amounts of money to charity - particularly royal charities - seem to be expecting quite a bit more. A royal meeting perhaps, a public honour in reward or, in the case of contributions to political parties, access to the top people. Obvious really.

If it’s so obvious, I’m curious to understand why those in charge don’t understand what’s going on. 

The politicians do, of course. They fully comprehend it’s a trade-off and their task is to balance what they can actually offer with what the donor demands. Some politicians do it better than others. Ironically, our current politician-in-chief made quite a career out of being a public jester until he decided to go for the top job. Now some people say they expect him to get serious and find him less of a laugh than they once did.

Putting political machinations to one side, let’s return to our future head of state. Poor Prince Charles. It does seem to me as though he’s trying his best but unfortunately he doesn’t seem to employ anyone who will point out the pitfalls of some of his choices. 

If he had a court jester asking him to question why someone might want to contribute hundreds of thousands of pounds into a charity of which he is patron, he might maybe ask the question himself. It’s great to be given money with no strings attached but not so good when the ultimate cost may be your reputation.  

Similarly, a jester might ask why another member of your family felt it was okay to be given free lifts on private jets just because he happened to be a prince? He might ask how that fitted with your well-publicised views on saving the environment. Or it might be that he (jesters do not seem to have been female) might question whether the introduction to a particular young lady might not be appropriate and could land you with a heap more trouble than you’d bargained for?

If there is no-one within your court to challenge your behaviour, however are you going to know what’s good or bad, right or wrong? And, therefore, how are you going to manage to make the right ethical or moral decision when you need to? Such a process requires both practice and wisdom; how are you going to get that if no-one ever questions you? 

A royal biographer recently told of how surprised she was by ordinary people’s reaction to meeting royalty. They laughed loudly at their jokes, become speechless - even when captains of industry or in similarly successful positions - and seemed generally overawed. And that’s the problem, if we are in awe of a person, how can we possibly challenge their behaviour?

I read that the Queen Mother’s family, the Bowes-Lyons were among the last grand family to have a jester within their aristocratic circle. Prince Charles often sought advice from his grandma. Maybe it’s time to revisit that idea. He might find it a worthwhile investment in the long run.

Photo 1 by Deleece Cook on Unsplash

Photo 2 by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Photo 3 by Colin Watts on Unsplash

    

Facing The World Again

A few weeks ago, many of us were wondering when life was going to be back to normal again. In the past days, we’ve had the terrible story of Afghanistan and the natural disasters in Haiti and who’s now talking about Covid?

Funny how the world moves on so fast.

Just for a moment, I’m just going to pop back to that pandemic time. The time when no-one was looking for missing Foreign Secretaries (who knew he’d managed to escape the country and gone off to Crete for a holiday) or US Presidents and were simply wondering whether or not they should be wearing a mask.

Sorry to sound so trivial but it’s something I’ve noticed quite a bit in the weeks since we were told masks would be voluntary and it was up to the individual to decide if you wanted to protect your neighbour by wearing a mask or if you’d rather be a bad citizen and not do so, particularly in crowded places.  

At the beginning of the time when the pandemic was officially declared in Britain - March 2020 - I remember hearing an NHS consultant declaring absolutely and emphatically than masks did not make a difference. “Right,” I thought. “I’ve been told by someone with much more expertise and knowledge than I have, so I’ll be guided by him. I won’t wear one.”

Gradually, the advice changed. We were locked down, told to go out to exercise no more than once a day and only shop when absolutely necessary. We complied, to the declared surprise of those who governed us, and the edicts came through quicker and faster. If you were interested in the psychology of humans, it was fascinating.

Our belief that we were a nation of freedom-loving individuals seemed to disappear in an instance. We complied and complied and complied. And now, some 18 months later and with some very public misbehaviour by those who insisted we had to do it, there are a good few of us who feel so afraid they appear to want society to remain in some form of lockdown for a good while yet.  

The evidence is all around you. Look on the street (in the open air) there are people of all ages who are still masked up. If you have venture into a shop without a mask, you may find yourself being looked at, and not with approval. It's a little intimidating.

I was stopped and asked by a (masked) security guard at an exhibition I was attending why I was not wearing a mask. I told him I wasn’t obliged to as the rules post-July 19 had changed and it was up to me to decide whether I wished to wear one. He continued to disagree so I pulled the exempt card. Before you feel annoyed with me yourself, I can assure you I have been offered an exemption certificate. However, when mask-wearing was compulsory, I chose to conform, for the sake of others. 

The guard nodded sagely and probably mumbled something that I didn’t hear because of his mask and we left it there. He went back to his seat in the corner and I continued to walk around, feeling awkward and aware that I was being looked at by others. I didn’t like that at all. I felt like I was behaving in some sort of anti-social way when I wasn’t.  I was behaving within the law and exercising my right to choose.

You might wonder why not just stick with wearing the mask, until the fear dies down or more people decide to put theirs away. I wonder that too but that leaves me feeling I am allowing my rights to be eroded bit by bit. As a psychotherapist/counsellor, part of my job is to help people to come to their own conclusions about what - within the law - is right for them. How can I encourage others to stand firm in their beliefs if I am so easily swayed in mine? 

A colleague told me of their own experience travelling outside their recently imposed comfort zone and onto a (not-so) smart motorway. They told me how a journey they usually found easy and painless was fraught. Fellow drivers, they said, seemed to slam on the brakes at every opportunity. Some drivers sped past them appearing to be going dangerously fast but most were very much erring on the cautious side and that in itself was alarming. Too fast is dangerous but driving too slowly on a motorway that has no safe parking space brings its own risks too. 

Who cares, you may ask?

Fair enough, some might say. But not me. I say I - you, we - must care. It matters. The whole point of being an adult is that we take responsibility for ourselves, make our own decisions and take our own (measured) risk. It’s what life is all about. If we allow ourselves to be put into such a position of fear that we need to look to others - our political leaders - to tell us what to do, we are being taken back to a child state and how does that help us with our own individual journey through life? Think about it.

The Sage committee has been advising the government on managing its people during this pandemic. It has around 23 members, some of whom are behavioural psychologists. The government was afraid that the British would not obey. With the help of its advisers, our leaders have found ways to persuade us to obey beyond their wildest dreams. Fear is a powerful motive and have we all been frightened! 

I’m not suggesting you stop caring about protecting yourself and others from this frightening virus. I’ve had my vaccinations and am not yet ready for the all-night raves. I’m still treading cautiously. But I’m also keen to take back control of my life. Removing my mask is the way I plan to start.

Photo 1: Evgeni Tcherkassi on Unsplash 

Photo 2: Crawford Jolly on Unsplash

Photo 3: Belinda Fewings on Unsplash 

The Curse of Catastrophic Thinking

I was left to take charge of a cat for a couple of days recently. The cat stayed in his location and I had to go over and organise the feeding arrangements. 

Here’s a little background information. He was a house cat; he’s become an outdoor cat and he’s developed into quite a rat/mouse catcher. I was not going to stay in a place where I might be presented with such presents. So, I agreed to pop in instead.

The cat was pleased to see me and to accept the treats I always bring (could that be why he is always so welcoming?); I fed him and decided to stay around for a couple of hours so he didn’t get lonely. He left the house through the cat flap minutes after I arrived and only returned as I decided I really had to get going. I spotted him flash by into the house through the porch, just as I was about to close the front door.

I left. I’d done my duty and the cat would be fine for the next 24 hours I hoped.

It was hot and I soon began to have a niggling worry around a “what if” scenario. The worst example of that was: “What if a delivery driver popped a parcel in the porch and, not realising that the cat had popped in, closed the porch door and the cat was left to suffocate on what was turning out to be a boiling hot day?” 

I could feel my anxiety levels rising. Should I go back and check and put some water down just in case? Should I kidnap the cat (he wouldn’t have outside space with me, but a cat litter could be provided) or should I relocate for the time he was alone, cancelling my plans for the sake of something that my overactive mind was telling me might happen. The further I drove, the noisier my mind became, giving me all varieties of worsening scenarios, none of which ended well. 

In the end, faced with so much choice and so little decision-making ability because of the problem, I did nothing. I put metaphorical lid on the little niggle of what might happen and managed to get on with my daily living. 

The next day, shortly before the cat’s keepers returned, I texted them to check all was well. “We’re minutes from home,” they replied happily. 

“Phew,” I said. “That means you can make sure the cat hasn’t suffocated on the porch because he’s been locked in by a driver and has no water and couldn’t get out.”

That silenced them. I later learned (after they’d found the cat safe and well inside their shuttered and cool house) that such a thought had not occurred to them. Then, for the few minutes before they arrived at their home, it became their sole preoccupation.

That is the trouble with catastrophic (ironic in this particular case) thinking. It can take over a person, blocking all usual rational and reasonable thoughts until they’re a mass of feelings and emotions that have built up and flourished way beyond their mental control.

As the cat’s carers illustrate, this is not something that happens to everyone. In my case it occurred because I was taking responsibility for a beloved pet and was fearful of anything going wrong. No doubt that comes from my own background upbringing and fears and worries when I was growing up. 

I am not alone, as can be seen from official reaction to the pandemic of the past 18 months or so. There’s been a lot of catastrophic thinking going on there and it’s by no means all come to pass.

For example, the data experts - scientists we’re told are reasonable and rational and not inclined to hysteria - seemed to become more and more hysterical as the days went on. It is/was a new and particularly deadly virus and of course there were huge concerns. But dissent or “voices of reason” seemed to have been elbowed out. There have been times, during lockdown, when some have felt our scientific experts were less the voices of reason, and more the voices of doom. 

Catastrophic thinking can be catching, you see, and that is why we need to be so careful. It can have a bad enough effect on an individual’s mental health but imagine how damaging it can be as a collective feeling for, say, a whole country.

Take, for example, the wearing of a mask. At the beginning of the pandemic, we were told masks were not necessary. They would not protect us. Then, gradually, the advice changed to using them to protect not only ourselves but others. And so on, until it became so necessary to our alleged wellbeing that one could argue: “If I go out without a mask, I may either die or be responsible for another person’s death.” That, surely, is catastrophic thinking at its worst. And not just for one person but for millions of us. Rightly or wrongly - I don’t know - we have been terrified into submission. 

I take some comfort in knowing that this way of thinking does not have to be contagious, nor does it have to pass down from one family member to another. The key is to become aware of your own thought process. A particular benefit of becoming a thoughtful and aware adult is that you get to choose how you manage life’s unpredictable events.  

The best way to take any decision is through use of the rational and reasonable methods you have - hopefully - acquired in your journey as an adult, adding a touch of emotions into the mix to check what your gut reaction feels. 

Catastrophic thinking is tiring and can keep you in your “freeze” mode long after it’s necessary. It is unhealthy and undoubtedly detracts from the pleasures of life. In the case of the cat and me, what could have been a mutually beneficial exchange was at risk of turning into a dreadful drama. And what would be the point of that? For best results, keep that in mind.

Photo 2 by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

 

 

If Not Now, When?

Our PM was referring to the opening up of the country after our latest lockdown when he said those words. I've lost count whether it's the third lockdown or the end of one continuous lockdown but, for once, Boris Johnson's words made sense to me. 

If not now, when? A powerful question. A question that has no good answer. 

Clearly, we all have our own views about lockdown. When there was no chance and it looked as though the Sage team were advocating a perpetual lockdown we all seemed pretty annoyed. Now, we seem to be pretty annoyed the other way. “What? Make up our own minds? Choose to self-isolate or go out? Mix with more than one person? Socialise? Noooooo!”

Choices, choices. And no sure answer. If we go out, so we’re told, numbers will surge. If we stay in, surely our resistance to other more “normal” illnesses such as flu or colds will diminish? If we’re not exposed to them, will we become less immune to the bugs we can usually resist? The absolute opposite of Covid, of course, except that most of us are trusting that our vaccinations will protect us to at least some extent.

So, a decision has to be made and it has, even though it’s not quite the final decision we were told we could expect. It looks like our PM may be procrastinating again. Still, in his shoes, who wouldn’t?

But I procrastinate. The purpose of this post is not about lockdown, it is about procrastination. It wasn’t my intention to link the latest lockdown decision with procrastination but it would be foolish not to take an opportunity so graciously given.

If not now, when? 

A few quick questions. Have you finally written that novel you’ve been planning for years? Have you thrown out all your unused/unwanted wardrobe items now you’ve had a bit of time on your hands? And what about that diet and all the exercise you were planning to do when you could just spare the time?

No? If not, why not? The amazing playwright Jack Rosenthal said he would do anything and everything before he sat down to work including cleaning the house from top to bottom and reading the telephone directory. Deadline-itus is something many people can recognise, not just writers. They will put off doing whatever it is that needs to be done until the last possible moment.

But why? Surely, it’s better to prepare for the task, complete it, enjoy the satisfaction of finishing it (Gestalt) and then moving on to the next one. That would seem a good way of working.

It would seem so but, while many of us know this in our heads, we still manage to block ourselves. It’s such a rich source of curiosity that there’s a fair amount of research on it. 

One reason for procrastination may be boredom - the subject matter does not interest you. Or there may be a lack of incentive - is there a benefit if you complete the assignment? Will somebody read it, will you be praised, will you be rewarded? Or does nobody care?

Perhaps you are not confident about the work in hand. You may not know where to begin, let alone where to end. So, by doing nothing, while you may not be succeeding you are most definitely not failing. Nor will you be found out, providing the assignment you’re not working on was not given to your boss, in that case, h/she may expect a response. 

The fear of failure comes into play from the emotional part of your brain: the amygdala that controls the fight, flight or freeze response. It’s very useful as an instinctive protector of your wellbeing - for example, watching out for you while you’re crossing the road and reading your smart phone - but you need to be careful not to allow it to override your reasonability. 

If you only work with your instinct and forget about both your learned experience and your ability to make your own judgment call, you would never do anything. Procrastination would have won.

As I write this, I am aware that procrastination may not be a “dirty” word to everyone. If so, apologies and please continue you as you are. If not, here are some thoughts.  

Researchers in one study talk about the necessity of locomotion in order to get the better of procrastination. In other words, the need for a driver or motivation that will overcome your inertia. Find yours. Ask yourself what is stopping you from taking on the task that most probably came from you in the first place. Is it fear, is it inertia, is it lack of confidence in your ability or lack of knowledge in how to go about it - where to start?

Identifying the answer to the initial question can begin the process of unlocking. If you don’t have the motivation, then it’s highly unlikely that you’ll complete the task. But, if you find that is the case, get rid of the idea, move on. Don’t allow it to linger in the back of your mind where you always promised yourself one day you would … it’s gone, finished, goodbye.

But if, after that soul-searching part, you decide you do want to continue, make a start and envisage each step along the way. If we’re talking about the novel, imagine writing the first chapter; if we’re talking about emptying cupboards, imagine clearing one space at a time. Imagine how good that will look and how pleased you will feel.

That, in the end, is the whole point of it. Procrastination can gnaw at you, sapping your energy and leaving you with a faintly uncomfortable nagging feeling that you should be doing something but you’re not. Imagine moving past that stage, getting on with what you have chosen to do and imagine the satisfaction and relief you’ll feel after you’ve completed that task.  

Go for it. If not now, when?

By Lulu Sinclair

 

Photo 1 by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Photo 2 by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Photo 3 by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash

Let’s Hear It For The Quiet Ones

It’s been a hard 16 months and we all have stories to tell about how lockdown has affected us. I'm hoping we’re coming to the end of it now. I'm also hoping that we humans, being generally very resourceful, may find we forget all our visceral feelings more quickly than we’d expect. 

But there’s one group who I’m told have had a better lockdown experience than others. And that’s the quiet ones.

Let me take you back to your childhood … remember the ones in the classroom whose hands shot up at the hint of a question? Yes, and you could probably remember their name too, even now. 

Our PM, Boris Johnson, is a shining example of someone who appeared to have a star-like quality early on. It may not have come easy to him at the start - I’ve read the Tom Bower biography on him and I’m not sure I’d have been that happy with his childhood - but he took the hand he was dealt with and ran with it. And now, some 45 years on, here we are. You can’t get a much higher public profile than Prime Minister.

If we look at previous PMs (with one or two exceptions), they seem to fit the mould of early high achievers who stood out in a crowd. That could almost apply throughout western culture where heads of industry/entertainment/third sector organisations.  

But what about those who kept their hands firmly by their sides and were terrified of being picked to speak up in class? What about those so-called shrinking violets who, certainly in Boris’ time at school, were derided and scorned because of their reluctance to throw themselves forward? Where are they now, we might ask. 

First, there are sometimes good reasons why children hold back. Who jumps up to answer a question when they have no idea what the answer is? Who, unless you’re either slightly lacking in imagination or have great social skills, really enjoys walking into a room knowing nobody and being expected to perform? If you do, lucky you. You are the exception. Or the one whose hand always went up first.

It is evident many children have been severely effected by lockdown through both schooling and the isolation they’ve experienced. We humans are social beings and we need others, even if only to keep away, as I was once told.

However, I’ve now been told that some children - and their adult equivalents - have really enjoyed the non-competitive nature of lockdown. Parents talk of how a child has thrived away from the pressure of the class and the expectations that, in order to succeed, they have to be “out there” from the start. 

In turn, the parents have had time to reflect on their own expectations for their children and are reconsidering their own value judgement system. Could it be that this will be a bottom-up revolution, where the children lead the way? Probably not, but it's a thought.

I am wondering how it would be if those in charge decided to consider what the quiet ones could do for society if allowed to bring their reticence into the group. 

Could we all benefit from a less frenetic way of being, with time to reflect calmly and thoughtfully before we take action, rather than reacting by instinct and then finding out our decision is not that great? I’m hoping you’ll agree it’s bad enough when we rush to judgement as an individual; it’s a lot worse when we do it as the leader of a country. 

Maybe it’s time to consider choosing a leader who doesn’t actively stand out in a crowd. 

It would be harder, certainly, because the one jumping up and down in front of you with his/her hand raised makes it difficult for you to see who else is there. However, in the same way that the teacher may say: “Not you, (insert preferred name here), we’ve heard a lot from you recently. Let’s give so-and-so a turn.” We could look into the pool of potential bosses and see who might have our collective best interests at heart. We might be in for a positive surprise. 

Back to those quiet children of days gone by and the question of where they are now. 

Since Facebook’s arrival and its active take-up by older fans, I’ve been lucky enough to discover for myself how my own contemporaries are doing. Some of them did indeed become well-known and successful faces and I can certainly see some who were noisy team leaders from eight upwards are still pretty vocal. 

But the quieter ones, the ones whose names I’d forgotten, are very much there too. I look at old pictures and see faces decades down the line which are recognisable as those of the young schoolmates I knew. I read about them, discover their stories and learn that their lives have been just as eventful and rewarding as the form leaders of the past.

The only difference is that those same schoolmates have stayed quiet about their lives. They were still doing - and they were still being - but they have stayed true to themselves. They were quiet then, they are quiet now. 

I’ve learned a lot in this lockdown about the need and the importance of managing solitude. You really do have to reach down to your inner reserves to find out the best way to survive and live when semi-isolated from the outside world. It’s been a struggle, but it seems, for once, the quiet ones have come out on top. 

So let's hear it for the quiet people everywhere. Let's thank them for their thoughtfulness, their wisdom and their grace in staying as they want to be. Let's applaud them, but quietly. 

By Lulu Sinclair

Good reads: 

In Praise of Slowness: Carl Honore

The Power of Quiet: Susan Cain

Helping Quiet Pupils to Find Their Voice

The Expansion of the Mid-Life Crisis

There was a time when a mid-life crisis was associated with someone giving up their old family life in exchange for a new and potentially more exciting one with a new partner.  For some people, there’s the temptation to start again and to put right the wrongs that we may have done to ourselves when young. The benefit of hindsight is all. 

For the past 15 months, of course, survival has been uppermost in our minds and the idea of uprooting ourselves from that which is familiar and dear has taken a back seat. It may be that, as we finally come out of lockdown, all the old grievances will return and people will make changes but presently we’re still taking stock.

Strangely enough, I’ve found myself acting a bit more as a life coach than a counsellor over the past few weeks. I particularly recall "meeting" two people away from the therapy room, two people who will remain memorable because of the brave decisions they have taken as a result of lockdown.

The first person’s work was not affected by the pandemic, in fact there was probably more work available than before and they could work successfully from home. The person - who I know professionally but have never met - shocked me by saying they had decided to leave their safe steady employment and go it alone. 

They told me it was a decision that had surprised them too because they had expected to work hard, pay into their pension and retire earlier but with good financial backup. The only drawback was a young child who would see less of them now but would have better financial security later. Now, they were jumping into the complete unknown in order to spend more time with their child because who knew what the future would bring. They did know that the decision would mean having to work harder later in life and for longer. 

The decision was taken in part by seeing the completely unpredictable and previously unimaginable effect of Covid on the lives of work colleagues as well as their own family members. It was, they decided, a price well worth paying.

The other person I met - in real life, for an exciting change - had seen their business collapse as a result of lockdown. That had led to them experienced a worsening of a mental health problem they already had and caused them to reconsider their direction of life travel. This person was still in the process of working out how best to manage the new life but was convinced it was the right decision and there would be no going back.  

I felt privileged to be taken into someone else's confidence and pleased to discover that other's were already making their own plans for what happens after lockdown eases. I've been reading so much about what businesses are expecting that I'd lost sight of the other side of the coin and it was good to reflect it is not just about businesses making choices, we can too.  

We are told some businesses who are keen to save costs will be encouraging people to work from home. 

Some workers will like that. They have become used to working from home and want to stay with that scenario. Others, who have been confined to one-bedroom living and deprived of social interaction for a long time, are keen to get back to the world of work and the water-cooler moments at the very least. For them, these past 15 months have been particularly hard. 

 

Other professionals - legal and accountancy firms for example - say trainees or newly qualified staff learn by seeing how the more experienced staff members operate, a type of learning by osmosis that cannot be picked up by Zoom or Teams meetings. They will be required to return to the office.

However it works, it seems like we’ll all need to learn to adapt to some degree. Hugs in or out? Handshakes? Palms together with a polite head bow and a quiet Namaste greeting? Or that elbow touching that seems so last year now?

And what about our physical appearance? The dress code from top to bottom, that is, rather than the smart head-to-waist ensemble that Zoom users favour. Will we be expected to dress up again in office outfits or will the strict delineation of the recent past be one of the first things to go in our new old world?  That might be hard if you’re someone whose boundaries are a bit more elastic than you would like. 

Decisions, decisions. We’ll all have to face them sooner or later, even our politicians. 

But what leaves me with a lasting feeling of good cheer is how some individuals are not waiting to be told how it’s going to work and are making their own decisions. They have used both emotion and reason to mull over the options, consider the consequences and decide what they believe will work best for them. 

I am very hopeful and wish my two mid-life crisis changelings all the very best. 

By Lulu Sinclair

Photo 1: Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash

Photo 2: Christina@wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Love The One You're With

The pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the communication skills of very small children, according to a recent study of some 50,000 children between the ages of four and five.

The survey was conducted for the Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity, and the findings indicate up to 25% of children in this age category have fallen behind over this past year. 

These figures may come as a surprise to those people who have not had much contact with small children but, to those of us who have, we have been expecting it. 

And while it’s bad for those children at the start of their school lives, I would argue it's as bad for children who are still at the nursery stage of schooling.

My own experience children of pre-school children (and I've observed and spent a fair bit of time with several of them over the past year) is that they, too, have at the very least stood still, if not actually taken a metaphorical step backwards. Those little people who were toddling towards life outside their immediate family have had their learning curves severely curtained. 

The children who were smiling and laughing and beginning to form words and make connections outside their family nucleus up to the middle of March last year have been abruptly pulled back to return to an isolated existence that we who can communicate easily have found very disheartening. If we can talk about and still feel bad, what must it mean for those small humans who are not yet able to get any words out, let alone the right ones.

We know that new-born babies are instinctive and animal-like, sensing what hurts, frightens and angers them and letting parents and carers know what’s going on inside through their cries. They need love, nurturing, attention and comfort and, with luck, they will grow and thrive. We also know, through recent studies, that unborn babies recognise their mother’s voice inside the womb, and they are attuned to it. They are programmed from even before their birth to be ready to respond to the first person they meet. 

For the non-specialist observer, we see that it’s as babies grow into toddlers and small children that they develop and learn from those who are ahead of the game the skills to move them from their own inner world into our infinitely more complicated but potentially even more fascinating world. 

So, what happens if it all stops still as it has for this past year? Who on earth knows? This is the first experience any of us has had of an event like this and we have no idea about long-term effects. We can only hope they will be few for those of this age but, as Babette Rothschild, explains in The Body Remembers, we may well store memories of traumatic events somatically - within our bodies - and, even if we’re not consciously aware of it, they may leave some of us with some scars.

Returning to my own experience, I’ve watched children who, a year ago, ran into nursery without a backward glance become hesitant to move away from those they have been so deeply connected to, while others have very clearly refused to separate. It feels a bit like Groundhog Day and a repeat and relearning of a process we thought we had moved beyond. And add to that the complication of adults wearing masks and you have a real problem in the making.

There is a nursery near where I live and I’m fortunate enough to have been given a bird’s eye view of the what’s going on both past and present. There’s a complete mixture of children with some parents dropping off their children from top-of-the-range cars while others drop off from around the corner, pushing the little ones in their buggies or giving them a helping hand via a scooter.

There’s a delay in the time the children arrive and the time the nursery opens. I see some parents chatting, laughing and chasing their child and/or children’s friends and really engaging in the moment. That’s a privilege and gives me a cheerful start to my day.

Others - I’m afraid I’ve particularly noticed mums doing it - are glued to their smart phones. A child may be walking near a tree or a bit of the garden and trying to point something out to said mother who continues, engrossed, with earpiece in ear, phone in hand and absolute disconnection with child. Gradually, the child gives up the attempt to engage with the adult and seems to begin a withdrawal process. I recognise what’s happening by the child’s body language as it closes in on itself. 

That’s what’s been happening to everyone this past year. Those of us with connections to little people need to keep this in mind. Put the phone to one side, concentrate on who you have in front of you and relearn the language. Make eye contact, use nursery rhymes to help the memory get going again and be there for them. Right now, small children need a very great deal of adult help to reconnect with the rest of us. 

By Lulu Sinclair

First photo: Colin Maynard on Unsplash

Second photo: Atikah Akhtar on Unsplash