Young men are suffering and in need of the attention they deserve - Jayne Dowle

Some lads had dropped up to six months in developmental arrears, the study found.

More than a fifth (21 per cent) of all teachers agreed that boys had fallen behind girls during the pandemic, compared with only one per cent who said girls had been the bigger losers.

The gender gap also appeared to increase more for secondary pupils than primary.

Two-fifths of secondary teachers said boys had fallen further behind their “usual learning levels”.

With a son who is almost 20 and working at a supermarket since before the pandemic began, I hadn’t given the educational gender divide much thought of late. He generally escaped the Covid cut-off.

When he plays football, with a team of lads aged from 18 to 30, it’s difficult to put a precise age on any of them. And then my daughter, Lizzie, 16, held an end-of-school-days party at home last week.

Every one of the mixed group of 30 or so young people was very polite and respectful and they even cleared up after themselves at midnight, when everyone went home, mostly collected by their parents. Not like my son’s celebratory bash after he left school in 2018, when there were bodies strewn all over the living room, wrapped in blankets until next morning. Another sign of the times perhaps? More parental worry and anxiety than ever before.

For the party, my husband and I had banished ourselves to the attic with the dog, to be on hand in case of any problems, but not to interfere or worse – embarrass Lizzie. I did pop down a couple of times – once to collect our supper, and once to take the dog out – and was struck by how shy the boys seemed to be. How young they looked too. Not necessarily in stature, but something about many of them suggested a worrying degree of arrested development, when I compared them mentally to the friends Jack had at that age, who were never behind the door.

Looking at photographs the next day confirmed my hunch; Jack’s lot did look more mature, indeed were more mature.

Lizzie has long complained, in fact, that the boys in her years behave like ‘babies’ but I thought that she was just being a typical teenage girl, the same as it’s always been. I now realise, that in these times, there is no such thing as a ‘typical teenage’ anything.

I mentioned to my husband that in comparison, Lizzie’s male friends seemed more like Year 9s than Year 11s.

Then the penny dropped: those missing two years. Whilst I’m generalising obviously, and there will be many boys out there who are equally as mature as their sisters and classmates, I have been talking to parents about this situation. We have concluded that boys have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic because they tend to enjoy congregating in groups, like team activities more than solitary pursuits and find it more difficult to talk about their feelings than girls of the same age.

Girls, in general, are more independent and find it easier to be alone; for instance, the NFER study found that three in five girls (60.2 per cent) said they enjoyed the personal activity of reading during lockdown, compared to 48.9 per cent before. By contrast, only 48.7 per cent of boys said they had enjoyed reading during lockdowns.

I worry that all of this is storing up so much trouble for this generation. I spoke to one friend who has a son the same age as Jack. Her lad decided to go to university, to study for a degree in IT, but has dropped out this summer due to increasing feelings of isolation and poor mental and emotional health.

One young man, one very worried parent – who happens to be a teacher herself. I know that not all boys are suffering, but when parents notice, and parents have to pick up the pieces, it matters. I know that there will be people reading this tutting and calling this generation ‘a bunch of snowflakes’. National Service is not the answer, before anyone suggests it, despite political rumblings earlier this year that if it’s good enough for Ukrainians, conscripted at the age of 18, it’s good enough for the Brits.

Let’s just not go down that line, shall we? And instead, let’s give our lads the care, understanding and attention they deserve.

And remember that in a world that so often feels harsh and confusing for us all, whatever our age, they are carrying the can for the price of being a young man in 2022.