The lockdown, social distance, and mobility restrictions as measures to stop further spread of Covid 19 infection have altered the way we conduct our life.
In the changing world, unlike adults, children confront many unique problems where their wellbeing, physical and mental health are negatively impacted. What is even more worrisome is that such lockdown-induced child mental health issues often remain unrecognized, unaddressed and strike children silently.
A recently concluded research by the School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University with 2,426 children and adolescents found that the median time spent in physical activities has decreased drastically, from 540 min/week (pre-pandemic) to 105 min/week (during the pandemic). Notably, the physical inactiveness among the students has increased from 21.3% to 65.6%. It further revealed, owing to prolonged school closures, home confinement, and cessation of daily activities; the pandemic exhibited an adverse impact on children’s mental well-being.
Another research study by ARNEC (Asian-pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood) in 30 countries with 684 ECD communities in the region, has shown that over 50% of families experienced pandemic-induced stress in the Asia-Pacific region. Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines are worst off with over 70% of families under significant stress.
In a country like India, the immediate implication is reflected through increased unemployment, lost income, unorganized reverse migration, food insecurity and pressures of being in a risk zone. Needless to say, this stress will further multiply in households having low education and less economic means. Children with inadequate socio-emotional skills and absence of positive parenting, will struggle to cope with the hard situation and this will consequently augment their psycho-social troubles.
A child’s socio-emotional abilities reflect his mental health and behaviour to accommodate and grow optimally even during a tough time like Covid 19. Children should be capacitated to be strong in their socio-emotion skills to manage their emotions, maintain a positive relationship at home and make rational decisions. This not only helps them to cope with the stress but also provides confidence in adapting with the new normal in an evolving situation. Three major approaches outlined below will help parents better nurture and raise their children in this challenging time.
Productive engagement
With schools being closed, playground shut down, restricted interaction with next-door friends, a sheer sense of aloofness is slowly creeping into young minds which is often not perceptible by parents. This is the critical time, parents need to be more engaged and involved with their children as they are away from their peers for a long time. Parents should play with children indoors, become more interactive with them, and build a mind equivalence with them. These are viewed as therapeutic interventions for children, isolated during this pandemic. Parents when caringly engage with children in productive and mentally stimulating activities like reading books, writing, local art and craft, traditional games, folk song and dance, puzzles, quizzes, role play, etc; it boosts children’s coping capacity to mitigate the stress and many harmful consequences are avoided.
Many parents tend to turn teachers for their children and mount the pressure to complete school syllabus which is unpleasant intervention and may prove to be detrimental to child psychology. However, a responsible parent will assist his child in learning exercise in a playful environment rather than creating pressure points.
Effective dealing with emotion
When things around them happen differently in a tough situation like this pandemic, the usual deportment of children is adversely impacted and it is very likely they exhibit alteration in their emotion. This may bring much of the annoyance to parents, but this delicate issue must be handled efficiently. In general, due to lack of self-awareness, most of the children are unable to express their emotion and it may lead to toxic stress without much knowledge of their parents. In this unprecedented environment, children may experience noxious anxiety, a fear of dying, the panic of their relatives dying, chances of infection, and expensive treatment. This is the time when many parents themselves confront some degree of emotional disintegration; children become more vulnerable to violence, abuse inflicting an untoward depression. Therefore, parents should be better skilled to observe and manage such changes in the emotion of their children.
WHO suggested simple approaches in dealing with the children’s emotions are to love them, give them attention and create scope for them to express emotions through different creative activities, interaction with the adult especially with the old people, individual life experience sharing, and reinstating family togetherness and fun activities.
Better communication
Parents must be an effective communicator not only at work but also at home with their children. Some of the studies conducted in the recent past, indicate children below ten years are not cognizant about the virus and scale of damage it is causing; rather they pick up bits and pieces about the pandemic from TV and adult conversation. On the other side, children aged more than ten years inclined to accumulating information about the disease and its severity. The fear is far more intensive and recurrent in the minds of these children. Such differential perception of children warrants a better, non-judgemental, and positive communication by the parents about the diseases, precaution, and treatment. Parents, in this context, should bring their children to the exposure of reliable and unambiguous information sources and this will debunk many of their untrue assumptions and myths surrounding Covid 19. This will provide them mental bliss by reducing unreasonable and exaggerated threat perception.
(The authors are development communication specialists; views are personal)