Ramesh’s son is six years old; he lives with his parents in a flat in Delhi. His father is in a private job and his mother is a housewife. He studies in a government school in Delhi. But after one year of his admission, his school has closed due to the pandemic. Since then, he has never been to school and never gone outside his house. Now due to psychological pressure, he lost his interest to study anything inside the home.
A child’s ability to learn and engage with a topic is severely restricted in online education.
His father said he has forgotten everything that he learned in one year of school. Almost a similar situation is in most families because of the virus outbreak. In this situation, most children are not just getting alienated but also lose their interest in learning and doing anything. Many reports reveal that most children, due to the coronavirus outbreak, are facing many problems. Their movement and interaction with other children outside of their home have been strictly restricted.
They are not able to go outside their home and are not able to do anything that they want. Not just government schools but private schools too have been closed, although many private and government schools are providing some learning materials and online classes for their student. But it is not enough; they need more things including entertainment and free space inside their home so that they could survive freely in a limited periphery.
How Is The Coronavirus Affecting Your Child?
The second wave of coronavirus in India has created a panic situation in Indian society, especially in Delhi, this virus outbreak has infected a large population, and thousands of people have died till now. Due to fear of the second wave virus outbreak, most parents have strictly restricted the movement of their child, they cannot move anywhere outside of their home. They cannot even meet with their friends and cannot play with neighborhood children.
Most of the children’s parks are empty nowadays, not just government but also parents have strictly restricted visits there with children. Inside the home, due to the kind of social values and ethics that does not allow a mutual relation between child and parent, most children are not able to share their emotional feelings with their parents or elder siblings. They don’t feel free and safe to do anything inside their home. All the time, children are feeling loneliness and the pressure of different irrational ethics and social values.
All these ethics and values often strictly restrict their behavior and psychologically affect their thinking and perception too. Besides, during this period, pressure to attend online classes from both parents and teachers is another tyrannical condition that suppresses their movement and activities in the home. This condition also affects children’s minds and thinking closely leading to parent’s rude behavior with their children. The system of online class, which is technologically more controlled, leads to a different kind of psychological distress among the children on the one hand and leads to an individualistic notion among them on the other hand.
How Do You Engage With Your Child?
Virus outbreak in India has redefined not just our social life but also brought out a significant change in our relationships and social values. Among children, this has created a frustrating and more disturbing situation and it is silently affecting children’s minds and behavior. For this reason, it is an urgent need that parents should handle this entire situation scientifically without fear of virus infection.
A scientific way of life during this pandemic will help every family member to develop the notion of fearlessness. It also leads the children to be psychologically more comfortable in their movement and activities inside the home.
Preparing A Plan
During this virus outbreak, parents should prepare a plan so that they can engage consciously with their children. It should be scientifically organized and more engaging for children focussing on entertainment and creativity. In this plan, different types of activities including social and cultural ones should be included as it collectively ensures the participation of each family member. Social and cultural activities such as games, dance, and singing develop not just confidence but also the notion of fearlessness among the family members and children.
Frequent activities when the entire family comes together will really help the child.
These activities should happen every day at a different time so that children can prepare themselves for this. This strategy, in other words, will make children as well as family members more confident and also psychologically more comfortable in doing anything inside the home. Besides, inclusions of different types of cultural activities such as painting, dance, and singing that ensure equal participation of each family member create a notion of creativity among the family member and children.
Especially, cultural activities, during the pandemic, influence children at two levels. First, it would be psychologically engaging and more effective to develop a scientific notion among children. Second, it would develop an interest in creative things among your children and also lead children toward learning.
Limit The Use Of News Channels And Social Media
Social media and news channels have been the main sources of fear and misinformation globally during the virus outbreak. It has deeply affected human life. It has also brought out significant changes to children’s behavior. We have witnessed, during the pandemic, most news channels and social media have spread misinformation and fake news very fast. Showing different types of disturbing news stories has created unnecessary fear and panic across society.
This has disturbed everyone including children psychologically and emotionally. Therefore, a family member should use news channels and social media just to get factual information and updates on this virus outbreak. Some programs, documentary, and films which have been available on different social media sites may be used collectively so that each family member along with children could participate to learn from them. Children will develop more interest in learning through this activity.