INTRODUCTION
COVID-19 has taken away aspects from children like any other person in the community. Children have limited understanding to the current pandemic. Many of them are unable to escape the physical and mental situation in this pandemic, they have little to no coping strategies and it’s hard for them to convey their feeling like adult. Nationwide study by the international journal of behavioural nutrition and physical activity found that children and youth were less active, more sedentary, played outside less, more recreational screen time and slept more in comparison to before COVID-19 restrictions.
Shifting to online learning environment has disrupted their daily routine and therapy sessions. Social needs and social distancing are very difficult to understand especially for children that have developmental and intellectual delays. Research show that fear can be contagious as children are sensitive to the emotional state of the adults that surround them. Browsing through social media platform and lack of supervision over the internet access has also increased vulnerability to online offenders, attempted fraud and sexually inappropriate content. This can increase deterioration, performance, aggression and regression.
Children can take up information from adults or through social media and interrupt it in a different way. Suppression of class activities and shift to online classes has isolated learning environment. Schools are required to provide structured activities to children. Physical activity is associated with decline in symptoms of anxiety and depression. Schools play a primary role in providing a constant daily calorie intake.
PARENTS and CHILDREN
INTRODUCTION
Parents can also no longer use previously successful mechanism to comfort their children like visiting neighbour families, going to theatre, going for short vacation, etc. this means children spend more time in their home, thus more parent children interaction due to isolation. Not all homes have a good environment as they may face abuse from parents or relative. This can cause mental and psychological issues as they usually find schools as avenue to report issues.
Time of uncertainty: Parents providing a structured routine to kids will make their life in a more structured way. (Wake up time, meal time, school time, fun time. Experimental teaching will also be nice as to identify flowers while taking a walk outside, identifying the colours outside, etc. Pulling in kid’s special interest like movies and relating it to real life. Like iron man saving us from aliens, health workers saving us from the virus.
Children with neuro developmental disorder or special needs require extra therapies to be done along the normal routine. This can be challenging at times, but parents need to be patient at these times of uncertainty.
If kids have a what of thought, as parents we normally let it off or say “it’s like that and ignore them”. But for some kids these thoughts keep on pilling up and create confusion and fear in their minds. You can say things like to relate and try to find proof. Like when the kids says: “am I going to be very sick and die”. When anxiety turn ON like a light switch and you cannot turn it OFF, this is the point you need to think of doing something about it. You can’t even talk with others, walk outside. This is the high point to better consult a physician.
Social media advantage: parents are posting some really good things that parents can do with their kids at home. Celebrities reading books to children, people doing doodling for kids, zoo watching for kids, etc. Internet can be used as a critical tool for social interaction, entertainment and education.
SOLUTION
Sharing hand hygiene, reaching out to loved ones through technology(facetime), knowing when to take a break from technology, take time to learn new skills which you always wanted to learn. Encourage children to play outside. Bond with parents or regular contact with parents as a routine.
What we can do: C.A.R.D
C: Comfort- it’s okay to be upset, limiting exposure to news and social media. Comfort you child in times of difficulty or when you see their mood change from times to times.
A: Ask- asking questions so that your child will open up. Ask the kids what they think about the virus, their interpretation on what is going on around. Ask about their day-to-day routine and how are they coping up with this new normal.
R: Relax- Relaxing your child by engaging in physical activities like playing sports (e.g.: football) with them. This in turn refreshes and rejuvenates them from the present discomfort.
D: Distract- Distracting them from problems by asking them about homework completion, activities, etc. Also, engaging them in other activities makes them focussed more on the present activity and worry less about their problems.
SOCIAL MEDIA
INTRODUCTION
Some of the fear’s parents have for their children is that their kid’s life will be ruined for ever. That we can see sometimes where people make poor decision which change their lives in a very dramatic way. Smart phone was released 10-15 years ago, so kids are going through tough terrains to figure out the technology and social media usage. Children often do social comparison, through social media. This triggers them to do activities which in normal circumstances wouldn’t even think of. This tendency and urge for move like this and never-ending followers have created a hatred among themselves which eventually leads to depression.
SOLUTION
Learn what apps kids are using, if possible, download those apps in your phone and try to understand how the app will affect the kids in a positive as well as negative ways.
Digital detox: by taking phone away whenever there is a family gathering, family meeting, social activities, night at the table, these can be an easy way. This can be hard at first, but by doing this, the kids are actually grateful so they can have a healthy interaction with people. Kids really doesn’t know how to self-regulate, so as parents, this seams a good start.
One of the other way is to help kids figure out their way. Why are they using phone too much, why are they posting online, what take so many photos with friends, rather than living in the moment. This is to let kids understand what is distracting them, draining their energy or energizing them. Make them understand that they have choices, choices to choose what to do, where to spend their time on. Once they understand this, we can see they start making good decisions and which are incline with their values.
Setting guidelines and boundaries to what is acceptable and what is not. Kids are not getting enough sleep, physical activities, lack of focus on school work, not enough face to face interaction. The main reason is they spend more time in Instagram, Facebook, snapchat and Tiktok.
FUNFACT: People who make positive use of social media for learning, understanding, communicating are the ones who actually use social media to the fullest.
VIDOEGAMES
INTRODUCTION
We have seen kids react violently when we suddenly turn off their video games or suddenly tell them to stop playing. One of the main reasons they react like this is that they don’t have a fully developed pre frontal cortex. The pre frontal cortex is a key component in the brain that involved in helping to control impulses and urges. When you have something like the video game turned off suddenly, thus the child has to feel all those negative emotions.
Another factor is the dopamine effect. The pleasure chemical in our brain since it is associated with feeling of euphoria, motivation and concentration. The alteration to the brain of a child playing video games is same as a person becoming intoxicated to a substance (addicted to alcohol). Video games have involved in such a way as to keep the gamers involved in the game through intermittent rewards which means a constant stream of dopamine release. A sudden stop of this (plugging of the video game suddenly) stop the dopamine effect and in turn the reaction will be upset, angry, depression. How will an alcoholic person react when you take away the bottle they are drinking at present.
Video games offer a temporary escape from real life. They also provide a fair amount of social engagement through online gaming and chat box. Video games can also increase our reflexes and processing speed when our thoughts take in place.
FUNFACT: Steam (An online video gaming platform) has come up with figures which says number of weekly users increased from 19 million users to 23.5 million post COVID.
SOLUTION
This can be reduced by 2 methods:
By establishing a clear rule as to what all time of the day gameplay is possible.
Enforce a transition period between gameplay and bedtime.
Sometimes, children seek videos games as a way to escape the reality and in this extreme case, their environment can be one of the possible factors. This can often result in a higher depression rate and needs constant attention.
CONCLUSION
If we want to restrict the spread of covid-19 to kids, one of the solutions is herd immunity (Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that can occur with some diseases when a sufficient percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through vaccination or previous infections, thereby reducing the likelihood of infection for individuals who lack immunity). By this, we can make sure the virus doesn’t reach children. Although this is a big target; this should be achieved fast and the only way is faster vaccination reach to everyone.
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