Jaipur: Pandemic leaves kids with no play, no school

JAIPUR: For kindergarten kids, playschools are their first steps to the formal and social world. Outside their cocooned home environment, here they feel secure enough among children of their age, almost similar height, likes and dislikes, to mingle and make friends.
Sadly, Covid pandemic has stolen away their sort of home away from home. Worse still, they are shut out from going to malls, zoos, or even social and sometimes family gatherings. Their physical and social isolation at this developmental stage for a prolonged period is reaching a tipping point, feel many parents.

“I can no longer control my son with phones or television. Very often, he is seeking out friends to play, and demanding to go out to the park or just any place outside the home confinement,” says Shivang Malhotra, whose son is in KG. Malhotra says his five-year old’s vocal tones have become slightly shriller, with occasions of insistence on activities he likes to do growing by the day.
It’s been more than a year since the schools were closed. Till a month ago when the Covid pandemic seemed to be fading out, parents were expecting the schools to reopen and a resetting to normalcy would begin after the emotionally challenging phase.
Dr Savita Jagawat, a senior clinical psychologist said the prolonged confinement at home and addiction to gadgets can affect the children’s cognitive power, attention span, memory and intelligent quotient and also lead to psychosocial and mental health implications which could be both short-term and long term.
“Kids between three-six years of age need emotional gratification through various means. But at that age, they can neither understand a problem nor express the mental distress they are in for not getting what they want. If things of their likes are denied to them regularly, that can reflect negatively in their behaviour and lead to psychological disorders,” she said.
In the formal, yet relaxed atmosphere of the playschools, children are drawn to activities like colouring the drawings, singing, dancing, and playing games, etc. They take part in national day celebrations, festivals and other social occasions.
Priya Chadha, who teaches nursery classes at a private playschool, said, “Those kids who were supposed to take admission in the playschool but could not do so due to the pandemic have suffered the most because the activities undertaken for them in the school cannot be replicated at home or through online. It might have, in some measure, stunted their mental development.”
She said the bigger worry is that there is no clarity as to when they will come back to school again. “They have already lost one complete year and they cannot afford to miss another one. Unfortunately, the current Covid situation does not generate enough optimism,” added Chadha.
Jagawat said that schools need to create awareness among parents about the children’s psychological needs. Parents should also look out for manifestation of behavioural problems in kids early on so that they can find remedy, she added.