PARENTING KIDS DURING LOCK-DOWN

Jeena Shrestha

Corona virus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered strain from corona virus family  which was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and rapidly spread all over the world as a pandemic.

The most common symptoms are: fever, cough, and shortness of breath or breathing difficulties. In more severe cases infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome and even death. The period within which the symptoms would appear is 2-14 days.

This lock-down period can be boring, fearful and scary as well for the children . And this fear and stigma will consequently make the situation even worse than before.Because of the stress level about pandemic of COVID-19, various type of mental effects can be seen in individual like restlessness, feeling of isolation, sad and depress, panic, anxious, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, decrease in the level of working activity, anger etc. During this home quarantine period, it depends on how the parents shows reactions to the situation towards their children.

As the novel corona virus outbreak continues to take hold all over the world. Millions of people are locked down at home to stay safe and to break the chain of spread. But for children, this situation can be fearful, scary and boring too. We all know that, we are feeling anxious, panic about corona virus. But fear and stigma makes the condition worse than before. During these home quarantine periods, it depends on how the parents shows reactions to the problem depends upon their family background level, community and education level etc. and there is also individual difference how we cope to the situation and problem. Because of the stress level about pandemic of COVID-19, various type of mental effects can be seen in individual like restlessness, feeling of isolation, sad and depress, panic, anxious, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, decrease in the level of working activity, anger etc.

In case of children various mental effects can be seen like thumb sucking, bed wetting, insecure attachment, crying and staring etc. Such type of symptoms depends upon the developmental task and age of children.

HERE ARE SOME TIPS TO KEEP THE CHILDREN MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY HEALTHY DURING HOME QUARANTINE PERIOD

• Engage them in various activities by involving and support them to learn different developmental skill like exercise, meditation, yoga, teaching household activity like cooking, washing, cleaning etc. according to their capacity and age.
• Limit internet surfing and social media by avoiding hanging on the phone for long time and during pandemic situation help the children to limit and maintain social distance but not mental distance.
• Engage them in such activity which develops their intellectual and cognitive level through games like playing chess, drawing, reading books and focus on creative activity depending on their developmental task.
• Maintain a daily routine because nowadays due to outbreak of corona virus schools are closed. So that parents should maintain children’s usual meal and sleep as well as involve them in creating a new daily plan and interact them that how they want to spend their day. Make offline activities like fun games, dance, and play with children. Help them to talk with friends, relatives, teachers in video chat, Skype, phone etc. to make them refresh and update.
• Appreciate and reinforce to the children in their work which reflects positive attitude and hope which motivates them to work further in coming days.
• Keep the children with family members especially with grandparents by telling and listening story which helps them to get refresh and makes them happy. It also helps the children to be more socialized.
• In these lock-down periods, make a plan and spend most of the quality time with children by involving in different creative activity.
• Understand their feelings, emotion and make them feel that they are not alone. Create such environment that they can easily share their problems, feelings without any hesitation and fear. Make calm and sound home environment between these quarantine periods.
• Maintain children’s physical and mental health by focusing on healthy and nutritious balance diet for proper function and development
• Do talk about the corona virus according to the children education and age level and interact them positively by emphasizing the importance of effective measures including hand washing with soap and water, sanitizer, use of mask, gloves etc.
• Parents should observe their own technology use. When parents are spending most of their time into news or social media feeds and its makes them more stressful than before, children can notice. So that parents should separate time and schedule for their own mental health too.
• Parents can communicate with teachers about what educational online and offline activities children can do
• Seek professional support and help if they have any problem which they are unable to ventilate their feelings, emotions. If needed visit to the counselor.