Covid-19 health crisis and months of lockdown affected everyone. It has brought a sense of anxiety, insecurity, and fear around the globe. Though we’re taking precautions and avoiding stepping out from home. Still, it seems difficult to protect our family and us from the impact of covid-19. Even the innocent smiles are getting severely affected by it. Confused??

Here we’re talking about the mental health of children. Unlike us, children are less affected physically by covid-19. But the same is not true for their mental health.

Last year, in a survey 1143 parents of 3-18 years participated from Italy and Spain. It aims to analyze the emotional & behavioral changes in their children. As per its report, 85.7% of parents observed such changes during the lockdown days. There were some frequent issues like difficulty in concentrating (76.6%), boredom (52%), irritability (39%), restlessness (38.8%), nervousness (38%), loneliness (31.3%), uneasiness (30.4%), and worries (30.1%).

Pardon me! If you’re getting scared from these statistics. My intention is not that. I’m only raising the issue, we must pay attention to. Before going forward and finding how we can check our child’s mental health? What are its possible solutions? We need to find out why it is happening? What is making our children SICK?

Why is it happening?

Social Media Exposure: With lockdown restrictions, children are being confined within the boundaries. And are being forced to spend all their time at home. As a result, they are spending most of their time on the internet. It brings the opportunity to learn, play and socialize with friends without stepping out. We can’t ignore its risk factor. Some of those are online sexual abuse, cyberbullying, and available harmful content.

Adding to this. children are being scared or uncomfortable to discuss with their elders. This means more stress, more anxiety, and more restlessness. Thus, it’s important to set boundaries and expectations for internet use in the family.

Interaction with Friends: Imagine when we grown-ups are being pissed off and miss meeting friends and family. How would they feel? They have limited things to do within tons of free time. And still, they have a do's and don'ts list at home. Sometimes, even parents are unable to spend quality time with their children. They are being left alone to identify ways to make things interesting for themselves. The level of boredom has been drastically increased among children during a lockdown. This is also affecting creativity and grasping power along with their mental health.

Corona Vibes: It’s everywhere! Trust me from online to offline, it’s everywhere. On one side, social media and news channels are over-filled with updates of rising cases, death and other mishappenings. On the other hand, older members of the family are discussing the same whole day over a call. A child may not be able to understand the whole stuff completely, he/she can sense fear, anxiety and negative vibes. Moreover, no one is there to talk and positively answer their curiosity.

If you don't agree, I request you to ask a few questions from your child on covid-19. Their response would be enough to understand the impact of corona vibes on their mental health.

Knowledge: How aware your child is about the coronavirus, its symptoms, necessary precautions, etc? It’s important because rumors are all around. The corona vibes have made them scared of doing anything. Even dreaming of going back to playgrounds and meeting friends and beloved relatives. The situation is worse with children who have lost their loved ones or some known person due to the disease. So it’s important to provide the necessary knowledge to them.

Initially, people were enjoying lockdown days. As time passes, due to financial burden and other challenges things have changed for everyone. And all this is affecting children. Let’s discuss some tips to help our children and bring back their smiles and childhood.

Share: Share true information with children about the situation. Tell them what is coronavirus? How can we protect ourselves? How many people have been recovered so far? Share 3-4 positive news or stories with them every day.

Care: Care for your child’s needs. If he/she is asking for your time, give them. If he/she is asking weird questions, answer them. Don’t just feed and allow them to play/chat online. Instead, play with them. Join them in solving puzzles, making drawings or even chit-chat about their friends.

Dare: We too are spending lots of time over the internet, long phone calls, lying on a couch and misbehaving sometimes for no reason. Then it’s unfair to punish our children for the same. It’s important to handle their mistakes properly rather than scolding and saying “How dare you? How could you do that? Are you out of your mind? Because yes! Like you, your child is also pissed-off at being at home, depressed about not having a fun time with friends. Like you, your child is also out of his mind.