Will the very young know what normal public interaction is like once life goes back to being regular?

Rithu Dravid

Shushhhhh moms working– that’s something that kids are not used to hearing in the middle of the day. Because they would be in school and mom in the office. But now these last two years.

“The ‘shush moms working’ has annoyed my daughter a lot, to the extent she has labelled me a parrot, saying I keep chanting the same thing over and over again,” says Annie, the mother of a nine-year-old.

Many parents are concerned about keeping their children at home; they feel it’s like cutting off their wings. Lavanya is one of the many parents who faced the problem of managing her four-year-old daughter, Shara, who was always an active child, who became very restless. “She was ever ready to wear a mask and leave home, even if it was just for a walk. Just getting out of the house was enough for her. Forget school, she could not go for any classes or even go out to play,” says Lavanya.

Sitting at home Shara learnt to create her own Instagram reels. But she also learnt to mimic the actors she liked and clad herself in fancy clothes.

An upsurge in tantrums and the stubborn behaviour in the smaller kids also surfaced as they felt cooped up at home. This forced many parents to get stricter. Amaresh, a father of two kids, says: “The increase in screen time has doubled. Besides online classes, the addiction with mobile phones is a never ending issue. My son even takes the mobile phone to the restroom!” This upset him and he was at a loss how to handle this challenge.

Some parents feel that their children have picked up some good skills too. Varsha feels that her son has learnt to be tech savvy during the lockdown and her daughter Maaira has even learnt the art of cooking by looking at videos online. “My son, Yash has even created a youtube channel and has many followers and likes for the same and has started talking with an American accent! My daughter cooks yummy pasta for her mother,” says she. Varsha feels she has spent quality time with her children during the lockdown and her kids have managed it well .

Closing schools during the pandemic may have affected the formal education of children. But more importantly, it has affected the social development and interaction among the children. Many parents feel that their children have become introverts. Their outdoor activities and hobby classes have come to a halt. They have lost interest in those activities or feel they have forgotten it all.

But it has been more difficult for parents with special children. “The speech gains by my daughter in her special school seem to have been wasted away and the difficulty in teaching a autistic child is going to be a task,” says Priyamani .

Experts call it regression -- the term to describe when children step back, or regress, in a skill they have developed or a behavior they’ve mastered. Regression is a normal part of childhood development, but in the age of COVID-19, experts say it’s more widespread than normal.

As a mother and a frontline worker, Seema found it extremely difficult to balance the act of managing her little one and working from home occasionally. “Babies and children are being affected by the secondary indirect impact of the virus. As a medical professional my presence at the hospital was necessary, yet I always feared that I would bring back home the virus,” says she.

The agony of the pandemic and the stress has shunned the growth of our children moans Seema.