KOCHI: According to Ganga Kailas, a city-based child psychologist, age three to five is a period of rapid brain development. “Unfortunately, kids were unable to attend pre-school sessions last year. The situation is expected to continue this year too owing to the second wave. We will have to wait and see what effect this will have on their future,” she says.
Covid-19 is becoming more lethal with the second wave. A recent Harvard study revealed that as compared to the first wave, children may be more vulnerable to the infection this time. The kids who were to enrol in kindergarten this year are the worst affected, being forced to spend most of their time at home.
According to Ganga, pre-school shapes a child’s physical, social, emotional, moral, cognitive, and communicative development. It is also the place where they learn to socialise and develop extracurricular interests, which are equally important as academic knowledge.
“With classes going online, kids are developing an addiction to gadgets like mobile phones, televisions and computers, This is worrying many parents,” says Ganga, who is doing her research at the Kerala University on outdoor play and its influence on a child’s psycho-social adjustments.
Digital wave
“We are taking online classes for LKG and UKG students since last year and will continue to do so till the government issues permission for physical lessons,” says Gautham Menon, regional head, Time Kids Pvt Ltd, a leading kindergarten chain. The admission has dropped by 50 per cent of pre-Covid days,” he says. “However, we are trying to engage kids with several activities to prepare them for next year,” he adds.
Leaving kids to mobile phone and television is the only option for several working-class parents, especially for those living in nuclear families. For Vidya Dijeesh, mother of two kids aged one and three, it was difficult to manage work and home simultaneously. She has to eventually depend on the television or a smartphone to distract her kids so that she can work. “The pandemic has my three-year-old son stuck at home. He is becoming less social and more addicted to screens,” says Vidya, who is a freelance writer.
The chances of online classes being effective for kindergarteners are also less. “Making them sit in front of the laptop is a hurricane task,” says Ashwathy Deepu, a mother of a five-year-old. “My daughter was going to pre-school before the pandemic. After the outbreak, things were different, especially with the online classes. My husband and I had to make it a point to sit with our child to make her do the activities. This is extra work for us,” she says.