Covid-19 Corrupts Childhood Development
- julkamen
- May 12, 2021
- 2 min read
Covid-19 is doing more damage than you think. The ongoing effects of social distancing have put up a huge wall to climb for adolescents, as it continues to be a lasting rule to follow throughout the pandemic. The ongoing lack of interactions and being away from school and other social scenes have started to challenge the making of new experiences and learning new life skills for the younger generations. The issue arising are both concerning and detrimental if a solution is not sought out soon.
It is mentioned that adolescents will learn to develop “abstract ideas” between the crucial ages of 12 and 18 years old. These ideas include “grasping higher math concepts, and developing moral philosophies, including rights and privileges” (Medlineplus Medical Encyclopedia). Typically, this age group would learn these skills via in person classes and would be more able to bounce ideas off of one another in order to gain these concepts, however with in-person lessons being at a minimal right now, these skills are not being gained. It is important to recognize and learn more about how adolescents are normally developing given a non-pandemic world, so that an effort can be made to help them still gain these crucial developments while being at home.
To prepare adolescents for life after the pandemic, parents should, “Talk to your child’s teacher regularly about academic progress and any issues they are having. Consider ideas about how to better support your child. If your child is older (in middle or high school), you may consider encouraging them to communicate directly with their teachers about progress, challenges, and learning needs”(NCIRD).This action will encourage students to work together with their parents and teachers on communication and social skills, so that their education can continue on the right path and a smaller developmental period is lost.
Children at home can also spend more time together as a family to help produce developmental benefits (Volkin). This would include playing games and taking part in different interactions such as a family dinner, to help with social development and communications as well. It is unsure when life will get back to normal, and because of this a push for extra communication and possible bonding with family will be needed for children and adolescents to properly meet these skill requirements “on time.” Childhood development of social and learning skills is one of the most important aspects of life as children will learn to interact in the future, and it needs to be a priority to make sure these goals are met in our post-pandemic world.
For more information about adolescent and childhood development you can refer to these links :
-http://rehabilitationpsychologist.org/resources/HANDBOOK_OF_CHILD_PSYCHOLOGY_SIXTH_EDITI.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK310532/
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