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How Did The Covid-19 Pandemic Affect Children’s Education And Their Lifestyle?

Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic on kids

“The world doesn’t wait for anyone”, before 2019, we all believed that. But the Covid-19 Pandemic discarded all our assumptions and left the world at a standstill. For sure the whole world was affected by this pandemic but our torchbearers (the children) were the worst affected.
The Corona virus had turned the lives of children upside down. Their whole routine got disturbed with schools being completely shut down. Their life was confined to a six inches screen. They were entirely dependent on their smartphones even for studying. Isolation with no access to schools, playgrounds took a lot of toll on children’s health and mental well-being, as well.

How did Covid-19 Pandemic Affect Children’s Education?

According to a report by Forbes, in March 2020 nearly 862 million children, which is nearly half of the world’s population, couldn’t attend schools due to Covid-19 pandemic. This figure is not all, it kept on increasing in the later period.
Governments of many countries were trying to ease some things. They took initiatives to stress the importance of online education.
But for most of the children, these efforts somehow could not yield the desired results. Read the points below to know why:-

  1. Institutes in remote areas were lacking proper internet connectivity and they struggled hard to take classes regularly. Many times teachers had to cancel or postpone their classes due to poor internet connection or technical issues. And in some cases, Students living in secluded areas had put so much effort even for getting network signals, forget speedy connections.
  2. Do you really think the brains of young children are developed enough that they learn by concentrating on a 6 inches screen? (Most of the parents could not afford laptops or PC’s,only mobile phones were helping them). Definitely not! Students were very young to understand even the concept of online education. For most of  them, laptops and mobile phones were just a gadget for playing games and talking.
  3. Too much exposure to blue screens made kids lazy, it affected their mental as well as their physical growth. Due to Covid-19 pandemic they couldn’t play outside or do any physical activity. It pushed them further towards isolation and lethargy.As a result, the brains of children lost efficiency in retaining information for long.
  4. Children need a guardian to sit with them during the class. Working parents could not manage to do that and that is why many of them could not even attend these lectures.
  5. Students tend to learn by their surroundings. In schools, they get motivated to learn by observing their fellow mates. But while attending lectures at home, most of them lacked focus and lost the zeal in learning which they had before.
  6. Lack of gadgets also hindered the education of many children. Many parents could not afford smartphones or laptops . As a result, many children were deprived from online classes.
  7. Children, parents and even the educators did not take these classes seriously and took lectures just for the sake of it. The lectures  were not regular as well.

Children’s education was badly affected by COVID-19 pandemic. Even if parents managed to overcome all these problems, their education is not just about reading and writing. Extra curricular activities, learning while playing is as much important for a child’s growth. And it is not far from possible in online classes. Their education had become paralyzed after the pandemic.

Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Lifestyle of Children

With Covid-19 pandemic ranging in full force, smartphone addiction has increased manifold in the children. The lives of our children were limited to the four walls and only smartphones were left as a medium to connect them with the outer world.
As a result :

  • Children started suffering from nomophobia. They started spending their whole day ogling on screens. The exponential rise in screen times proved to be very harmful for children. 
  • Children could not seem to concentrate on their studies, they lost the zeal in learning they had before.
  • They started struggling from behavioral issues. 
  • Cyber crimes also took a toll during the Corona period and sadly most of the victims of these online predators were young children. 
  • Sadly, some children even suffered from depression due to isolation, their mental health started deteriorating. 
  • Obesity in children has also become very common.

What can you do so that your Child’s life falls back into place?

Parents or guardians are responsible to ensure that there isn’t any compromise in the overall growth of our children. There is an uncertainty that when everything will get back to normal but as a parent, you can extend your support to the children by doing these little efforts.

Interact

Interact as much as you can with your child, encourage them to release their pent-up feelings.Try to listen to them and also talk to them. Make them feel valuable.

Prepare A Schedule

Prepare a proper time table for them. Maybe stick that into your living room or fridge, make your child follow it. A proper daily schedule will help in your child’s development irrespective of what’s happening in the environment. Also, don’t force them to just keep studying the whole day, involve them in simple household chores, make room for leisure time for kindling their creativity.

Review Their Online Activity

Try to keep a check on their online activity by child activity restricting apps on their smart devices. Parental control apps like Bit Guardian Parental Control are very helpful in protecting your child from predators sitting behind the screens. With its app time limit feature, it will  also assist you in monitoring your child’s screen time. Just install this app on your as well as your child’s phone and you are good to go.

Engage Your Child in Physical Activities

Involve some physical activity like Yoga or Zumba or anything fun in your child’s routine. Don’t forget to do that yourselves. After all, we are their role models, they will only imitate our actions.

Encourage fun learning

Try to think out of the box, and find some ways to make your child learn something new everyday. Maybe some quizzes or cue cards or colorful books will attract your child to learn more rather than just ogling on smartphones.

From children’s academic success to social skills, everything was affected  due to Covid-19 pandemic. Things will take time to get back to normal. But as a parent you can do your bit by at least keeping them safe from harmful blue screens. An exponential rise is seen in use of electronic gadgets during lock-down. Parental control apps like Bit Guardian proved to be very helpful in controlling their screen times during lock-down.

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About author

Somya Shrimal is a content writer by profession and by heart. She loves to write about technology, lifestyle, fashion and books. Being an electrical engineer , she has a passion to learn and try new things. Somya likes reading, writing, travelling and of course food.
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