How can we quell fears and anxieties as schools reopen

Children had their own concerns, even if they were excited about returning to school; “How are we going to talk to our friends?” “How will we cope with the backlog of studies?”

Imagine a child who was in grade 7/8 and after two years of the pandemic, suddenly finds himself in grade 9/10, without having the opportunity to experience complex transitions through this time. The social and emotional dynamics, besides the academic demands, are very different between these 2 phases; how do we expect that this child will adapt easily to these marked shifts and expectations? 

Four types of development in a child

Developmentally, there are different skills children need to acquire as they move up in age and grade. There are primarily four types of skills that are central to any child’s development –

1. Educational skills, which parents and schools are usually most concerned about; the ability to learn, reason, read, write. It’s difficult to tell how much of it has taken a hit and it is a concern no doubt.

2. The other, and rather massive part of a child’s learning is her social skills, which has been affected profoundly with the lockdown and plays a vital role in life. It’s a skill that many kids might have lost or become underconfident about through this deprivation, and hence their trepidation to return to school and other social spaces.

3. Closely associated with this is emotional awareness and regulation, where a child understands her own feelings, is able to regulate herself in different spaces. This helps her, increasingly, to gather a sense of self and control over her life.

4. And finally, there are executive skills, like initiating a task and maintaining focus, managing one’s time and organising their days. For instance, when a child attended online class, there was every possibility that she would log in for class, turn off her video and go back to doing what she was doing, perhaps even sleeping. That’s different from sitting up, being attentive class after class, and being able to participate in class discussions.

Besides these, the need to develop a sense of independence is of utmost importance.

So, what are the likely challenges for kids who return to school after COVID?

Doing simple tasks are confidence-building exercises for children. Just the act of getting ready everyday in the morning within a certain time, getting into a school bus and manoeuvring through the boisterous atmosphere, focusing in class and doing classwork to completing homework could give them a sense of achievement at the end of the day. But these very simple tasks have become challenges for so many kids who have lost their connect and practice to do them. It is not a surprise that these same activities that were second nature to kids have started producing anxieties, fear of the unknown and a lack of confidence.

Paradoxically, with most parents and schools, perhaps due to their own worries about what their children have missed out on, their focus is on studies and catching up on what they might haver missed academically, while the social and emotional needs are often neglected.

We need to understand that if the child is emotionally or socially unsettled then learning isn’t going to happen. In any school or place of learning, if a child is anxious, fearful, sad, then learning hardly happens, and good educators know that. We should strive to create an emotionally safe space where curiosity and questioning thrives, where children want to learn.

How do we set things right?

The first thing to be done is to settle the children emotionally and socially. And to be able to do that, we as adults need to become aware of our own fears and address it. Understand that this might be a great opportunity to look at different pathways of development and education for our kids.

It could also be an opportunity to include our children in decision making, give them agency and freedom to make choices for their own lives and future. And once they exercise those choices with a degree of success, it will help them rebuild their confidence.

There needs to be a space to acknowledge the sense of loss that the pandemic has brought, be it loss of family, friends or skills. Both parents and schools could make a safe space for children to come together to talk about thoughts and feelings that are disturbing. They could have a mentor, maybe a teacher or an older cousin, with whom the child can have conversations without feeling judged.

Finally, listening to your child with an open heart without trying to find immediate solutions goes a long way in rebuilding trust and communication. That is the only way you can get into their world and help them through these difficult times.

(This column by different experts will appear every fortnight)

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