The Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the country has rained unprecedented pain, suffering, loss and misery. On May 1, India recorded 401,993 new Coronavirus infections and 3,523 deaths in a span of 24 hours, the highest single-day tally in the history of the current pandemic which began — the evidence is overwhelming — in Wuhan, China in November 2019. Although the impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods and the economy, which is set to contract for the first time since independence, is well documented and discussed threadbare in the print media and television talk shows, its impact on children — contemporary India ungraciously hosts the world’s largest child and youth population below age 18 estimated at 400 million — has not received adequate attention.
With all education institutions, including the country’s 1.34 anganwadis (government-run pre-primaries) shutdown for over a year, and the vast majority of the country’s 1.5 million schools with an aggregate enrollment of 260 million children unable to switch to online learning, children’s learning loss is massive. Moreover children in anganwadis and government primaries who are entitled to a free mid-day meal have suffered severe nutrition loss.
Then there’s the issue of emotional, psychological and mental damage that the world’s largest child and adolescent population is experiencing as they struggle to cope with deaths of loved ones, parental job loss, dwindling household income and forced home confinement. “The signs that children will bear the scars of the pandemic for years to come are unmistakable,” says Henrietta Fore, executive director of Unicef, which has recently published Psychosocial Support for Children during Covid-19 — A Manual for Parents and Caregivers in collaboration with Childline India. This manual advises parents on ways and means to ensure that children survive the thousand unnatural shocks of the most devastating global pandemic in 100 years which has already claimed 3.3 million lives globally, though mercifully the toll of children is miniscule thus far. In our cover story this month we present advice from child health experts on how parents in India can protect and enable children to retain their optimism and courage during this time of crisis.
Also check out our Early Childhood story on the benefits and risks of the ancient tradition of swaddling newborns and infants, and our Middle Years essay on ways parents can motivate children during the pandemic — without nagging. Other columns of interest are Chennai-based gynaecologist Dr. Vasanthi Venkatesh’s advice to parents confronted with incidence of precocious puberty among young girl children. And in Ask Your Counselor, UK-based parenting expert Sue Atkins answers parents’ queries about sleep deprivation in children.