text>How to encourage, engage and take care of kids during this lockdown

How to encourage, engage and take care of kids during this lockdown

During this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 lockdown, young children are likely to be experiencing a disruption in their usual routine. Children may find school’s off, no homework very relieving for now but in the long run, social distancing, not able to play with friends may affect children’s mental and physical health.

To address this issue, we hosted a webinar, and beneficial insights were shared by Dr. Priti Arun and Dr. Namita Vadhavkar, that guided parents with effective strategies and tips to take encourage, engage and take care of their kids (2–12 years), during this lockdown time.

Let’s look at the few important points that were discussed during the session.

Make your child aware of the COVID-19.

Help your child understand the situation using illustrations and in interesting ways. Animations, comics, books explaining the COVID19 scenario, such as “Dave the Dog” can help parents start a conversation with their children about coronavirus and hopefully alleviate some of their anxiety. Visual methods can prove to be very effective to explain complex methods to children with Autism.

Engage children with activities but avoid Television and Mobile Phones.

A Smart Phone has been linked with behavioral problems in children. Be watchful about the screen exposure your children get to. Give children the freedom to do what they want but avoid TV and mobile. Encourage children to physical play, they can work on some projects, like coloring, indoor games, pretend play, etc.

Engage yourselves with your children through fun and interesting activities.

Consider this lockdown as a gift to spend time with your children and family, depending on the age of the child parents should engage themselves in some activities with their children like block playing for 3 to 5 years old, coloring and painting, leaf painting, etc.

With younger children, activities, like follow the thread/string, can be done, that will also help in enhancing the child’s gross motor, visual perception, motor planning, coordination, problem-solving skill.

Activities like pretend play is good for language or social-emotional learning for imagination, for the understanding of their world around them. For older children, games like Sudoku or chess or puzzles, mazes can be introduced to the child.

Also, parents can start to learn a new language with their children, plus they will learn it faster and also help the child learn a new language.

It is a great time to channelize children’s time and energy into something useful, in turn helping them to grow and develop.

Enable children to explore their own interests

It is important to ask the child what he or she would like to do or would like to know about. Because when a child himself is involved in any activity with his own choice, the level of learning is much faster. Also, having a schedule or more specifically a visual schedule for the day can boost the child’s enthusiasm.

Best time to help children achieve independence

Parents and professionals, need to aim at their independence and there is ample time to do that.

Involve children in all their everyday activities which involve things like eating food, brushing teeth, combing hair, helping in house chores, like any child, whether he has special needs or he is a neuro-typical child, they all love the importance, what they need in the house if they are treated just like us and the behavior towards them. Such activities would achieve the goal of occupational therapy by helping children feel independent.

Proper Diet, Exercise, Sleep, Hydration, and Control Screen Use.

Focus on ensuring that the child is hydrated, that his children are drinking adequate water, they are having proper food, their sleep is regulated, the sleeping pattern is consistent. There should not be too much exposure to media like television, cell phones, or iPads. Also have a balanced food, freshly cooked meal is the best thing for children, and for building immunity then it’s important that enough of fruits, vegetables, and protein is there in their diet.

Stay Home, Stay Safe and Stay Healthy

Watch the webinar below texthttps://youtu.be/8u1hWkzb6jA