Effects of Covid-19 on Children’s Social Connections

Covid-19 is wreaking havoc all over the world, this virus is deadly in more ways than one. Being a mother of four, the death I am referring to is the death of my children’s social connections with family and friends.

These back-and-forth lockdowns are leaving our children feeling lost, alone, and scared. One of the first instincts a child has is to bond and socialize and this pandemic has them in constant fear of getting close to people or giving their grandparents a hug or a kiss. The sadness I see on my children’s faces when I tell them they, once again will not be able to return to school or that we still cannot go visit our family breaks my heart.

So how can we restore even a slight resemblance of the world they use to know?

Connect with your child’s teacher and ask them to contact your child’s class mates asking parents if they would like their child to be included in weekly virtual meeting.

Talk with family and friends and try to set-up weekly video chats. During these chats you can discuss what board games you each have at home, even if you don’t have matching games you can modify some rules to make it work or better yet, you can create your own board games and play it together.

Charades is a fun and easy game that can be played with little to no materials needed. Even through they may be in front of a screen, charades can get them up and moving while getting that social connection with someone they may be missing. You can create weekly themes, such as superheroes, cartoon characters, movies, or sports.

An alternative to charades could be a quick draw game, in many digital meeting apps you are able to draw directly of the screen for your family and/or friends to see and guess.

Organize a scavenger hunt, make it common household items that most families would have. Depending on the age and/or capabilities of the children have them search for certain colours or shapes instead of specific items.

Some other activities you could do together are freeze dance, improv night, card games, cooking, or arts and crafts.

The main idea is to try to recreate the social interactions you would have with your family and friends. We have to adapt to our “new” world while maintaining our social connections in any way possible.