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Life as the "New Normal" continues

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It is a difficult time all round. We have now completed four months since the lockdown was first announced. Most of you continue to juggle between household chores, professional commitments and child care without any third party support. Day cares remain closed, and understandably so, the risk is still too high. Honestly, even if day cares were to be allowed to reopen, it would take a lot of weighing the pros and cons to get to the stage where you would be comfortable in sending your children out of the house.

Parents, lots of strength to you. You are all heroes for managing this.

But things obviously are difficult for children too. For the smaller ones, perhaps this is just the way of life they know. Staying inside the house is all they can remember having ever done. But the slightly older ones are facing their own challenges. And when you share those challenges with us, we can only hope to offer an encouraging word of hope.

A child, when he went out on a drive with his parents, only wanted to understand why he could not get out of the car or stop at school like he used to. Another child was missing the didis at daycare, even though it's been four months since she last met with them. For yet another child, the summer camp was something to look forward to, since it was the only way there was a routine to follow and friends to meet with. For another child, it was a platform to just communicate even with teachers she had met for the first time.

There is so much energy inside all these children, and not much of an outlet left for it. The energy is physical, it is emotional, and can sometimes just burst out of them as what may be perceived as a tantrum.

At the same time, understandably so, you also need an outlet for all the emotions inside of you. This is a change for everyone, the only difference is that as adults we may be able to rationalize it, while kids cannot.

Communicate. With your partner, with your children. Give your children the space to communicate too. Find the fun moments during the day. Focus on those. Communicate with your friends, your extended families. Let the children have a sense of routine, like you do. It could be whatever works best for you, but some routine should be there, including the time to sleep and the time to wake up. If they have school, they should attend regularly- while you may feel at times that the learning is patchy, it's about your child feeling a sense of ownership with something that is theirs. Regulate their meal times. Whatever can be done normally, should be done normally. Set aside family time for just fun activities.

And remember, it's ok to feel the pressure from all of it at times. Find your own space to let it pass. This too shall pass.
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