I have had to resort to On-line consultation with families and children for the last four months. Every time I request the family to bring a child to the camera, I find the resistance of children to face the camera. Parents feel exhausted in keeping children use the screen for on line classes which might be even five hours in a day. It is not a good practice for children to be on the line screen beyond an hour or so. But we have conveniently made it five or more hours.
There were several options under discussion in the media to bring children back to school in a a phased manner. One suggestion was that parents offer to be volunteers so that children are helped to practice physical distancing in the school. During the leisure times, children would need reminders about the distancing. The class rooms had to be reorganised with half children coming at one time and the other half coming next week or divide the week between two groups of the same class. So many other suggestions appeared in teh medial space. The Indian Academy of Paediatrics proposed a novel approach, which to me was practice. It remains in paper.
I have come to feel suffocated by the least attention children receive for their emotional and social wellness. Just because the on-line classes are offered, have be offered a fail deal during this pandemic season. Why was not a task force created to find a way forward now that one academic year is lost to children!
Yes, let me wish that, this poem that suggests that 'His name is today' would move us. One of the things Anna and I did during this period is to visit a few families where there are children and get to know their way of relating during the difficult time. A few families who dropped in to visit us made us feel that even parents needed conversation time!
When the conversation time with families exceeded the usual physical consultation time during the On-line consultation, one person commented that it does not have to be so long. I felt miserable hearing this, because, listening to others at a time like this is the least we can do to carry others during a time when they live isolated. A family told me yesterday that it is now six months since they took their three year old son for an outing!
How terrible to make children prisoners! As adults, we owe a lot more to children and find an immediate creative response to the enforced distancing we impose on children.
I have serious doubts that the vitamin D level would have dropped in many children now that they shave been home bound without exposure to sunlight or physical activities. Their attention would have automatically dropped following vitamin deficiency. Out of sixty five children whose vitamin D was done after consultation last month, only one and level above 30, definitely an alarming situation! I wish we would promote giving vitamin D supplementation at least once a month for all children below 8 years!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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