Reopening of Schools- Is it a Treat or Threat???

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 cases in India started to increase in the second week of March 2020. In order to limit community, spread of the Covid-19, as like other countries, the Indian Government declared a complete lockdown from March 25, 2020, restricting the movement of whole population of 1.38 billion people in India. Initially it was planned to last for about 21 days but it was extended to May 31, 2020, with conditional relaxation from May 3, 2020.Many research findings reveals that most of the school students experienced stress, anxiety, depression, distress, anorexia, sleep disturbances, etc., during this period.
The Covid-19 outbreak has created an enormous variation in the normal routine of the school going children. During this pandemic, they were introduced to a new mode of teaching i.e. online classes. Even though they considered it as a threat in the beginning, they were used to it later. Several studies on mental health among school going children revealed that they experienced stress, anxiety, depression, hyperactivity, inattention, etc. The students lost their interest in studying which resulted in poor academic performance. After facing this pandemic more than a couple of year, the students tend to adapt the new normal life. They started to forget their previous routine like travelling to school, regular classroom teaching, offline examinations, progress card issuing etc.,
The schools were reopened after this corona outbreak and this has created a major disturbance in the mental health of the school students. Numerous studies focused on the mental health issues that occurred due to quarantine and the impact of the online classes, very few studies were conducted to reveal the fact about the aftermath of school reopening. During the quarantine and also after school reopening many parents are struggling to face their children. The parents and the children find it difficult to deal with the current scenario. Here are few tips to the parents to deal with their child’s mental health.