Pandemic and early childhood socio-emotional development
Today there are many parents who, for fear of the pandemic, have made the decision to withdraw their children from kindergartens, and even do not take them to the parks, with the premise that in those places there is a great probability of contracting the virus.
Although it is true, where there are many people there is a probability of contracting many viruses and not only this one that is fashionable, we cannot forget that apart from the physical health of the infant, we find emotional health and this is developed through interaction with other persons.
Socialization, an important factor that we cannot ignore
In the early stage, the child begins to socialize and his first agents of socialization are his parents; from crying, smiling, or babbling, the little one is trying to establish socialization with his environment.
Both parents and relatives or other children around him will be essential factors in socio-emotional development at an early age. The fixed glances towards people, words, smiles, cries, tantrums, bites, and recognition of their most attached beings, are interactions that the baby performs to establish socialization.
What is social emotional development?
It is an area or a factor of learning of the human being that is triggered from childhood, which seeks to increasingly integrate the ability to socialize, communicate, understand, express verbal and body, experience, emotions, establishing relationships with people who surround.
It begins at home with parents and siblings, or relatives, and then the baby adds to his list of new individuals, the teacher and his classmates, or the children in the park or people around him.
Conflict, part of socio-emotional development
Many parents worry when their children are bullied as children. Others treat this conflict as a bad attitude of the child and end up correcting it through punishment or reprimands, but what many parents ignore is that some of these activities are normal.
Many children in kindergartens, or at home, naturally attack other children, and the reason is not that they are bad, or they saw other children do it, it is their way of handling a conflict, and they are carrying out a process of socialization.
It is important to highlight that a child in confinement can be more aggressive and will not know how to handle conflicts, if it is not through communication that is generated through socialization, which means that the more isolated the child is, the fewer conflicts can resolve.
As parents, we must have the necessary tools to teach our little ones without the need to punish or mistreat, since they do not know any other way to handle conflict.
Who intervenes in the insertion of the child in socialization?
The process of socialization is the interaction of the child through social relationships.
The child will never learn to socialize if he stays away from people, he needs to be surrounded by people to learn voluntarily or involuntarily.
Although we are spending times of care, protocols and prevention as a result of the pandemic, we cannot isolate our little ones from a right as valuable as socializing.
The first protagonists are parents, teachers, siblings, grandparents, classmates, friends and all those people with whom the child can interact on a daily basis.
To deprive him of this interaction would be to do them a very strong harm, to stunt his development and growth, to deny him significant experiences in his childhood, and these experiences are what build the identity of the future adult.
Family, the first socializing agent
At home, the child's emotional bonds are determined, the most lasting, intense and continuous, because there is a daily brush of interaction that can last for many years, at home part of the child's identity is built.
When the little one goes out of the home to a kindergarten, or somewhere, and interacts with other people, he already becomes a member of society.
When leaving home, children establish other relationships, among them bonds in which there is no father or mother; it is there where they acquire collective and cooperative skills that they do not obtain at home.
So it can be said that socialization is born at home, but it is built and built in the rest of the external environments that surround the infant, which means that a child isolated from society could be classified as an incomplete being in the socio-emotional area, which can attract even physical conflicts in the future.
Socialization is vital even though we are in times of pandemic
As parents, we must keep in mind that it is important to learn to differentiate the places of socialization and what advantage and benefit I can obtain from each one.
Inserting the infant into new environments so that he can interact with the surrounding society is not optional.
The child must become familiar with other significant adults, with other children, relatives, neighbors, cousins, partners, this provides an emotional base for experience or resolution of future conflicts.
Although the times we live in lead us to isolate ourselves, we cannot deny our little ones what once worked for us and shaped us.
Consequences of prolonged isolation
Today, there are many parents who deny this benefit to their children, believing that they are protecting them from a lethal virus, but they are forgetting that behind the confinement there are diseases worse than a virus.
There is a very strong mental impact that is generated through confinement and lack of socialization.
It is important to highlight that a child in confinement can be more aggressive and will not know how to handle conflicts.
An infant who does not have a developed identity can generate depression, complexes, low self-esteem, schizophrenia, anxiety, fears and all this is dimensioned as they age and in some cases end in suicide due to misunderstanding of their personality and lack of acceptance.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 20% of the world's population is suffering from mental disorders due to isolation and confinement.
Remember, not only taking care of ourselves from a virus is at stake, the integral future of our children is at stake, use all prevention methods and protocols, but do not deny your little ones the opportunity to build their identity through socialization.
