*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on Study Finds.
While many kids would probably say they loved not going to school for a year during the coronavirus pandemic, their parents see a bigger problem with 2020’s quarantine. A new survey finds seven in 10 parents believe spending a year in lockdown will have a lasting impact on their child’s growth and development.
The OnePoll survey of 2,000 parents with children between two and 18 years-old looked at what parents are saying about their kids after spending the majority of 2020 cooped up inside. Of the 69 percent who say they’re worried about their children in lockdown, the top concern is that it’ll be more difficult for their child to connect with people in-person in the future (52%).
Commissioned by The Genius of Play, the survey reveals parents also feel it’ll be more difficult for their child to play (44%) or make friends (44%) after being separated from their peers for so long. Another 68 percent of the parents believe their child’s social skills were stunted as a result of spending much of 2020 in isolation. It turns out isolation is a major problem parents have identified during the pandemic.
More than seven in 10 parents (72%) also believe, during 2020, their child was lonelier than ever before. In fact, 58 percent of parents said they were also lonelier than ever. Overall, 79 percent of parents feel 2020 was the most difficult year ever for their family. Another 65 percent say that parenting was harder than in any other year.
Source: Study Finds
https://www.studyfinds.org/covid-lockdowns-damaged-child-social-skills/