Psychological and Socio-Emotional Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on School Children

Introduction

The Global pandemic COVID-19 has left lasting effects on the world, and the teaching and learning process is no exception to it. It has created an unprecedented and complex situation among the teaching fraternity. Because of the unprecedented nature of challenges posed by the pandemic, teachers are forced to design innovative methods in dealing with the numerous problems arising in the field of education. Therefore, new innovative practices are arising out of the COVID -19 challenge. A complete halt in the way we experience day-to-day life has led to a complete change in the routine of school-going children. All classes are now conducted online, and students experience all school-related activities virtually through a screen. It has been found that COVID-19 has severely affected the psychological and socio-emotional aspects of teaching compared to the situations in which the teachers used to deliver their lessons in pre-COVID-19 times.

Learning is situated within multiple socio-emotional contexts. Communication and interpersonal relationships are critical to both the teaching-learning process and the social-emotional development of students. Emotional wellbeing affects educational performance, learning and development. It is easy to put students' social, emotional, and mental well-being on the back front as schools struggle to make up the loss of learning and face the tough logistical and political challenges of safely reopening school buildings. However, ignoring social, emotional learning could be an invitation to disaster. The fact is that it is difficult for the children to process and retain new information in case their brains are over-occupied with anxiety.

Psychological and socio-emotional issues have not remained untouched in this situation. According to Moroni, Nicoletti, and Tominey (2020), a child's socio-emotional skills include “their mental health, wellbeing, and behaviour more generally” (p.1). Psychological science conveys that interpersonal relationship, social context and emotional wellbeing are critical to students' learning. School activities provide routine and structure to learners' daily lives and in the absence of which learners are faced with adverse effect in many cases. Some studies state that prolonged school closures and home confinement might have adverse effects on children's physical and mental health (Brazendale et al., 2017). According to Brooks et al. (2020), quarantine could have a wide-ranging and long-lasting psychological impact. Any disaster-related trauma is likely to cause psychological distress in the presence of psychiatric history (Alvarez et al., 2005, Cukor et al., 2010). Some groups are more vulnerable to psychological and socio-emotional effects. This could be since individuals in these groups are in a critical period of development. D. Marques de Miranda et al. (2020) identify that children from certain fragile groups such as from lower socio-economic status are comparatively more vulnerable to developing mental health disorders during the pandemic. They write that children with existing physical or mental health issues become more susceptible to new mental health problems during the pandemic.

Socio-Emotional aspects greatly determine the teaching and learning process. It has become even more critical in the time of COVID-19. The concept of socio-emotional aspects refers to a person initiating, cultivating and responding to others to form relationships with other people in their lives such as parents, relatives and friends, typically with familiar, but not excluding unfamiliar people. It can span the spectrum of how people interact with others to manage communication or cope with adversity, stress, establish a positive relationship and the capacity to develop relationships with peers, often through communication (IGL Global). These socio-emotional aspects can be temporary or long-standing when it comes to interaction with people.