The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a toll not only on lives, but also on the emotional well-being of many young children. Parents and carers might have noticed their children having disturbed sleep, a decline in their language skills, increased clinginess or a lack of independence. They may appear to have gone backwards.
One mother, Lisa Tolin, described her son’s response: ‘Around the time of coronavirus, my five-year-old started climbing in bed with me every night. His excuses got increasingly baroque: bad dreams, a spider, hundreds of spiders, a black hole. He started playing “baby”. He sucked on comfort blankets he had previously abandoned. Finally, he said he wanted to climb back into my tummy. What I was witnessing was a slow-motion regression, all the way back to the womb’ (today.com, 8 April 2020).
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