A Year Without the Fundamentals of Development: Lockdown babies

2020 – the ‘corona babies’ were born, but apart from the nickname and the stigma that will be associated with their generation, how have these babies been affected by lockdown?

In England, more than 200,000 babies were born during lockdown, that’s 200,000+ babies with reduced social skills, communication skills, independence, confidence, the list goes on.

In the early stages of a child’s life, social interaction is crucial for building character and initial concepts of friendship. Along with that come healthy communication skills and a basic initial understanding of how to act in a social environment in the presence of others your age.

‘corona babies’ have missed out on these crucial life skills from a young age and now have zero to none concept of understanding facial expressions and basic social interaction skills.

The first years of a babies life are intended to lay out the foundation and fundamentals for a happy and healthy life, with them possessing the initial life skills as part of childhood development. But the ‘corona babies’ haven’t had a chance to experience moments where these skills would come in handy or ever put them into practice.

The babies born during this time would have only seen the faces of their family members and possibly siblings, with lockdown being the only way of life they know and have experienced. In usual circumstances before COVID-19, regular mum-baby classes would be held for those crucial life skills to start developing naturally within children. Not only that, but a large number of these babies would have never in their lives seen another baby before, imagine their confusion and realisation when finally seeing another baby.

With most people working from home during the lockdown period, these babies had nowhere else to be, no nurseries or day cares were open so it was all up to the parents to care for them at home. The issue is, as children grow older they need to understand the concept of independence, but if they were only surrounded by mum and dad all these months, can you imagine how clingy and attached these babies have become? Completely dependent on their carers and lacking all sense of self-resilience and awareness.

For the slightly older children in early primary school, a big chunk of their social interactions have been online via zoom, putting them also at a decline in terms of their social skills and confidence developing. As-well as social interaction skills, around the 12-18 month period children usually start developing language and speech skills, I can personally say at 16 years old my own social skills have massively declined during the lockdown period, these babies have never before in their lives had any proper face to face language interaction apart from their family members, putting them at a huge disadvantage from the very beginning. The overall lack of communication and social interaction of all kinds will put these babies at a disadvantage from a very young age, as-well as making them possibly more susceptible to anxiety and depressive disorders from this strange and unusual way of living.

With many parents and carers worried about their child’s first developments in life and social skills, it’s no wonder ‘corona babies’ are struggling with adjusting to the normal way of living, with, the unusual to them, hectic daily busy environments where their social skills are expected to shine and develop most. These babies have to learn and adapt to our way of living, which is nothing as they know or have experienced so far.

Written by Alex Sygut

Artwork by Evie Burrows