Conscious Parenting: How To Raise Pandemic Babies

Having a child during the pandemic can be a big curveball for many reasons. You may have been alone to raise them, or you may have had no support from the extended family or healthcare system for safety reasons. The era of pandemic babies is bound to be different, and it can be intimidating to look at the future. However, this is a journey and can be traversed; use the tips below to ensure you’re doing your best.

• Sensitize them to different voices and sounds: Children start to familiarize themselves with smells and sound much before seeing and remembering faces. Use this to your advantage and introduce them to the sounds of your voice and your parents’ (and other close relatives or friends’) voices so that the baby starts to recognize them despite the isolated conditions.

• Use playtime as a tool: There are several ingenious methods and tricks to help pandemic babies learn quickly without the need to pressure them. Plenty of infant development toys makes the parents’ job more manageable. These can be building blocks, shapes, fruits, vegetables, and animals to acquaint your child with the world they are born into!

• Socialize virtually: Social anxiety and separation anxiety are two different aspects of raising pandemic babies to keep in mind. Since the parents and residents at home are the only familiar faces your child has probably seen during the lockdown and restrictions, it may incite anxiety when you have to start going to work. Also, meeting new people can be highly stressful as children raised in such conditions may not be too welcoming towards strangers. Make sure you socialize your family with your child virtually as soon as they can recognize faces and screens.

• Limit their exposure to technology: While technology is a lifesaver in such times, it is also necessary to put a cap on how involved it is in your child’s early development. Exposure to technology too soon can inhibit their cognitive abilities or make them hyper-fixated on the virtual, making it hard to be present in the physical world sans distractions.

• Understand that their generation will be different than ours: Let’s set the record straight once and for all; pandemic babies are an entirely different generation from Millennials and Generation-Z because they were born in a completely different world. While we may still struggle to find common ground with the boomers, you’re in for a rollercoaster ride of generational gap due to a pandemic. Children born from 2020 until the pandemic ends will not wholly understand social skills and interactions well enough due to social distancing and isolation. This does not necessarily have to mean a bad thing; you can now raise a child without the filter or societal taboos and groupthink, which can be a wonderful thing to begin with. Try to look at the upside of such a situation.

Wrapping Up:

We know parenting is an uphill battle, but each generation has its challenge. Consider it one of your milestones and take one day at a time. Parenting can be one of the most rewarding experiences in life, and we hope that these tips helped make yours a bit easier.