BBC The stress and isolation of the pandemic have left social and emotional scars that are already being seen in children, but scientists also predict there could be huge economic costs due to disrupted education.
For US pre-school teacher Rebekah Underwood, there is something different about the class of 2025. She’s noticed that the children she teaches – aged between five and six years old – are physically more cautious than the group who attended the pre-school in Santa Monica in California before the pandemic.
“Many kids are not able to roll, not able to jump on two feet, they are very hesitant to climb,” she says. She wonders if it has something to do with a lack of outdoor exploration that happened when these children were toddlers. They are among the group who were babies when Covid-19 hit.
In March 2020, schools around the world began to suddenly close and life for the 2.2 billion children and young people around the world took a dramatic change. Whole families found themselves stuck at home, venturing outside only for short, allotted periods while children of school age were taught by their parents or learned via a screen.