At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the one-hour’s outdoor exercise permitted by the British Government and the best efforts of Joe Wicks, many families struggled to get out and about, let alone provide nutritious meals and keep up with dental appointments and routine vaccinations. Without access to protective factors such as early childhood services, the physical development of many young children was affected.
An evidence review by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) of the impact of the pandemic on physical development in the early years (see Further information) found, among other things:
- decreases in physical activity
- rises in obesity
- challenges in breastfeeding support
- decreases in oral healthcare use
- reduced vaccination rates
- decreases in sleep quality.
Writing for Nursery World, the head of early childhood education and care at the EIF, Max Stanford, warned that for the youngest children, the pandemic has created such significant changes to their living situation that it poses a ‘meaningful risk to their ability to grow up healthy and to reach their full potential’.
Lala Manners, physical development trainer and director of Active Matters, agrees. ‘Hopefully, this will be a real wake-up call. Some children were coming back after lockdown in a terrible physical state. They hadn’t had any sleep routines for months, they were exhausted, their muscle tone had gone and muscle mass had disappeared. So of course they weren’t going to be able to sit and colour in if they didn’t have the strength to sit still, or were exhausted, or had toothache and couldn’t concentrate.’
INEQUALITY
The review found a much greater impact on children already vulnerable to poor physical health outcomes in the UK: those from low-income families and ethnic minorities.
Early years specialist Anne O’Connor agrees the pandemic hit the most at-risk the hardest. ‘For many of our vulnerable families, life became so challenging that even a walk in the park was beyond their scope, and both children and adults struggled being cooped up indoors with little opportunity for vigorous outdoor play,’ she says.
The report notes that having inadequate space to play at home was associated with worse physical activity levels.
In rare cases of countries reporting an increased level of physical activity, such as in Sweden, it is perhaps significant that pre-schools, playgrounds and parks remained open.
Manners says in this respect, children in the UK lacked a level playing field from the beginning. ‘How children managed physically was very much linked to environments and geography,’ she says. ‘Those in coastal communities or rural farming communities did rather well, because they could get out, but children in densely populated urban situations really suffered. They were often stuck in high-rise flats, and all the playgrounds were shut, which was appalling. In some blocks, lifts broke down so people couldn’t get out at all. It was really tough.’
ON THE MOVE AGAIN
While the review found relatively little evidence which specifically examined the impact of the pandemic on children aged between birth and five years in the UK, smaller-scale studies, such as Dr Manners’ (see Further information), suggest children did not just stagnate but went backwards over lockdown.
‘Lots of them regressed, very happily, back to nappies and dummies,’ Manners says. ‘Self-care went very wayward. Children wanted to be fed, dressed, carried, have their hands washed for them. Some of them hadn’t used a knife and fork for months. That has taken time to come back from.’
In contrast, although many children had become used to smaller spaces at home, Manners observed that gross motor skills came back relatively quickly on children’s return to settings.
‘Proprioception and vestibular systems need constant refreshing. If you don’t move, they start shutting down. Children who had been in small flats had to get used to navigating a bigger space again, using their voice, and navigating around other people,’ she explains.
‘But they knew instinctively that they should be doing all the big body movements that are anchoring for them. They knew what their bodies needed was to run around, shout loudly and do big things like climb and run, which are good for them mentally and emotionally as well as physically.’
LINKING SKILLS
The relationship between physical, mental and emotional development and health cannot be understated, Manners adds, particularly against the background of a global pandemic.
‘It’s a really good example of the three Prime Areas working together,’ she says. ‘Children can’t catch up on writing and reading if they are not in a physical state to be able to do so. Expecting children to come back from a traumatic time and sit at a table is mad, which makes all the “catch-up curriculum” pointless.’
But we are a way off understanding exactly how the pandemic has affected our youngest children, with the EIF review highlighting the relative lack of large-scale studies into its impact in the UK.
‘This lack of knowledge will have an impact on the early years sector because nurseries and early years settings will need to be part of helping get children back on track,’ Stanford acknowledges.
Manners agrees there is a limitation to the information available. ‘It would be great to see some really good, long-term qualitative data about what children were like when they came back after lockdown. Settings have got to be absolutely honest about what they are doing, and it all needs to be properly researched and laid down,’ she says.
‘If, God forbid, we ever have another situation like this, there should be evidence of what we did, what worked, and what didn’t.’
CASE STUDY: Ore Church Mice Preschool in Hastings, East Sussex
During lockdown, staff at Ore Church Mice Preschool delivered physical development packs to families’ doorsteps. They included ideas for activities such as movement routines and exploring sponges in bubbly water – alongside resources such as pom-poms and cups to play skittles or catch with and offcuts of material to put on the floor and dance around.
Despite this, manager Glen Russell says children returned from lockdown with significant setbacks to their physical development. ‘The most notable change was a kind of learned helplessness, with a lot of “I can’t” or “Mummy does that”,’ he says. ‘We’ve been helping children break down processes, like putting on coats, to then build them back up.’
Activities such as foot painting can then encourage tasks like taking shoes on and off. ‘You want to make it quite natural, so they don’t realise they’re doing it,’ Russell explains.
The setting is keen to build children’s confidence in physical skills back up. ‘The stuff that sits behind physical development, like “can-do” attitudes and perseverance, has been more important to work on. We’re doing a lot more emotional work on going from co-regulation to self-regulation,’ says Russell. ‘We spend a lot of time playing music, just kicking our shoes off and moving in any way we can. There’s a real link between musicality and movement, which helps balance, co-ordination, and does something emotionally as well.
‘If words are only 10 per cent of communication, 90 per cent comes in other ways. If we can provide a rich opportunity of experiences with the body, then in emotional terms, we allow children to find their voices and express themselves beyond words.’
FURTHER INFORMATION