A Canberra childcare centre is reporting a kind of silver lining from the coronavirus pandemic - greater interaction between younger and older children due to reduced numbers and nurturing friendships being developed as a result. But a child psychologist says older, school-aged children are still suffering from isolation and anxiety.
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Guardian Childcare and Education in Gungahlin says small changes made as a result of the pandemic are having some positive spin-offs.
The centre's assistant manager, Michelle Carey, said it usually cared for 65 children a day but numbers had dropped as families chose to self-isolate.
Numbers varied, but there were now usually 30 to 40 children at the centre each day.
Ms Carey said the smaller classes meant new friends were naturally being made across different age groups as they spent more time together.
Ms Carey said the older children had taken on a more nurturing role, and loved spending their afternoons playing with, and caring, for the younger children and babies.
She had also found the desire to keep up with older buddies might be accelerating some developmental changes among the younger children.
"What started as crawling has now turned into walking and in some cases even running around with the older children," she said.
"The older children are very excited to see the changes and are very proud to hold the younger ones' hands as they walk around the centre. They are all very caring and nurturing children."
Ms Carey said drop-offs in the morning had also changed, with educators coming out to greet children, rather than parents coming into the rooms. Children were then allowed to wave to their parents from the window. It was just a small change, but one to ensure children were kept safe and felt secure.
"The children have adjusted very well to any small changes we've made but, for the most part, we are continuing as normal anyway," she said.
Dr Anna Cohen, a clinical child psychologist at Kids and Co, said, in her experience, younger children attending daycare and preschools were coping better in the pandemic, mostly because their world had not changed too much for them.
"Kids in the younger age group are managing much better than those in the older age group. For those under five, not much has changed," Dr Cohen said, adding the caveat that she worked with a demographic in which at least one parent was still working and not feeling as much financial pressure.
Dr Cohen agreed there could be some positives in younger and older children mixing, including older ones learning patience and negotiation with the acknowledgement they were "still very little".
"Children learn from play and playing with older kids may teach the younger ones a different way of being in the world," she said.
She said younger children who already had a predisposition to anxiety were especially feeling the impact of the pandemic. "The big thing in preschoolers are fears about people getting sick and a more heightened anxiety around germs," she said, adding some might be doing excessive hand-washing or struggling to go to the toilet.
Older children were experiencing distress and isolation by having their school disrupted, not being able to see their friends and feeling that adults were talking and thinking about nothing else but the coronavirus pandemic.
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Dr Cohen said preschoolers did not need to know the intricacies of the pandemic, only assurances that they were safe and secure. She said older children, especially teenagers, did need to be reminded to take the pandemic seriously and to maintain social distancing.
She advised parents to "pick their battles" with older children and relax a little around technology use in these unusual times.
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