What should be the time table of children amid lockdown| What necessary steps mother should take?

Amid lockdown, schedule of children is completely disturbed. It must be seriously taken into consideration that their studies, learning, development process is not affected due to lockdown. It is the responsibility of mother to make sure that her child do well and make best use of time.

In these days, children may feel that they don’t have anyone to check them and they may take wrong advantage of it and addict themselves to activities filled with fun. Another chance is of finding no proper direction which can be proved as hindrance in continuous growth, development process and education of child.

There is need to follow fine time table. It is very difficult for child to be self – disciplined, so mother must make child to follow time table by dealing with them strictly and calmly as per the need of hour. Reinforce positive attitude and mould their behaviour according to current situation.

Here is the time table that must be followed during lockdown days-

• Ask your child to wake up at 6 AM. Children should wake up early in the morning. It is a healthy habit. Moreover, they have the habit of waking up early in the morning. They must continue with this otherwise they will become lazy and face difficulties when they will have to go to school again.
• Ask your child to do some simple exercises for 30 minutes. It is very necessary to keep body active and healthy.
• Ask your child to take bath.
• Provide healthy and immunity booster breakfast.

All these activities after waking up can take two hours.

• If school is providing class through conferencing system as per scheduled time, child should follow that. If institution is providing learning videos or pictures of answers, it become very important to follow self made time table. Ask your child to sit for studies sharp at 8 AM.
• Ask your child to study till 10 AM. Continuous study for at least two hours is necessary after which he/she can take rest.
• In this resting time period, the child can play physical games. Provide your child his/her favourite food to eat.
• Ask your child to start studies again at 11 AM. He / She can continue studying till 2 PM.

For these five hours child can do work as per guidelines provided by teachers. Mother’s duty is to make sure that that child is following guidelines or not.

• Ask your child to take shower if he/she wills or to simply wash hands and face.
• Provide him lunch.

This will take hardly 45 minutes.

• Ask your child to have sleep for one hour. This is very necessary for relaxation.
• He will wake up at 4 PM.
• Ask him to wash hands and face and give him some fruits to eat. Prefer food containing vitamin C. They are immunity booster.
• If possible provide him/ her some space to play games. If there are two siblings, they can enjoy themselves. Otherwise mother or father can be a partner. If you don’t have this much time ask them to do skipping, hula hooping, dancing etc. These activities must be done for one hour i.e from  4:30 to 5:30.
• For next one hour i.e from 5:30 to 6:30 try to teach them any skill or art. If you yourself are a master of any art like singing, any form of dancing, drawing, crafting you can teach him/ her. Another way is that they can learn anything online of their interest. They can learn different languages or grasp any technical knowledge. It will be advantageous for child.
• For next one hour i.e from 6:30 to 7:30 child can play indoor games and online games. Getting addicted to online games or spending too much time on them is dangerous but they can play for half an hour for enjoyment.
• From 7:30 to 8:30 they can have a glance on what they have studied for five hours.
• Provide him/ her dinner at 8:30 PM.
• Ask your child to have walk for 20 minutes after dinner at home only.
• Ask your child to brush teeth and go to sleep at 9:30 PM.

Dr. Huma Naz

She is Ph.D. holder in Agriculture (Plant Protection, Plant Pathology and Nematology).