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Yolanda Corona-Caraveo y Carlos Pérez y Zavala
Research professors, Education and Comunication
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
Sergio Navarro-Montalvo
Psychologist, Autismo Emociones A.C.
This article provides a brief introduction to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on
children and adolescents in Mexico. It argues that children have been left behind and made
invisible in the actions taken by governments to counteract the contagion. This article also
analyzes what has happened as a result of changes regarding confinement, play, the use of
streets and public spaces and educational institutions from a children ́s rights perspective.
The results of several studies that have been carried out in our country are mentioned,
ending with some recommendations regarding recognition of the important place children
hold in our society.
Keywords: confinement, COVID-19, school, public policies for children, children's rights
Yolanda Corona-Caraveo, Paseo Colorines no. 2, Col. Huilotepec, Tepoztlán, Morelos,
México. C.P. 62520, phone: 52 77 7273 8258, e-mail: yolanda.corona.c@gmail.com
Carlos Pérez y Zavala, Amsterdam 275-3. Col. Hipódromo Condesa, Cuauhtemoc, C.P.
06100, Ciudad de México, phone: 52 77 7303 4225, e-mail: cperez49@yahoo.com.mx
Sergio Navarro, Av. Hacienda Vistahermosa 16b, Col. Haciendas de Coyoacán, c.p. 04970,
Ciudad de México.C.P. phone: 52 56 1500 9747, e-mail: sergionava74@gmail.com
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Since the spring of 2020, the world’s populace has been subjected to the COVID-19
pandemic. While humanity’s need to face the lethal effects of contagions worldwide has in
a certain way united us, the pandemic has affected our lives in numerous other dimensions
as well. The present overwhelms us and hardly allows us to think of a scenario that goes
beyond the here and now and the virus has acted as a catalyst for our emergency responses.
At all levels - social, group and personal - we are exposed to the presence of unprecedented
conditions that act as a magnifying lens, making us reflect on all the expectations,
behaviours and decisions we make in our everyday lives. Finally we see the here and now
as if from inside a time capsule where time has stopped, and yet we see through our digital
screens how the lives of others circulate in a parallel universe. After a year of generalized
quarantine, the ways of life, communication, habits, perceptions of the world, as well as the
values behind our relationships, have been severely altered. It is certainly not the first time
that we face this type of health crisis since, as Guiomar Huguet Pané points out (2020. p.3),
"Disease is intrinsically part of the history of mankind. We are currently suffering
from the coronavirus, but since human beings began to organize themselves in
society and to create nuclei of people living together in the same territorial space,
contagious diseases took on a special role. As the world population grew, when a
disease spread and affected several regions of the planet, becoming a threat to the
population, the first pandemics began to be documented. These pandemics
sometimes transformed the societies in which they appeared and, quite possibly,
have decisively changed or influenced the course of history.”
Although the effect of the virus is similar in all countries, it is true that there are
certain regions that are more exposed to the risks that this health crisis entails. Poor
countries are the first victims due to the precariousness of their health systems and the lack
of public policies that are meant to care for their population. The pandemic exposes the
conditions of inequality and vulnerable living conditions in broad social sectors and also
allows us to evaluate the difficult decisions that some governments have had to make in
their efforts to face this catastrophe. Even so, we can say that the population of child and
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young people is a sector that has remained invisible to public policy makers. Qvortrup
(2000) has coined the term "generational apartheid" which refers to the way in which the
social organization we currently have has been configured without the participation of
children, and therefore without taking into account their needs at the macro-social planning
level.
Reflection and discussion about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children
is a relevant topic since children represent at least one third of the world's population.
Specifically in Mexico, the sector of children and young people under 18 years of age is
30.1%. Confinement has forced families to carry out their activities through digital screens
or electronic devices and never before have children and adolescents been confined for so
long and without contact with their peers, teachers and family members who are living
outside their home environment.
UNICEF's first pandemic report (UNICEF, 2020a) concludes that by the beginning
of November, in 87 countries with age-disaggregated data, children and adolescents under
the age of 20 accounted for one in nine COVID-19 infections, or 11% of the 25.7 million
infections reported by these countries.
Additionally, the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 threatens to hit children the
hardest. The number of children living in multidimensional poverty – without access to
education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation or water – has soared by 15%, or 150
million since mid-2020. (UNICEF, 2020b).
Regarding the situation in Mexico, the invisibility of children to the Mexican
government has been evident since no programs have been proposed to address the impact
that the pandemic has had on children such as family violence, poverty, excessive school
demands and lack of parental care. Over the past year, no programs have been proposed to
safeguard their physical integrity, protect them from violence, and accommodate the large
number of children who are orphaned due to the deaths of their parents (primarily mothers
serving as head of the household). The census of orphaned children by COVID-19 is
essential because the government has the obligation to guarantee the rights of all those
children who are left unprotected by the death of their parents. However, the government
has ignored the rights of children and young people to express their opinions and to be
consulted in the elaboration of specific programs of attention for them; at present there is
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no proposal to collect data on children in this situation, nor are there public policies or
specific care programs for them. This becomes more relevant in our country because, in
terms of family configuration, there are a large number of single-parent families in which
the woman is the head of the family (Aguilar, 2016; INEGI 2020). It is therefore necessary
for the government to implement a registration policy that accounts for children who are
left unattended.
In the following paragraphs we will briefly mention some of the physical,
emotional, family and social impacts of the confinement and lack of mobility in public
spaces of various populations of children and adolescents, enunciated from a rights
perspective. We also address the enormous importance of play in different aspects of
children's development and especially in the resilience they can have in the face of
traumatic situations and uncertainty. Subsequently, we analyze the virtual education policy
that replaced face-to-face activities in schools. This policy has had great costs in terms of
school dropout and educational quality, besides being one of the factors that has generated
greater anxiety and stress in children and their families. Following the approach of children
´s right to express their opinions and to participate, the article concludes by including some
eloquent testimonies from children who participated in a previous study conducted in 2020
by one of the authors (Corona, 2021) and supported by three virtual surveys that were
conducted in our country.
!
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In Mexico, the situation in which children are living is upsetting because the
preventive measure of confinement implies a direct impact on their development. In March
and April 2020, the United Nations (UN) warned about the physical, psychological and
emotional impact that confinement would have on children (https://unsdg.un.org/search?
key=impact+of+confinement+on+children). Specifically, in emotional terms, it must be
taken into account that young children cannot clearly understand what is happening, and
therefore may interpret not leaving the house as a punishment for something they have done
wrong. All children should receive information and at the same time consolation for the
anxiety caused by not going out and not seeing their friends.
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During the emerging situation, some children's rights have been neglected and it is
very clear that the confinement scenario has meant a step backwards in terms of the
fulfillment and guarantee of their rights. It is worrisome that the advances in the field of
child participation that had been observed in the last three decades, disappeared almost
immediately with the appearance of the pandemic. In the face of this emergency, neither
governments nor school authorities or parents have bothered to seek knowledge and
understanding of the difficult experiences children are going through (REDIM, 2020). As a
result, there is little consideration of the differentiated impact that our children are
suffering.
The pandemic not only puts mobility at stake but it is the primary impediment that
hinders and violates other children’s rights such as the right to play, rest, health, cultural
activities and more. Socialization, play, participation and other activities are crucial for
children's sense of identity and healthy development. According to the Human Rights
Commission of Mexico City, confinement is having direct effects on their development
process and implies an important affectation in psychological and relational terms.
Therefore, the commission recommends recognizing children as a group requiring priority
attention and emphasizes the need to take necessary measures to guarantee children’s rights
and meet their best interests (CDHCM, 2020). i
The fact that children’s rights have been violated and their experiences have not
been taken into account during the pandemic hinders their participation as agents of change,
makes their lives more precarious than ever, and impedes progress in terms of public policy
that would allow authorities to address the current situation based on children’s testimonies.
Another pressing problem of confinement has been the effect that elevated poverty
levels have had on women and children who have been exposed to increased violence in the
domestic sphere. In addition to isolation and overcrowding, family incomes have been
reduced and subjected to significant instability. This has noticeably altered the mood of
parents and caregivers, who have become more irritable with greater tendency to react
violently (Arteta, 2020; RNR, 2020). Figueroa and Toledo (2020:11) also state that “the
confinement measures have led to situations of extreme violence”. According to the
National Shelter Network (Red Nacional de Refugios) 2020 report, after four months into
the confinement, violence against women, girls, boys and adolescents had increased 81%,
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compared to the same period in 2019. During the first two months since the confinement,
the shelters and their Outreach centers, Emergency Houses, External Care Centers, and
Transition Houses have accompanied and cared for 6,978 women and children. (35% girls
and boys). This number had risen to 14,599 women with their daughters and sons between
March and June. The network insisted that “macho” violence is seriously affecting children,
“as 48% of the daughters and sons of the women who requested support were victims of
violence in their homes during confinement, and 5% of the children were victims of sexual
abuse” (p.15), again demonstrating that not all mexican families are safe refuges.
As we have seen, the pandemic has brought to light a range of issues that have not
yet been adequately addressed by the authorities. Whatever the circumstances, the rights of
children cannot wait, much less be overridden. Although governments have been
overwhelmed by the circumstances, we must remember that it is their duty to guarantee
"the best interests of the child," as postulated in the CRC.
& ' !
%
We start from a perspective that recognizes the importance of play for children.
Research in psychology and pedagogy has explored the relationship play has in the optimal
development of children, the benefits that its use implies for teaching and learning
processes, as well as play’s importance in cultivating cognitive, physical, social and
emotional skills (Bruner 2010; Bjorklund, 1998). Strauss and Allen, (2006), as well as Isen
and Reeve, (2006) have suggested that the emotional states generated during play allow
children to have a greater range of creative responses to the problematic situations they
experience. The authors have also explored the way in which play offers children the
opportunity to partake in physical exercise, which helps them have better resistance and
more control of their body movements, It should be taken into account that physical activity
for children strengthens their self-esteem, has a direct impact on their weight, motor skills
and, therefore, on their general state of health. In this sense, confinement has more serious
repercussions in this population group. In addition, it is possible that, for economic
reasons, they are not eating healthily either.ii On the other hand, play allows children to
cope with uncertainty and handle traumatic or distressing situations, which increases their
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resilience. In terms of social skills, play facilitates group learning while allowing children
to develop negotiation and decision-making skills. (Corona, 2013, Lester & Russell, 2008)
Another aspect related to the positive emotions produced by play has to do with the
capacity to create imaginary worlds (Lester & Russell, 2010; Ferrandiz, 2014; Winnicott
1993). These authors have posited the way in which creative ability is related to the
capacity to feel alive, to feel free and to develop intuition, fantasy and imagination . People
who have renounced to these abilities are given up their own humanity. Creating possible
worlds through play enables children to imagine a different reality, more bearable than the
present one. The game is then configured as a partial escape from reality to momentarily
elude the suffocating confinement; it is an escape route from confinement and its
impositions.
The problem that arises is that there is a generalized insensitivity and even blindness
amongst adults about the benefits of this playful quality. When children are asked about
play, their answers are always that they feel happy when they play and that it is one of the
activities they like the most. At the same time, however, they are confronted with the
ignorance that some parents and teachers have about the benefits play implies for child
development. A few years ago, a team of researchers -of which one of the authors of this
article is a member- conducted a survey in eight countries around the worldiii including
Mexico, to find out what were the obstacles that prevented children from playing. The first
obstacle that emerged was a lack of awareness among adults regarding the importance of
play. This resulted in their refusal to allow their children or students to devote themselves
to play, giving priority instead to study and work (Shier, 2010).
In General Comment no. 17 on the Right of the Child to Rest, Leisure, Play,
Recreation and Participation in Culture and the Arts, emphasis is placed on the importance
of the opportunity to play outdoors and to interact with natural environments. Another
essential aspect of play cited in the document is that it gives children access to time and
space ( adult control and management. The General Comment goes on to state
that free time offers the important possibility, even if minimal, for children to live and play
with other children while free from adults. Free time was found to have an influence on
negotiation skills as well as learning about solidarity, reciprocity and social belonging to
the peer group. Play also allowed children to strengthen their own agency in the sense of
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proposing and carrying out what they had decided. (Gomez-Serrudo 2008; Lester &
Russell, 2010)
The loss of access that children and young people have had to public spaces and the
street so evident in these times of pandemic, actually began prior to the start of the
pandemic. Sanz Roman (2020) has argued that the loss of the street and public spaces for
children began long before the pandemic, probably 40 years ago. Their presence has greatly
diminished in these places and when we see them, it is mostly a tutelary presence. In less
than two generations, the freedom to play in the streets, to go to parks or playgrounds
unaccompanied by adults has gradually vanished. During this present health crisis, Sanz
Roman suggests that children are considered as "vectors of contagion" or "transmitters of
the virus," (p. 229) even though it is known that this sector of the population is not so prone
to the disease. In this sense, what is happening with the pandemic is one of the last steps to
expel them from the streets.
In previous studies (Gülgönen & Corona, 2019) we have argued that for several
decades the streets and public spaces (parks, squares and gardens) have been considered
hostile and dangerous places and therefore children have been confined to closed and
private spaces. The main reason that adults have given for preventing children from going
out and playing in public spaces is insecurity, especially the fear of their children being
kidnapped and stolen. As for the reasons given by children to justify that the streets are
dangerous, we find various forms of violence that they have witnessed, for example:
assaults, shootings, fights, bullying, as well as dangerous people in their surroundings. For
them, the street’s sole function is for moving from one place to another. Children in the
previous study mentioned that, "the street is for dying" because there, children are run over
when entering and leaving school. In fact, this is one of the main causes of childhood death
in our country (Gülgönen & Corona, 2015). The introjection of this feeling of fear and
insecurity is reinforced by the media which refrains from publishing images of children
alone in the streets thus generating and increasing the perception about the danger of public
spaces. As a result, there are only a few places where children are allowed to play. With the
pandemic, public space has not only been relegated, but can no longer even be used to
move from one place to another.
With the restrictions being enforced due to the pandemic, children are now captive
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subjects, living in a kind of house arrest situation where they are locked up in the house for
months, while under the constant surveillance of the adults and older siblings in their
family. Play is now seen clearly as a natural act that sides with health. In the face of school
and domestic demands as well as the boredom caused by lack of contact with the outside
world, the fact that children play during their confinement is a sign of their liveliness of
spirit.
The tension between the protection of children and their autonomy is a central point
when thinking about spaces for children. We found many testimonies by children who say
they have had to spend all day in closed spaces, places they do not like because they cannot
play, because they are alone or because they are always being scolded. The lack of
consideration in urban planning of spaces for children to play, not only outside the housing
units, but also inside the houses was identified in Acapulco, Mexico City, Tijuana and
Torreon as a major factor limiting children´s ability to play. This indicates that there is a
pending issue with the real state companies to take into account the needs of children´s play
spaces (Corona, Gulgonen, 2010). Most of the popular housing developments do not have
open spaces dedicated to children. Meanwhile, the houses themselves do not have ample
spaces indoors where children can play. Of course, one consequence of the confinement of
the 2020 pandemic is that the alternative playgrounds and green spaces in the city are not
accessible to children.
)!
Another area that has been widely affected by the arrival of the pandemic is
education. Face-to-face education disappeared in Mexico in April 2020 and, as time has
passed, the inequality gaps have become more visible. During the pandemic in Mexico, at
least six out of ten children have not received education due to lack of resources to adapt to
new ways of learning (CDHCM, 2020) iv. Moreover, at least 10% of primary and secondary
school children have dropped out of school (Gutiérrez, 2020). According to the National
Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI)v in Mexico, there are 38.3 million children
and adolescents under 18 years of age, of which 13.2 million children are of school age.
During the pandemic, it is estimated that 628,000 children and young people under 18 will
drop out of school, either for economic reasons or because they lack a computer and/or
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television and internet access that are basic conditions for virtual learning. Acevedo et al.
(2020) in their study "The Educational Costs of the Health Crisis in Latin America and the
Caribbean" predicted that Mexico will be the country with the second highest dropout rate
among children between six and seventeen years of age, with the percentage of exclusion
rising from 18% in 2020 to 22% in 2021.The degree of indifference towards children by the
authorities can be seen in the fact that the Secretary of Public Education has given 20
conferences, none of which have been directed to children and adolescents.
The arrival of COVID-19 brought to light a number of problems that had been
occurring for a long time. If the health system had multiple deficiencies, the same could be
said about the education system. In terms of the crisis of educational systems in Latin
America and the Caribbean (Acevedo et al., 2020, p. 8), Mexico is one of the countries that
had minimally established four important factors: 1) connectivity in schools, 2) the
existence of digital platforms, 3) the possibility of virtual tutoring, and 4) the existence of
digital resource packages.
However, we believe that it is essential to emphasize the setback in terms of the
right to participation that is occurring in the school environment during the pandemic. The
need for teachers to "comply with the program" has imposed a great pressure on the
children that is embodied in an endless series of tasks and demands that are very difficult to
meet. What is evident is the lack of an approach that understands and addresses not only the
cognitive, but especially the emotional needs that children are facing in this health crisis.
Instead of the educational system understanding and addressing the depth of the
psychological effects that confinement has had on children, they have become entrenched
in school demands, as if we were not in a crisis situation. The virtual proposal in
educational terms has also overloaded the work of mothers, who are overwhelmed by the
assignment of new educational responsibilities with their children which are added to the
care tasks they are already regularly assigned. This is without taking into account that in
Mexico, many mothers are heads of household whose income comes from activities they
perform in the informal sector which is the sector that has been most affected by the
preventive isolation measures. The most serious missing piece is that the authorities are not
generating data on what is happening in the realm of education in populations of children
living in rural areas, or who live in situations of vulnerability.
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Teachers and parents must be encouraged to adopt an approach to child protection
that has a broader horizon in the sense of considering above all, the well-being of children;
that is to say, positive protection that favours their development instead of giving priority to
cruel and unrealistic institutional demands.
* * "+ , -
In terms of school-age children, it should be noted that in contrast to pre-schoolers,
their moral development allows them to think about others rather than themselves. They
may worry about what might happen to others and feel the need to make sure their parents
do whatever is necessary to ensure nothing happens to them. Since they also have a well-
developed sense of the future, they may develop fears of what might happen to them or
their families. As we will see in the later discussion, one of the most commonly expressed
fears held by children is that one of their family members will die. Another concern of
theirs is that they will run out of money and therefore not have enough to eat.
Even though the psychological effects of confinement have been seen, little has
been said about the fact that for many children, this event is truly traumatic. Trauma is
spoken of as referring to some experience that is so overwhelming that it produces a
disturbance and a sense of being completely helpless and hopeless. (Levine & Kline, 2016)
What has been found is that the younger the child, the more likely he or she is to be
overwhelmed by events that might not affect older children or adults. However, the long
duration of such a confinement, the information they receive, and the sense that they do not
know when it will end, has had an effect to overwhelm and create a sense of hopelessness
on both younger and older children.
For instance, in the 2020 research study noted above, a six year-old girl said:
"I can't play because they give me a lot of homework, and I get bored and my mom
scolds me because I don't hurry. That's why my heart hurts as if it were being
squeezed, so I hide in my room and start crying. Sometimes I draw a picture for my
mom and dad to let them know that they broke my heart, and I open the door and
throw it at them."
This girl's mother tells us that her behavior has changed a lot and that she
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continually hides in order to cry.
We certainly cannot yet assess the possible trauma experienced by the children as
the consequences may not become sufficiently evident until after a certain period of time.
Another 10 year-old commented to us,
"I'm locked up, bored and stressed because I can't go out and because of all the
homework I have to do, and I get desperate because I don't know when it's going to
end. I think I'm going to fail and I'm not going to be able to see my friends anymore.
At first I was happy because I thought I was going to have 40 days of vacation, but
now I don't know when it's going to end." An eleven year-old girl shared the
following: "With the pandemic my emotion is always more anger than sadness and
happiness. It's almost always anger. Anything they say to me I get angry, ́go do your
homework ́, ́ pick this up ́, things like that. And what scares me is that there will
never be a cure and that I will have to be locked up for the rest of my life. It would
be terrible to no longer be able to be free, to go out wherever you want, whenever
you want." (Corona, 2021)
As can be seen in the above testimonies, these children express feeling
overwhelmed for various reasons. They also express their fear that the pandemic is a
situation that will last forever, without them having the possibility to do anything. We can
confidently say that this confinement for more than a year has truly been a traumatic
experience for most of the children.
On the other hand, we have already mentioned the way in which violence has
increased during the pandemic. Specifically, adult family member abuse towards children is
the most common violence experienced by girls and boys (RNR, 2020). Many times boys
and mainly girls are physically attacked by parents, step-parents or siblings and many times
they are paralyzed when witnessing a scene of violence, or they hide and try to be invisible
in order to escape from being the object of violence themselves. Apart from physical
aggression, psychological violence, bullying and threats are behaviours that overwhelm
children, rendering them unable to express what is happening to them.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child, through General Comment No. 13 (UN,
2013), raises the devastating effects of violence against children, ranging from physical
health problems, developmental delay, learning difficulties and some psychological and
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emotional consequences such as rejection, fear, anxiety and self-esteem problems. In more
serious cases it affects mental health causing anxiety and even suicide attempts. In the
consultation made to children in 2018, children mention that the type of violence they have
received had to do with hitting, rudeness or being made to feel bad. Certainly physical
violence is the one that represents a greater risk in the sense that they can escalate and
endanger the safety and even the lives of children; however, one cannot minimize the
highly destructive effect of verbal and psychological violence which can range from
contempt, bullying and ridicule, to threats, isolation and making them feel that they should
never have been born or that they should be dead. Within psychological violence we must
also include neglect, since it has to do with ignoring children’s affective needs, school
performance, friendships, neglecting food, clothing and other needs. (Alvarez y Castillo,
2019; Gómez Plata et al., 2020).
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Before continuing to address the experiences of children in these times of pandemic,
we would like to make a small parenthesis to mention that, in the face of the crisis that the
country and the world are currently undergoing, we are experiencing a rupture in the
models prescribed in society. The emerging panorama challenges us and makes us question
whether the current theoretical and methodological models can understand the complexity
of the changes and transformations produced by COVID-19. Faced with this changeable,
inconsistent and uncertain scenario, it is of vital importance to rely on the testimonies of the
children who tell us about the intense changes they have been living through and that, in
some way, have modified their way of conceiving the world.
With the arrival of COVID-19, decisions have been made that directly involve the
children's sector without taking into account their experiences and opinions. The fact that
children are locked up at home means much more than protecting them from a virus
because for them, socialization is one of the main axes of development. Even when children
share many situations, they also live diverse experiences within their homes and face their
own particularities and vicissitudes. It is important to know what their opinions are about
COVID-19. Knowing what their concerns, fears or desires are will help us to understand
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how they have experienced confinement firsthand. By talking about their experiences,
children are not only sharing their experiences and opinions; they are also helping adults
understand their perceptions and the impact this situation is having on their own
subjectivity.
The next section reports on the results of a supportive accompaniment research
project with 45 urban middle-class children aged six to twelve years (20 boys and 25 girls)
that was done through telephone interviews during the month of August 2020, by one of the
authors (Corona, 2021). The objective was to allow the children to talk about the situation
they were living in. They were asked how they were doing and if they wanted to talk about
something that mattered to them at the time. All the children were very happy to talk about
what was going on with them and consistently asked if we could call them back. This
seemed to us to show the children’s need to vent and relate to someone outside of their
family. The data from this work was complemented with three virtual surveys conducted by
other organizations? in Mexico, aiming to understand the situation of children and
adolescents during the pandemic. One survey was conducted by the Human Rights
Commission (CDHCM, 2020) with children and adolescents between 7 and 17 years of
age, another by the National System for the Protection of Children and Adolescents
(SIPINNA, 2019), with children under six years of age, and the third by the civil society
organization Melel Xojobal, which serves working children in the southeast of the country
(Melel Xojobal, 2020).
The testimonies allow us to see that the children show full knowledge of the safety
and hygiene measures being employed to avoid contagion and spread of the virus. They are
aware of what the virus can cause, and they express certain concerns about its duration.
They respond clearly about the current situation and its confusing changes, expressing that
the confinement and the cancellation of school classes are due to this problem.
It is important to consider that in the interviews conducted by Melel Xojobal, most
of the children are of Indigenous origin and almost half come from single-parent homes, so
they have to work to help the family income. In this sense, there is a difference in their
concerns, as more than 65% of the children said they were worried about earning less
money, being left without a job or having to look for another one.
It is necessary to point out the eloquence of the testimonies of children and
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adolescents in relation to the consequences of living in confinement. For the working
children in the Mexican southeast, the labour situation is one of the most important things.
For example, a 10 year-old boy mentions that, "Almost no one comes to buy at the market,
we sell in our place with my family, but people don't come and we don't have any money.”
A 14- year-old girl mentions that with COVID-19, the situation had changed "a lot, in that
sometimes, when I was paid I would give my mom money so she could buy her things, but
now what I’m paid isn’t enough to do that.” Or that of another 16 year-old girl who says,
"The money was useful for my studies and it has been difficult because now I don't have
my job and I have nothing to pay for internet or what I need for school." (Melel Xojobal, p.
15)
Based on the interviews and the supportive accompaniment work we conducted, the
emergence of moods ranging from boredom, fear, uncertainty and sadness are evident. Both
children and adolescents express their emotional discomfort in the face of the consequences
of the pandemic in their daily lives.
A five year-old girl states that, "I am very sad in the afternoons, because on days
when my dad gives his classes online he doesn't let me participate and asks me to keep
quiet, and worse when he is in a meeting. When he has a meeting I can't even breathe."
Several children between six and nine years old state that their parents or stepparents hit
them or their siblings: "I don't like my stepfather hitting me with the belt." "I don't want my
dad to hit my little brothers." "Now my dad doesn't have a job and he gets angry about
everything, he even kicks me." (Corona, 2021).
There is great concern among the children about the possibility of their loved ones
getting sick, and at the same time a great fear that their parents will lose their jobs and thus
may lack income to meet their basic needs. Special mention should be made about the
concern they have for their grandparents and the sadness they express about not being able
to visit and hug them. For example, an eight year-old girl said "My grandfather's sister has
already died and I have not been able to go to see my grandparents, I am very afraid that
they will also die." Another 10 year-old boy told us, "My dad does not wear a mask and I
tell him that he could die, because he has to go to work in the subway where many people
go." (Corona 2021, p. 5). In comparison to the children, it is important to note that the
adolescents we talked with had a much broader perception of the risk conditions in which
15
they find themselves and therefore developed more complex emotions that bring them
closer to experiencing stress, anguish and anxiety. In the majority of the interviews, the
family is seen as a privileged social space where emotions are experienced in a very intense
way that in the best of cases, can regulate fears and difficulties in socializing with other
people. Some of the testimonies refer to the home as a space of care and where all possible
activities and interactions take place. However, many children also stated that they had
observed there are a greater number of arguments within the family. An example of this are
the testimonies of children under six years of age. For example, they say: "What makes me
sad is when my parents get mad at each other." "That my parents separated." “My family, it
makes me sad when my dad gets mad at my mom or me." "That dad talks ugly to mom and
she runs him out of the house." "When my dad scolds me because he gets like the Hulk."
(SIPINNA 2020, p. 25) Even though there are not many testimonies that speak of forms of
direct family violence towards the children, we think that this absence has to do with the
fact that most of the consultations that have been made with them have been by Zoom, and
therefore the probability that their family is listening is very high. We suspect that for this
reason they do not dare to express themselves openly on this subject.
Another area explored by the aforementioned studies has to do with play as a
fundamental activity, especially in the case of boys and girls. There is a great, open
nostalgia for the closeness with their peers, family and friends with whom they regularly
carried out play activities. The children said that they cannot play and that their parents did
not let them play too long on the computer. The youngest children said they would like to
be able to run and play sports with their friends.
In terms of school activities, the testimonies could not be more discouraging. The
expressions of disenchantment, boredom, feeling overwhelmed and unease that distance
education generates are experienced as a very unfortunate period. Most complained that
they were bored to death in the classes and that they did not understand what the teachers
were teaching. They mentioned that they miss going to school and seeing their friends, but
also their teachers. A boy of 10 says, "The classes are boring and the worst thing is that my
mom gets mad if I don't do my homework fast, but it's a lot, much more than when we went
to school. That makes me very nervous." A first grader told us, "Neither my mom nor I
knew how to send the homework and we spent a lot of time without being able to do it, I
16
think they are going to fail me." Finally, several children mentioned that they no longer
wanted to go to school and their mothers confirmed that they could not support them as
they would like because they were working. (Corona 2021, p. 12).
As can be seen in the testimonies, there is a clear dierence
between the concerns of Indigenous and working children and
adolescents compared to those of the middle-class children who took
part in the 2020 study. Working children expressed mainly and openly
their economic concerns and their inability to help support their families.
On the other hand, the children in Mexico City especially enunciated
their emotions in the face of increased situations of aggression within
their families, as well as their concerns for the health and well-being of
their family members.
2
Faced with the situation we are living in these times, it is necessary to look for ways
to question our current system, the relationships we have established with others and with
the planet itself. We need a new ecological and social pact at the global level that also
includes children who, in the midst of this crisis, have been invisible to governments and
health authorities. It is urgent to take measures for the protection of children's rights that
respond to the particular situations they are experiencing. In intergenerational terms, it is
necessary to establish a relational paradigm that responds to the principle of the best
interest of the child as postulated by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that
recognizes them as social subjects with rights.
In this essay we have argued that the pandemic has not only exceeded the actions of
the different governments to attend to the general population but has also shown us the
conditions of vulnerability of certain sectors of the population, such as children. Even when
it is argued that children are not at risk of contagion, what is evident is that for them,
confinement is a traumatic event that affects them deeply and that will mark their lives in
the medium and long term.
Particularly in Mexico, children are direct victims of aggressions by their parents in
the domestic sphere, both in terms of physical and psychological violence. Living
17
conditions as they pertain to children’s socialization processes have been altered due to the
impossibility of going out to school, out on the street and in public spaces. At the same
time, the areas of socialization related to recreational activities are practically nonexistent,
so they have turned to digital games as a form of entertainment. We mention, on the other
hand, that schooling through the media and digital platforms has not met the minimum
conditions to facilitate learning and has become a heavy burden due to the multiple and
unreasonable demands that teachers and their institutions impose on them.
Faced with these situations, we think that responses are required at the
governmental level to address reversing the increase in child poverty, ensuring greater
inclusion to support and protect the physical and mental health of children and young
people and putting an end to abuse, gender violence and child neglect. We need educational
programs that enable children's participation in decision making. Likewise, support for
equal opportunity and access to education for all must be put in place. In terms of children's
well-being, it is essential that parents and teachers attend primarily to the emotional needs
of children, providing them with the information and comfort they require to be able to
process the situation they are living. We should consider what the wishes of the children
are. Knowing these wishes will allow for inclusion of the needs of parents and teachers,
(including their discourses), as well as the needs of the children. Consideration of both
adult and child needs will naturally bring adjustment and balance to what is presented and
is given the greatest prominance.
We do not yet know the consequences of this time of deprivation and confinement
which has been really traumatic for the children. However, due to its characteristics, we are
certain that it will have significant repercussions in the medium and long term. What we
must be aware of is that in order for children to be able to process trauma, there must be an
adult available to give them a sense of security and stability. The children need someone
who can contain them in the face of the experience they are going through.
It is also difficult to foresee what changes we will experience as a society once this
crisis is over, but we can anticipate some of them: the transformation of the ways of
coexistence and socialization in all areas, the change of habits and behaviours within the
domestic sphere, the change in consumption patterns and many more. What has become
evident is that it is essential to build relationships based on balance and respect with our
18
fellow human beings and with nature, which also refers to intergenerational relationships
and the role that adults have in this new social order brought about by the pandemic. We
have to assume that social structure is built on a daily basis and that adults, authorities and
civil society have a collective responsibility towards the new generations.
Finally, we would like to refer to the proposal of Almeida and Ramos do Ó (2020)
who invite us to look ahead to see what horizons can be opened after the pandemic. The
authors argue that this crisis has really dislocated the way we relate to life and to others and
that it is therefore an opportunity to start again. In our case, we think that it gives us the
opportunity to renew intergenerational relationships so that we can recognize the
importance of childhood in our society.
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i https://cdhcm.org.mx/infancias-encerradas/
ii https://www.animalpolitico.com/2020/04/salud-nutricion-encierro-ninos-mexico/
iii Conducted with The International Play Association (IPA) in Bulgaria, India, Kenia, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, South
Africa and Thailand.
iv In México, only 44.3% of households have a computer and only 52.9% have acces to internet through a fixed or mobile
connectionde (REDIM 2020).
v INEGI, National Occupation and Employment Survey. IV quarter 2018. Database.
https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/enoe/15ymas/default.html
