A Fine Resource for Parents and Teachers

Review by Ronica Wahi

Back to School: A Useful Guide to Navigate through the Pandemic

By Lavitha Vaz and Shalini Mukund

First published: January 1, 2022, Sita Infobytes Solution Pvt. Ltd.

Pages: 74.

ISBN: 9788195656806

Back to School: A Useful Guide to Navigate through the Pandemic by Lavitha Vaz and Shalini Mukund is, as the subtitle says – yes, truly – a useful guide that can aid parents, teachers, and schools in making the transition back to school much easier for young children and teenagers.

The book starts with a pretty poem that talks of – among other things – hope and how children are beacons of light. It is the collective responsibility of parents, teachers, and schools to ensure that all school-going kids are steered in the right direction so they can shine their brightest, and this book offers tools and techniques to help in such endeavour.

Once the pandemic started, children were denied the pleasure of playing outdoors and got only limited opportunities for overall growth. They learnt to cope but it is crucial to ensure that they continue to cope well, and to function and live well. For instance, children learnt to study online but now when they have to go “back to school”, it is important to make sure that they are able to sit in classrooms for long hours and are able to refine their social skills which may have become rusted or may have remained underdeveloped for their age.

As the writers write in “A Note to the Readers”, “…this entire challenge is not only the survival of the fittest but making survival methods fit for all.” So, children need to be properly handled and their emotional well-being in particular needs attention. Because, as the book says, fear and anxiety brought about by the pandemic has led to “short-term and long-term psychosocial and mental health implications for children and adolescents.” (p. 3)

Among the observations the writers make about students returning to school after a long gap forced by the pandemic is the fact of many children finding it difficult to reconnect well with their old friends and classmates. Additionally, children can face other issues – which may be pandemic-induced or may have some other triggering factor – such as separation anxiety, aggression, eating disorder, post-traumatic stress, paranoia, loneliness, anxiety for the future, trauma, depression, temper tantrums, gadget addiction, body image concerns, and ADHD, Autism, Tic Disorders.

To help parents and teachers recognize these issues, symptoms are outlined. And there are tips provided for how each issue can be smartly addressed by parents as well as by the schools. How children can be helped when dealing with emotional stress and how they can be kept gainfully engaged are included. This is indeed the worth of this book – the key guidance that it provides to parents and teachers, and the importance it places on the need for these elders to seek further guidance and counselling, if and when necessary. The book provides relevant helpline details for a few countries too.

Both writers are Educators and have donned many other hats too. Thus, their produce is able to actually educate: it is well-researched, has inputs from experts, and is reader-oriented. Back to School contains simple, basic suggestions but which parents or teachers may well overlook – not intentionally, of course, but due to being preoccupied with their own duties and anxieties. It is written in easy-to-follow language; the format that focusses on providing details in points adds to the ease of use.

There are a few errors in the book though; most are grammatical and a couple of them even prevent the intended meaning from being effectively conveyed. For instance, in the sentence quoted below, parallelism is not maintained and the intention is obviously not to indicate that deep breathing can ever increase mental harm:

“Since time immemorial, deep breathing every day for about 15-20 minutes has increased harm to the mind, oneness with self, radiates happiness and joy and cleanses unwanted thoughts.” (p.52)

Also, “A Note to the Readers” says helpline numbers and bio sketches of those who have shared their inputs form “Part Three” of the book though they are actually included in “Part Two” and there is no “Part Three”.

Overall, Back to School is a very valuable resource, important for parents, guardians, teachers, and schools to take note of.

 

Do grab your copy (Paperback) from Amazon India: https://amzn.to/3zn3VOf

 

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