Alice McGraw, 2 years old, was walking with her parents in Lake Tahoe this summer when another family appeared, heading in their direction. The little girl stopped.
“Uh-oh,” she said and pointed: “People.”
She has learned, her mother said, to keep the proper social distance to avoid risk of infection from the coronavirus. In this and other ways, she’s part of a generation living in a particular new type of bubble — one without other children. They are the Toddlers of Covid-19.
Gone for her and many peers are the play dates, music classes, birthday parties, the serendipity of the sandbox or the side-by-side flyby on adjacent swing sets. Many families skipped day care enrollment in the fall, and others have withdrawn amid the new surge in coronavirus cases.
John Hagen, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Michigan, said he would be more concerned about the effect of lockdowns on young children, “if this were to go on years and not months.”
“I just think we’re not dealing with any kinds of things causing permanent or long-term difficulties,” he said.
Read the full article at the New York Times.
