The Covid pandemic caused huge disruptions to families’ routines across the globe. From parents working from home, schools and nurseries closing, mask wearing and social distancing, each measure taken against the pandemic had an impact on caregivers and their children.  This has led to concerns from caregivers about how the outbreak may have impacted their little ones reaching important milestones. Here, paediatrician and Fisher-Price advisor, Dr Laura Jana, discusses some of the negative effects the pandemic has had on children and how helping your little one to catch up and thrive may be as simple as child’s play!  Time for bed! Dr Laura Jana says: “Children of all ages do really well with routines – including preschoolers. When a routine is thrown off, such as what happened during the pandemic with parents not going to work, or childcare being closed, it can throw off children’s sleeping patterns. “Sleep plays a much more critical role than it’s been given credit for. During Covid, almost all of us have had our sleep disturbed, whether that’s due to having Covid, parental stress, or a lack of routine. “The take home message about sleep is that it represents much more than just the absence of being awake. A lot goes on during sleep for children; it’s an information processing period during which new information is processed, and all the learning children experience through engagement with the world around them while awake is solidified.  “If you want to instill a healthy sleep routine, introduce wind down cues. In addition to routine hygiene tasks, like bathing and brushing teeth, I’m a particularly big fan of bedtime reading. While older kids can certainly read to themselves, all children can benefit and enjoy having you can read aloud to them before bedtime. “Especially for younger children, it can also be helpful to include something that they can be in charge of that makes the transition to bedtime easier.” How to improve social skills… Dr Laura Jana says: “One of the subjects that has come up the most is how the pandemic has affected children’s social emotional development.  “As someone focused on healthy early brain and child development, I often emphasise the importance of social emotional development by pointing out that it’s as important for young children to learn how to read people – their facial expressions and understanding people’s moods, and body language – as it is to read books. This plays a big role in children’s ability to feel empathy, to take someone else’s perspective or take turns, those sorts of things.  “Of course, the concern during the pandemic has been that when you cover up half of someone’s face, with a mask, coupled with a decrease in social interaction due to social distancing, that it might impact these critical elements of social emotional development during the first five years.  “Fortunately, it continues to be clear that caregivers – even with masks on – can positively impact children’s early development, and that young children can continue to learn these foundational skills – how to read other people’s emotions, how to listen or take turns – through interaction with you.”  “What parents can focus on is plenty of caring responsive interactions with their children.  So, what does this look like day-to-day?  It’s as simple as playing with your child. You can do this with a game, reading a book, taking a walk or interacting with a toy – all while having conversations about it. Given the leading role that a child’s day-to-day experiences and interactions plays on learning, these simple and fun back-and-forth interactions can really help kids make up for a lot of what might otherwise be lost when it comes to learning.” Getting back into the classroom Dr Laura Jana says: “Children may have been a bit freeform at home for the past year during the pandemic without much routine or structure, so it shouldn’t be surprising that some will need a bit more help getting back into the routine of going to school or childcare. “This can mean figuring out how to follow classroom rules, concentrate on the topic or activity at hand, and just generally practice how to become part of the classroom again. All of this has a lot to do with the development of what are known as executive function skills, which have their most rapid rate of development between the ages of three and five.  “Children get to practice and develop their executive function skills naturally through interacting with other kids. But especially when in-person interactions have been limited due to the pandemic, there are things you can do to help foster them. “Age-appropriate games allow children to practice following the rules of the game with you.  “Books are great for lots of reasons, including that reading adds structure – from flipping the pages with a two-year-old and pointing at the pictures, to learning to focus one’s attention for longer periods of time. “It’s the same with certain toys, such as interactional ones where you have to take turns or have simple rules to follow. It could be that you must do something, then push a button, then wait for something else to happen. “Play that’s structured can help kids learn to fit in when there are going to be rules.” Choose a mix of toys… Dr Laura Jana says: “As parents and caregivers take on greater responsibility for enhancing their children’s early learning during the pandemic, it can help to make use of a variety of toys.  “Some toys serve to help develop what I refer to as the “IQ Skills” – whether it’s the alphabet or numbers or counting. These reading, writing, and arithmetic type skills have long been and continue to be foundational for school readiness. Yet for many young children, the pandemic has interfered with the introduction and practice of their ABCs and 123s that might otherwise have occurred in preschool or kindergarten.  “But as important as these sorts of toys are for learning, the benefit