What is The Long-Term Impact of Isolation on a Child’s Mental Health?

Acceptable social behavior and engaging in social interactions are vital to every child’s development. However, due to the ongoing pandemic that has included quarantines and sporadic lockdowns, many children are being denied those fundamental social interactions that are so vital to their well-being and healthy development.

Research has shown that the absence of social relationships and behaviors can significantly impact a child’s development in various ways. For example, studies have shown that socially isolated children’s academic performance tends to be inferior, they find themselves to be part of a less advantaged social class, and are more likely to be psychologically distressed in adulthood (Lacey, Kumari & Bartley, 2014).

When a person is not able to sufficiently interact socially this can result in experiencing social isolation. Healthy social relationships are vital to the maintenance of health, and their deprivation often results in feelings of loneliness (Doane & Adam, 2010). Loneliness is linked to people experiencing higher levels of stress.

The primary function of the human stress response is to protect that person from danger perceived somewhere in the environment. Since social interaction is a fundamental human need, being socially isolated causes the…