Victorian preschoolers are still feeling some effects of the pandemic years, but experts say they are resilient, and their health, skills and knowledge are on track.
In this series, The Age is focusing on the wellbeing of Victoria’s 1.69 million children and young people two years after pandemic lockdowns ended.“I always remember when I took her to the shops and her face lit up, and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, I haven’t taken her food shopping’, because you weren’t allowed to,” her mother Kylie Dovaston says. “She was trying to eat all the food and touch it.”
The Australian Early Development Census, a national measurement of children’s development, finds Victorian children rank above or at the national average in all five domains. Broadly speaking, four in five young Victorians are on track developmentally.for three and four-year olds has been dubbed the biggest game-changer in Australian education in the past 20 to 30 years, particularly for vulnerable children who are less likely to attend preschool.
“The first five years of a child’s life are critical for laying the foundations for healthy development. Adverse events or circumstances that occur during these years can have a significant impact on children’s health and developmental outcomes,” the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute says. Last year, the Royal Children’s Hospital’s national child health poll found 19 per cent of Victorian parents reported the pandemic had hurt the mental health of their children aged under five.
“What we’ll be able to do eventually is look at how different COVID policies had different impacts for kids and their parents,” says Melissa Wake, paediatrician and scientific director of GenV, which is led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
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