Ensuring Emotional and Psychological Wellbeing in Children through Bibliotherapy During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Sudden lifestyle changes and disruption necessitated by the COVID-19 precautionary measures resulted in children becoming frightened, bored, isolated and anxious which automatically posed a threat to their emotional and psychological wellbeing. These set of children could be helped through therapeutic reading of books. Reading stories provides children with opportunities to gain insight and learn healthier ways to face the uncertainty caused by their inability to do things that they normally do like going to school, visit friends, go to parties, visit parks, visit the library and so on. The study used a prestest - posttest quasi- experimental methodology which lasted for a duration of 10 weeks, the study population were twenty-five (25) within the age bracket of 7-16 years old. The study concluded that bibliotherapy is an effective tool in helping children to learn more about the coronavirus, help them to calm down, change their perspective and become more confident about the situation while looking forward to eventual reopening of the country.