The Corona pandemic changed children’s perception of the elderly: “I fell out of my chair because of the result”

Positive interventions

The scientist Bormans belongs to Maastricht University, and the children have drawn hundreds of drawings. “We were interested in how children view aging. And whether or not we could change this perception. Corona was behind us in October 2020. At least, it seemed that way. I asked the children to draw an elderly person who was doing something.” The idea was to make them They draw new drawings after sixteen weeks. In the meantime, they will have “positive interventions” with older people. Then Covid resurfaced and children were just told to keep their distance from grandparents and other elderly people.”

Less colorful

This was reflected in the drawings made by the children four months later. “The older paintings were painted smaller and less colorful. Sometimes we would receive blank sheets of paper. As a researcher, I fell out of my chair.” For the research, the pandemic was actually an unexpected gift, because in normal life you would never deprive children of contact with their grandparents for a long time.

21 percent larger

After Corona, Bormans continued the research. The children often had contact with older people, such as their grandparents, for four months. But also with older people in nursing homes. “The numbers drawn became larger again, by 21 percent. And if they could become smaller due to lack of human contact, they could also grow back if that contact existed. In the drawings, you can see how much impact an encounter between Your generations.”